La vita e bella

So my first vacation (and round trip ticket in a while, up to now there has been Rochester -> Boston, New York -> London, London -> Geneva, Geneva -> Cairo) took from Cairo on the red eye land landed me bright and early in Roma Fumacino for an unforgettable week with my family. It was four days in the Italian countryside in Umbria in a house which my dad had rented, and two days in Rome. Michaela, who I hadn’t seen since June and is now working in Dublin, was able to find cheap flights to Perugia. I also found out a week before that I got an extra day of vacation, because eid el-fetr, which was the holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan depended on the lunar schedule on when to start, and the flight was easily changeable. It was one of those vacations that was almost too good to be true, and I had to keep pinching myself to know that I really had escaped the smog and squalor of Cairo. It really took a parents meeting, and a sleepless night of preparation for talking about children and lesson planning to bring me back to earth.

In Umbria, as a family plus two “appendages” we spent lots of time walking through old medieval Italian towns and villages, exploring large churches, making amazing dinners with the fresh food from the market and pluckable herbs from the garden, biking, walking, sampling cheese, salami and wine, and having many gelatos. It was a breath of fresh air, and walking through the charming towns of antiquity.
On a walk up from the house to the town of Aqualoreto, Michaela and I bumped into the same lady that I had seen with my family on our bike ride when we got off to explore the town on foot the day before. She greeted us in Italian with the same question as yesterday. “Are you Christian?” Yes. “Catholic?” Well, she is. She then went on to talk about a bunch of things that I couldn’t really understand, although very enthusiastic about talking. At least I found out that her name is Ada and she is 90 years old, and it’s Ok if you are protestant because you still believe in God and you will still go to heaven. Like the day before, she gave us a benediction, but this day she wished us “Siempre amore como oggi.”
Rome was equally amazing, but in a different way. It was so cool to see all of these old ruins, and try to imagine what they looked like 2000 years ago. It was also nice that our hotel was located with a view of the Colosseum about 300 yards away. It isn’t every day that you get a text from your dad saying “meet for lunch at the Pantheon.” It was also nice because my grandfather, uncle and aunt, all came from London to come celebrate my Uncle’s birthday with us in Rome. They were all doing really well, and I am all about family reunions.
Some more highlights include:
Dancing in the square of Saint Peter to Mambo Italiano on the iPod, and then watching Roger do the same dance.
Lying down like Romans on the Colosseum and feeding grapes to ourselves that we had bought on the way there to the laughter and jealousy of tourists who wished they had come up with such a brilliant idea.
Walking through Rome at 2 in the morning and enjoyably getting lost in the heart of it, and then finding our way to some outlook where you could see the Colosseum, the forum, and many old churches, all illuminated.

All told, I am incredible appreciative when the order of the universe works out like that.