Day 8

Jenna:

It’s strange to think that I am typing this from our little “Ikea hotel room” in Poland. After 5 hours of sleep. knowing that it’s necessary to find some way to wake up a little bit more because we have a big day ahead of us.

We woke up with no schedule in mind, as we had already seen all of the “big” sights in Rome, and on our last day we were feeling a little bit tired and ready for a break from all the walking. Our hotel was just a few steps from the Borghese Gardens and so we thought we would wander inside, looking for the scenic overlook that the woman at the front desk of the hotel had pointed out to us. We were not impressed with the gardens, at first. We were walking through what felt like the backside of the gardens and so it was muddy and looked a little bit like the park in Royal City without the playground. I was beginning to think that the only reason the Romans are so proud of the place is because like us, they haven’t really ever left Rome to see what is out there.

I think that Mom wanted to leave, but I told her to give the gardens another chance, and we were very glad that we did. We found this fun statue to play and pose with, and a little bit farther down we came upon the amazing outlook she had pointed out, overlooking the entire city of Rome. At this point the rain was pouring, and we were starting to get soaking wet even with our umbrellas, but we stuck it out and a few minutes later the sun came out and it was a perfect view. It was very beautiful, and we decided to stay for awhile and take all kinds of pictures.

We decided to give the Spanish Steps shopping area another try, and along the way we stopped to eat at this darling little restaurant called Gina’s. It had an all-white décor, the best smoked salmon, and what I consider to be the best balsamic in the world. This was balsamic that you could almost eat plain. We fought to keep costs down by only ordering one bottle of water and skipping dessert. Eating in Italy is so expensive!

I remembered that we had walked by the Keats/Shelley museum, two very famous British poets that we had talked about in my British Literature class last semester, and I really wanted to go in. It wasn’t free, and so I paid the fee to go up and look around while my Mom did some browsing in the nearby shops. The museum was definitely very cool, but I don’t think that anyone other than an English major would get excited about it. I was in awe of the amazing library that the museum housed, something akin to the library that the Beast reveals to Belle in “Beauty and the Beast” (only on a much smaller scale) and I decided that a room like that library would be built into my dream house someday.

We had window shopped around at all kinds of stores, and we didn’t have any luck finding anything that really said “I bought this in Rome, and it’s fantastic”, but Rome must have known we were living because she really delivered for us. I had been looking for a pendant from Rome, and I found the perfect one in this little glass shop just off the piazza by the Spanish steps. The store was run by a man whose wife created all kinds of beautiful handmade glass jewelrey. I am sure you will see me wearing my necklace in most of the pictures I take from now on J

It was almost time for our taxi to pick us up from the hotel, but we weren’t going to leave without one more taste of Roman gelato. We headed back to the gelateria our hotel had recommended, Blue Ice, the one my Mom dreamt about a few nights ago, and we were just as successful with our choices this time. She loves it because they have a soy sugar-free coconut that is apparently to die for (nothing compared to actual gelato, but I won’t rub that in to her) and I enjoyed caramel cream, black cherry with cream, and zuppa inglese (the words mean English soup, but it is apparently the Italian term for butterscotch). I don’t think we are going to be finding such delicious gelato in Poland.

We got on the plane for Poland, and after we had been in the air for a little while my Mom turned to me and said “I don’t understand Polish at all”. I am not sure what she expected, but I suspect that is the kind of vacation we are going to be having from now on. I was kind of getting bored with all of that Italian practice anyway……