Roma - day 3

We started the morning eating breakfast on the rooftop terrace of our hotel.  It was a beautiful morning following a much welcome night of sleep.  The air conditioning was working so it was much quieter with the windows closed.  We decided to take a taxi to church this morning as the closest one was about 5K away and we were not quite sure how to find it and no one in the hotel knew the area to direct us.  Wise choice as the taxi driver had to look it up in his map book (similar to our Thomas Guide) to even know how to program it in to his GPS unit.  He was a bit unsure when he got to the area as it was residential and he knew we were going to church; however, I looked over and saw the familar logo on the building, even though I did not recognize all of the words.  I can honestly say that I have never been in an LDS church (not temple) with marble floors.  As we walked in we were greeted by one of the bishopric counselors who spoke a very little English.  Several other people came up and welcomed us in their very broken English.  After a few minutes a gentleman came over who obviously was American.  It turns out he is in the Air Force and is here with his family on assignment teaching at a NATO school.  His prior assignment was teaching Military Strategy at the Academy.  Needless to say, we had a lot to talk about.  He had served his mission in Italy and his parents had been stationed in Italy when he was young and then were mission presidents in Italy following that.  He and his family have lived in Fort Walton Beach and Tampa at various times, so we had a lot to talk about.  The chapel was smaller, but larger than a lot we have been to outside of the USA.  They have no pews, but have wooden stacking chairs set up for the meeting.  The meeting finally got started about 15-20 minutes after it was supposed to.  There were at least 5 sets of missionaries in the ward, 3 couples, one set of elders and one set of sisters.  One of the couples was heading home this coming week after serving for 18 months.  They still do not speak Italian.  That was encouraging for me to see as I always have thought that we would not get to go foreign since neither of us speaks a second language.  They have headsets and receivers for those who do  not speak Italian and the meeting is translated.  This was a welcome surprise that we were not expecting as we've not had this before when we've traveled.  We expected to go and renew our covenants and feel the Spirit.  It was a wonderful testimony meeting and we were so grateful we were able to attend. 

One thing I forgot, one the way to church we passed a business that has had me chuckling all day.  If I were ever to open this type of business, I think I would use this name.  We passed a gym not far from the church that was named "The Muscle Shop" and had a picture of a pretty built gym hoisting an unbelievable stacked barbel with his muscles practically popping.  It made me think of all the elderly gentleman I see every morning at the YMCA at home and giggle.

After church we decided to be adventurous and take our first Metro ride.  The Air Force man gave us rough directions to the Metro station and drew us a pretty rough map.  As we got to a street that we knew was not part of our directions, we turned around to find the gentleman who had been sitting in front of us at church following us, because "we looked like we knew what we were doing."  He had apparently just arrived that week to work in the Embassy.  He had taken the bus and walked the route the day before to make sure he knew where he was going, had arrived by bus that morning, but somehow he had also missed the "big stairs" that he had walked up that morning and that were supposed to be obvious.  He walked us the way he thought it was and we got to the end and realized it was still not right.  We parted ways for him to find his bus and we ventured out to find the Metro station.  After asking a couple of local shop owners, who spoke no English, we wre able to find our way to the station, purchase our tickets and got on the train headed in the right direction.  We were a bit worried as the picture on the train wall was actually going the opposite direction we headed.  Oh, I wish we had public transportation like they do in other parts of the world! 

On our walk to the Metro we passed this site that made us think of our boys, who hate Smart cars.  This is why European's love them - they can park in even the smallest of spaces.  This car is parked width-wise because there was not enough room for it to fit length wise. 



After grabbing a quick bite of lunch, we decided to head out on a double decker, open roof bus tour to take advantage of the beautiful day and get a lay of the land.  Oh, the history and beautiful of this great city!  One could spent weeks here and not even begin to cover everything there is to see.  It is going to be so hard to decide how I am going to spend my time this week.  Here are a few pictures from our tour:


Heading out to tour the Eternal City with my Eternal Mate



Mike with the Colosseum in the background (notice the Britsh guy behind him who couldn't stop talking until the bus started moving and then promptly fell asleep)

Circus Maximus ruins

St. Peter's Cathedral

Those from Mike's committee group who are staying at our hotel had all arrived by this afternoon, so we all went to dinner together.  We went back to the place we went the first night and had more of those yummy grilled vegetables.  Tonight I tried the lasagna (way better than any I've made or eaten!) and Mike had grilled chicken.  We finished the night off with a berry tort that was heaven!  One chuckle we had - they do not serve the normal root beer floats or coke floats here - they serve coffee floats and whiskey floats.  However, the menu lists them as ice cream "drowned" in coffee or whiskey.  Next time you're enjoying that float remember that your ice cream is "drowning." 

Tomorrow Mike starts his meetings so I will be venturing off with my new friends to explore the city.  Looking forward to getting to know new people and seeing more of this beautiful place.  Arrivederci!