My parents came to visit!!!

12/3/10-12/12/10

Albeit it was a month ago, but it was still very exciting!!!!

My parents arrived in Rome early on that Friday (12/3) and we were only able to get some breakfast and do their traditional walk to Trajan's column before they were ready for their nap.  This allowed for Caroline and me to go explore Villa Borghese until my parents were up for dinner.  We went to another spot they like to go every time they visit Rome for dinner, and while the food was ok the walk home was way more interesting.   When we left the restaurant my parents suggested we take a walk to the Roman forum and check out the Colosseum.  As soon as we got down there it started pouring.  Only Caroline had an umbrella and my dad had a hood, so my mom and I were SOL.  The walk was a good 20-25 minutes so we were absolutely soaked when we got back to our hotel, but nothing could have brought me down from my high of being with my parents!

before it started raining...

The next day Caroline set off early to catch her flight to Portugal.  I found out later that those pesky strikes by the Spanish air traffic controllers caused her flight to be canceled and she wouldn't actually get out of Rome until the next day, but that is a whole story in itself!  My mom and I shuttled my dad to the Vatican for his tour of the Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapel.  We left him there and were ready to do some shopping of our own at the Christmas market in Piazza Navona.

Christmas Market

My mom was on a search for gifts for the little ones, including Lombardo's (my brother's best friend) infant son.  He is Italian American (emphasis on American ha) so he wanted some things authentically from Italy and my mom would take any excuse to shop!  We were looking for non-scary La Befanas since you can't really get more Italian than that during the holidays, but most of them had very scary snarls on their face.  We were able to find a couple that looked between a grimace and a smile and thought that would be the best we could find.

La befana toys

After the market we headed to Campo d Fiori to check out the outdoor market and get some food.  We ended up stopping at a pizzeria when it started raining and were duped by the waiter.  He tricked me into getting pineapple for dessert because I thought it was going to be free, but it wasn't.  And I don't really like pineapple, but I would eat anything if it's free (hm, that doesn't sound good...).

at least it was pretty!

We ended up waiting out the rain there and then headed to the Vatican to pick up my dad.  The temperature had dropped significantly so we were freezing and had to wait for quite a bit for my dad's tour to be done, but we found him and headed back to the hotel for a nap.  I have very mixed feelings about dinner that night....we went next door to our hotel to a nicer restaurant and the food was really good, but the service was bad.  The waiter convinced my dad that coperto (service) wasn't included even though it clearly was and no amount of explaining from me was going to convince my dad that he didn't need to leave tip.  It wasn't until after we got back to the hotel that my dad realized he had been duped and then dwelled on it for the next day.  Both him and my mom decided that they were going to listen to Jennie from now on!

The next day we headed to the Protestant's cemetery I had visited before with Courtney.  I was so excited to show my mom this gorgeous cemetery and I was also excited to have a little bit more time to explore since when Court and I went it was just closing.  It really is such a beautiful and moving place and my parents really enjoyed going there.  After the cemetery we took a train (equipped with extremely loud girls) up to Florence.  We took a walk downtown and then headed to dinner at a cute little place near my apartment called Napo Leone.  It's such a cute place and they serve you warm butternut squash soup as a free apertif - my parents were in love.  

I was expecting a lot of early mornings while my parents were here, but I soon realized that they were exhausted and didn't care to rush around seeing anything and everything in Florence, which was ok with me!  Every morning was the same - I'd set my alarm for 8:30 then email my mom saying I'd be there soon and she'd respond back "don't worry, we are just rolling out of bed."  Now coming from someone who tends to wake up at 4am everyday, I was shocked and happy that my mom was getting her rest in!  

On our first full day in Florence I wanted to take my parents to the Bronzino exhibit.  I talked about him earlier in my blog, but he was a very famous Medici artist whose first patron was Cosimo I and his wife Eleanor de Toledo.  This is the largest Bronzino exhibit ever and took 4 years to get together.  His works have been loaned to the exhibit from all over the world and it is so popular that the exhibition dates were extended.  My parents really enjoyed the exhibit, even though it must have been a field trip day because there were a ton of kids there, which was not very fun.  But they still got to see his works and appreciate his realistic style of painting.  In the same Palace there was another exhibit entitled "Portraits of Power."  According to the exhibit's description (and because I'm too lazy to summarize) "The exhibition explores portraiture and the representation of political, economical and social power in the contemporary world through the works of contemporary artists."  It was actually very interesting to go through and I especially enjoyed the exhibit on when Annie Leibovitz went to Buckingham Palace to photograph the Queen.  They had a video of the whole process and it was funny to see how cranky the Queen was during the shoot and how taken aback she was when Annie asked her to take off her crown.  Very funny!

The rest of that day we spent at the German Christmas Market at Santa Croce.  I made my parents try the infamous cinnamon roll from Hungary (amazing!) and mulled wine (not so great) and they were also able to check out the church.  That night we just hung out and had dinner at my place.  I was so happy they were here and couldn't wait for all the fun things we had planned for that week!

Wine tasting at a castle, Tuscan cooking class, shopping, opera....so much to write about and so little time!  Until next time :)