In Rome, We Did Roam.

This morning we had a scheduled guided tour of the Jewish corridor and the catacombs so we had to wake up around 8 to be ready to go, dressed and filled with food for a tour at 10. I wasn't able to see anything last night but WOWZA Rome is incredible. We were just driving down the street and all of the sudden you see ancient ruins and columns on every corner. You turn the corner and BAMB! there is the infamous Coliseum. Yeah sure we have all seen it a book but nothing is like being right there in front of it. Unfortunately I missed the tour the fam fam took yesterday because they went to the pantheon and the coliseum with a guide. The coliseum was like Splash Mountain at Disney land and the line was extremely long. Andre, our tour guide, gave us a brief tour of the Jewish corridor which was actually a ghetto. Before the unification of italy, the pope ruled the land, so the Jews were put all together in one living community. It was very beautiful though, and if you were concerned, I wouldn't mind owning an apartment in the Jewish corridor. It is just beautiful. The synagogue is not what you would think if the average synagogue, it was much more elaborate on the outside and actually looked more similar to a church than a typical synagogue. The synagogue was actually relatively new in comparison to the rest of Rome and it was finished in 1904. I learned that the reason it looked like a church was because the Jews wanted to build something that was comparable to St. Petersburg but relatively to the number of jews. We then took the Mercedes van to the outskirts of the city to the catacombs. At one point all of the former popes were buried there, as well as all the catholics, however barbarians would come in and steal things from the tombs, so eventually most of the carcass's were removed from the catacombs, and all of the popes in fact were relocated to other churches. The catacombs extend 33 arches long but we we only saw a very small portion of them. Row after row of small cement barracks were like a maze to go through. Amy I. kept asking me if the small holes in the wall were for babies, and then I decided to ask her if every crack in the wall was for very small babies. It started to rain and cloudy when we came out of the ground, but we decided to make stop at the Roman baths and at the top of a mountain to see a view of all Rome before we headed back to the hotel to meet Monica for lunch. We also stopped at the Spanish steps as well. Rome is just unexplainable and beyond incredible. Fascinating and imaginative. You just want to know what it was really like to live in Ancient Rome because today with cars and cell phones and metros and what nots, it is still incredible, it must have been remarkable. We had planned on going to a restaurant recommended by one of our family friends but when Adam I. checked out the menu and saw that a majority of it actually had vegetables (OH MY) and no pizza on it (OH MY HOW COULD THAT BE!) we just couldn't go there. In the end I think he wishes we would of just sticked with our original plan because lets just say that our quest to go out to lunch started at 2:30 and we didn't sit down for lunch until 3:35. Papa I. being the super-jew that he is obviously knows the head of the JDC if Rome and obviously needed to introduce us to him. Only my father would know the head of the JDC in Rome, have connections with the JDC in Romania and thus make us have partial jewy mc jewy talk the entire time. I love you dad, you are my jew-ro. We had Papa I's friend, recommend us to a place that was pretty far away from where we were (I forgot to mention that we had difficulty finding the original veggie restaurant in the first place). When we got there, we sat down and the first thing the waiter tells us is that they are out of pizza. That had to be a joke. Italian restaurants just don't run out of pizza, especially when the menu is only two pages long and the second page is only pizza options and on the first quarter of the page is pasta but they don't serve that for lunch. 2 minutes ago we were admiring how delicious the pizza at the table next to us looked. 4 minutes later we found out that he was not joking about the whole being out of pizza thing. 4 and a half minutes later with a spoon full of attitude our waiter told us that we could order pasta but the options were, pasta with SQUID, (he really put a strong emphasis on squid...especially the squi part of squid) with olives and red sauce or something I couldn't understand. 6 minutes later we made a family decision to get up and leave. 6 and a half minutes later we were out of there. We then proceeded to go back the "the worlds most delicious pizza" place in the eyes of Adam I. (trust me he knows his pizza) but by the time we had finally arrived, they had stopped serving lunch. Desperate to eat anything, we literally turned the corner and chose the first restaurant on our left. We ordered quiet the feast. Monica the besty of best ordered lasagna and I ordered a veggie pizza and then we jointly ordered a caprese salad and then decided we would split everything. After we saw the portion size that they were bringing out for other people, we thought we had ordered way too much food but when the food finally came, we had no problem, none at all, opening up our little (mine not so little any morning) tummies and eating it all up. Monica the besty best is a champion in the sport of eating. It is actually her job. She could be a professional and now that I have been living in Italy it has become a side project of mine and I am learning to master it quite well. We came home from our two hour lunch and by two hours I mean the lunch that took two hours to find, and were exhausted. We did what we Isenberg's and one Pack do best and took naps. For dinner we went to this wine bar recommended by our family friend. On the top of the city of Rome, right next to the ledge over looking the city of Rome was this small quaint but modern upscale wine bar, The walls were completely white, blue LED lights lined the floor and funky wire light laps stood in the corners and scruffy hansom Italian men in sweaters and sport coats were at our service. You could tell that it was definitely not a touristy hot spot, which was really nice to have a true Italian experience in such a beautiful city. We ordered appetizers, and wine and water (one gas with gas, one not) with bread and steaks and seafood. We giggled the night away with stories with our first adventures with our dear friends ralph and up chuck, (obviously stories like these are told at the Isenberg dinner table) Little Adam I was an easy target. Appetizers took an hour and our main course took two and desserts were a must. Molten chocolate cake with fresh whipped cream topped with a side of requested wild strawberries, a pear strudel with a side of cinnamon gelato rolled in rise crispies. The sensation of the crunchy mixed with the creamy cinnamon was like a fourth of july firework celebration in my mouth. And we couldn't just get two desserts for the table, three was only fair. To cleanse our palettes we got a fruity sampler of gelato: mojito, raspberry and mango. Pleasantly full, with smiles on our faces we headed back down the mountain (for those of you who have been to Rome you are probably wondering what mountain I am referring to, it is more like a hill that over looks Rome) we decided to all go straight up stairs and into our cozy beds because tomorrow was going to be an early morning at the Vatican.