Roma 4: The Best Meal EVER

Ok, so I almost didn't write this tonight, but gotta keep up my pace. (And I just found myself doing everything to procrastinate writing this, but pulled my shit together to do it.) Last day in Rome.

My mom, the scheduler, had left the last day in Rome open in order to catch up on anything we had missed. We had actually done quite a bit during the first three days and so had very few things we needed to do. My mom thought we should do a hop on/hop off bus tour to get an overview of the city and be able to hop off near any of the sights we still needed to see. We had a little difficulty finding the bus stop and had to ask a woman working in the shop at a museum. She pointed us in the direction, and there was a actually a bus waiting there, so we immediately hopped on. We then found out (after purchasing tickets and being on our way) that it wasn't the tour that Rick Steves or whomever had recommended which my mom then reminded us of EVERY time we got on the bus. Not that it was a bad tour though my mom was convinced there was a better one.

So the first place that we hopped off was near the Bocca della Verita and Circus Maximus. The Circus is what the picture at the top is of. As you can see, it's just a big gravel circle. My dad is convinced that they should hold chariot races there again to attract tourists and make money off of the deal...always the capitalist. The Bocca was my choice to see because of it's place in the movie Roman Holiday...love that movie. I took some cute pictures of it having biting off my hand or whatever.

We hopped back onto the bus and got off at the Castel Sant'Angelo. Boring. But did have the best view from the top. (Why the crap did we hike up that hill yesterday? This was so much better). Art...blah blah blah...kinda Renaissance arted out after the Vatican. After that...gelato time...OBVIOUSLY. Cookie and cream gelato. Realized I was getting into a kind of vanilla-ish slump that will need to change.

Started to rain just as we were getting to our next stop. Apparently a daily thing in Rome. Not enough to cause any sort of issue though. Next hop off stop. The Capuchin Crypt. FREAKY, but yet, kinda wanted to go there. Let me explain. The Capuchins decorated their crypt with human bones and mummified bodies. Like this.

Stylish, right? Don't see this coming back into style anytime soon. I was kinda freaked out. a) The bones were over my head on the ceiling. There were spaces were some were obviously missing. In my mind this means they possibly fell off...if a human bone had hit me on the head, it would've been traumatic. b) there were creepy mummified bodies posed in the various rooms of the crypt. Somehow my mom failed to notice these until the third room. How do you miss a frozen leathery body? On the other hand, I was also kind of amused by the whole thing. I was picturing a Capuchin monk digging through a pile of bones and going "I just need a vertebrae about this big."

We walked back to the hotel and stopped for dinner. Formerly the phrase "Best Meal Ever" was reserved for a meal I had at BoneFish a year ago with Andy in celebration of being named Marketing Summit Co-Chair. Maybe that is still the best meal with all things considered: conversation, atmosphere and food. But this dinner in Rome was the best food I have ever eaten. The one thing I thought I wanted on the menu was Pennette alla vodka con speck....Speck translated onto the English menu as "speck"...hmmm...I asked my mom if she knew what speck was and she said "I think it's one of those gross British things." I was torn because on one hand I really wanted vodka sauce and am not a picky eater and will pick off anything that I don't like. But if speck is con gli occhi (with eyeballs), I might throw up. I then look at the French translation which is "bacon", so I consider myself safe and go for it. Turns out speck is this. Tastes like bacon. It was delicious. I wanted to lick the freakin plate. And then to follow that up I had Tiramisu. YUMMY! During dinner my dad asked my mom if she liked Rome and my mom's response was "eh...it was ok." HELLO? It's ROME!! Standard end of the day ritual...pool.