Our Roman Holiday: Day two

Vatican City


































The second day we decided to dedicate the whole day to the Vatican and St. Peters Basilica, totally worth it! I had found this incredible guide to the Vatican City that even had insiders tips of how to get there via the train and what to say or what to do to make sure you see everything and skip pointless lines and re-entries so may I suggest Ron in Rome if you are ever coming to Rome. http://www.roninrome.com/

As we were walking down one of the numerous halls lined with statues of mostly naked men Addie said "Mom, ask me about these statues" I said Okay tell me about these statues to which she responded "I think they forgot to put pants on". We got such a great laugh out of that. Her commentary was honestly the best part. She also said while looking around at all the crosses "Mommy, Jesus has the bleeds" it was very tender.

Highlights:

Sistine Chapel, its a much smaller room and much different than expected but really amazing wants you sit down and just look at the ceiling in order, really incredible.

The spiral staircase just so cool!

The hall of Constantine, it was really incredible. The whole vibe of the room was just so interesting especially after all the research we did on Roman history.

However the Gallery of Maps was by far one of my favorite rooms, it was almost too overwhelming to take it all in.

But being surrounded by amazing works of art Michelangelo, DaVinci and Raphael, it was just amazing.

St. Peters Basilica was so big and gold and on display is the famous statue of Mary holding Jesus, Pieta by Michelangelo really was beautiful.

We really enjoyed the whole experience and I was so excited to acutally be there surrounded by so much history.

When in Rome: day one

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We found some killer deals on flights to Rome leaving out of Frankfirt Han, which one would believe would be in Frankfurt but much to our dismay its outside of Frankfurt, WAY outside. So we started our journey with a 3 1/2 hour bus ride to the Frankfurt Han Airport which is an old US military base that we gave to Germany. We were flying Ryanair so we had to wear most of of our clothes on our person and everything else went into our backpack. and then RUN to the plane to make sure we got seats together. It was quite the adventure. Once we got to Rome, we had to wait for an hour in line for our bus to drop us in the city center. Then we walked around trying to find our B&B, after being yelled at in Italian by a crazy old security gaurd we finally found it tucked away behind a locked gate on the 3rd floor of an apartment bldg. On the website it had said that we would have our own room and a b athroom and wireless internet and every website i checked had glowing reviews on the Matisse (B&B) but when we got there we realized that you did in fact get your own bathroom but it was down the hall and the internet was borrowed from the guy downstairs but he "really doesn't seem to mind". Fortunately the smallest room did have a teeny bathroom in it, so we took it and decided to move on and start sight seeing. So we headed out for the rest of the day with an intense travel plan that I had put together unfortunately about 3 miles in we realized we were lost and decided to wing it. Luckily we happened upon this giant monument and once we climbed to the top we could see all of Rome and decided to head to the Forum and Colloseum and I was able to get some really great pictures. We wrapped up our day with Pizza and italian sodas. We headed back to our room to rest up and get ready for our next big day.

Norwegian Christmas Workshop

We had a blast going to the Norwegian Christmas workshop with our new Norwegian friends. We drank hot toddies and ate cookies and made crafts. It was such a fun way to get into the spirit of Christmas. I hope to make it a new tradition for our family.

One of our new friends from Norway the Georgsans had a sweet little boy named Oskar and even though Addie and Oskar didn't really speak the same language that didn't stop them from having a grea time together.

We can't wait to plan a Norway trip to catch up with all of our new friends!