A family travels Italy day 4-5 Vatican Trevi and our best gelato in Rome

It is 2am and I up nursing an upset stomach, the thought of dinner is causing me to gag. I’m not sure what makes me more ill, the fact that the six inch scampi were served raw or the fact that the bill came to 290.00 Euros. We learned an important lesson tonight: do not let the waiter decide what to order. He brought us small squid, large squid, fish balls, those were all cooked. But then raw shrimp, raw oysters, raw scampi, raw tuna, enough for all four of us. The kids couldn’t handle it, understandably, though Nora gave…

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a family travels Italy day 3: provocative public art

As we headed to the colosseum we passed an “anarchist” a “rebel” and a “fascist”. The local graffiti seemed to be all political. Near the station Quadraro,  there’s a recent mural I later discovered was painted by Gary Basemen, commemorating the raid on this neighbourhood in 1944, where the Nazis came in and rounded up over 700 men, partisans, and sent them off to concentration camps in Poland. (The raid on the Jewish ghetto in Rome saw over 1000 Jewish people taken to the extermination camp Auschwitz.) The mural leers with grotesque victory: chop one head off a partisan and…

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A family travels Italy day 2: the Dark Rome tour and fart jokes under the Full Moon

Our first full day in Rome is planned out by my step-son. We gave the kids one day to plan any way they liked. We are all fresh and eager to get out and see the city. We’ve had a good sleep. Choosing the suburbs instead of the centre of town meant a quiet night. We slept in, had a homemade breakfast and then headed out. Within a few blocks of Porto Furba, we took the metro to Barberini piazza and had a bite of delicious but insignificant pizza near the fountain full of ancient bees before taking the “dark Rome”…

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a long travel day and the amazing Osteria Bonelli!

The curvy Italian airline attendants have tailored red suits and beautiful green leather pumps. Silvia on the intercom commands, “Enjoy a your flight” with the same intonation as, “You better behave.” We have been up now for eighteen hours. Nora’s enthusiasm has been squashed. Her little face reminds me of the Italian ricotta cake I once made that the dog sat on. She sleeps in the shape of the liberty bell. She wakes up and rings in the day with a sudden ferocious vomit on the rug floor of the Air Italia bus. I buzz feebly for help mid-descent and…

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teaching my daughter the C word

We arrive an hour early for our stress management session. They say it’s five, I wrote down four. This throws off the whole evening. It’s rainy and dark and the parking is meter. I am sure the error is not mine, but I’m also sure Mom’s terrible time management  has already come up in session, so I swallow it and we hunt around for a light supper while I phone and rearrange her homework date for later. Beaucoup cafe is full of tailored cashmere and the display case is entirely empty again, save a few arrogant empty shiny croissants all…

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