Full disclosure, I was bursting at the seams with expectations for Rome – since I fell vicariously in love with it in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat Pray Love. Anne Lamott says “expectations are disappointments in waiting” – but what does she know, anyway?Rome did not disappoint. It didn’t even come close to disappointing, didn’t even flirt with the distant twice-removed cousin of disappointment.
In fact, it wildly exceeded every unfair expectation I had of it.
If Paris seemed just out of my reach, it felt like Rome welcomed me with open arms. And it did, in fact – we heard the word “prego” more often than any other… and all my memories of Rome are filled with smiling, open-armed people.
***Taylor even mistakenly hugged a waiter that welcomed us in to the restaurant, thinking he was asking for a hug ***
The whole city just oozed homeyness. Out of every upper-story balcony you could see fresh laundry billowing in the breeze, and at almost every street corner stood a heavyset woman – exasperated, shouting at her husband, or greasy-haired son, or kids squirming out from under the legs of a crowd. I felt like an adopted American daughter here – Welcome, come in, sit down, eat something.
And you guys… the food.
I was warned of this. It’s not like I wasn’t expecting it. Here’s how I was told to prepare for Italy: “Just imagine the best meal you’ve ever eaten in your whole life. Now imagine eating the best meal of your life for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” I was told! And yet nothing could possibly have prepared me.
You guys… the food.
It’s taking 100% of my willpower right now not to detail to you every bite of every meal we ate in the last three days… but I have neither the time nor the necessary culinary vocabulary, so I’ll leave that to the food bloggers. But what I WILL tell you is, we’ve been doing it all wrong.
… The whole food thing, I mean. All of it. It’s all wrong. I don’t even know exactly WHAT we’re doing wrong, but I know this: I swear to you I had not actually TASTED a tomato until this trip. I’ve eaten maybe hundreds of thousands of tomatoes in my lifetime, before now I might have even counted them among my favorite salad ingredients… but I tell you, I DID NOT KNOW WHAT THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO TASTE LIKE.
Looking back, the tomatoes of my past seem like bland carbon copies of real tomatoes. A sham, a mere imposter. I was living in a fool’s paradise – frolicking through life all tra-la-la thinking I knew my way around a tomato as well as I knew my own belly button. But boy, was I wrong. Hopelessly and desperately wrong.
I didn’t know that something as simple as a tomato could be a delicacy, all by its little self. I grew up around vegetables you had to slather in something else to make edible – but these crisp, fresh, delightful little buggers could’ve kept me sustained for the whole trip.
Luckily, they didn’t have to. They were accompanied by mozzarella (good god, the mozzarella), and pizza (please don’t get me started on the pizza) and pasta and garlic bread and gelato and a dozen other meals that made me want to kiss my fingertips in gratitude for such entirely unmatched flavor.
All I’m saying is, American food, you better step yo game up.
But even aside from the food, aside from the city’s grinning and well-fed inhabitants – Rome left me positively breathless. Its ancient, crumbling structures juxtaposed against the backdrop of modern, colorful apartments was a sight I never could have gleaned from Elizabeth Gilbert, however powerful a writer she is.
Sitting in a sunny cafe eating stracciatella and looking out at Europe’s most timeless skyline, or walking shamelessly into other tourists as I stared straight up in awe at the Sistine Chapel, or returning to the same restaurant twice in three days because it was amazing and darnit we’re on vacation and we do what we want… these are the things I’ll never forget about Rome.
It’s with a heavy heart (and sad tummies) that we say goodbye… but can’t wait to see what London has in store.
***Taylor’s Recap***
Title: Rome – when in Rome, do as the Romans do, unless you want to live long.
4.13.16-4.15.16 Ok, so last time I wrote I mentioned that I left Paris a better man. Well folks, I left Rome a fatter man. Pizza, pasta, gelato, and wine. Nonstop! Don’t leave, don’t even expect the waiter to deliver a check unless you’re plate is clean. I won’t fight this however, the food was some of the best I’ve ever consumed. Be it the best pizza in the world in Naples or the made from scratch pasta near the hotel in Rome.
Let’s get to Rome; it’s quite the city. It’s a rather ancient place with many of the monuments we visited ranging from 80AD-150AD. My favorite spot was the Coliseum – from the outside it’s epic, from the inside it’s eerily real. My imagination quickly took over as I imagined being all of the different parts that played a role in a day at the coliseum. I wondered, if I was rich where would I sit, and how would my view be. If I was a slave, I thought my fear of heights would probably kick in, and of course if I was a gladiator, I imagined the rumble of the crowds when my name was announced, but also the fear of death. It was a sad life for many.
It was remarkable how this ancient stadium still plays a part in now we construct how stadiums today.
Between the Trevi fountain, Pantheon, Roman Forum, and Vatican, Rome was a picturesque journey of crumbling buildings soaking in history, it made me a little regretful that I didn’t study up before partaking on this journey.
1 small tip for Roman Travel: If you don’t like smelling the smoke of cigarettes, I’d recommend you stay far, far away from Rome. They’re everywhere friends!
The Nutshell Version 