Day 5 - A Little Tradition A Little Adventure

Today might have been the best day of this vacation. Kinjal and I got up early and went to our favorite cappuccino place but this time it didn't deliver. So Kinjal came back and went back to sleep! We decided to let the kids sleep in and went to Rome's famous Testaccio Market which is where people go to buy gourmet Italian food. After five days of cold, it was finally a warm and sunny morning, and we took a cab - we had only about an hour or so before a visit to the Vatican Museum and St Peter's Cathedral. We had the cab take us to a famous store called Volpetti (recommended by Emily again).

I bought squid ink pasta, though it seems that getting the ink from the squid kills him, so we can't eat it. I also bought some tricolore pasta for Kinjal since she likes it so much! After the shopping, we walked around the square taking in the sun. We also went to a grocery store, and I bought Kinjal a gourmet lunch - olive breadsticks, fresh mozzarella, honey yogurt (the European/Indian kind, the way yogurt is supposed to be), and a limone soda. Kinjal loved eating everything, and even shared.

Then we left for a tourbus visit to the Vatican Museum and St Peter's Basilica. I had high expectations of both, and surprisingly, my expectations were met, exceeded, and then blown out of the water. The buildings are magnificent and unlike my comment about Pompeii (that it should just be allowed to crumble eventually), I think the Vatican Museum needs to be maintained at its current levels. It is larger than life, and you are face-to-face with names from history - Michaeangelo, Raphael, Giotto, da Vinci, Caravaggio's. And these are just the top names I know. Kinjal loved it too - she mentioned how she is standing next to a painting da Vinci stood in front of once.

Quite mind-boggling, isn't it.

The Museum is enormous, and seems to have hundreds of "galleries." I enjoyed all the pre-Catholic art and sculpture (aka the Roman gods and such) but once Our Lord and Savior entered the pictures, it kinda got boring, since it was depicting the same five themes all over the place. Also, most of the Roman stuff was sculpture and quickly turned to art (paintings, tapestries) when Christ arrived, and Kinjal and I were both digging the scupltures. We enjoyed walking through the Gallery of Maps, a long hallway with over 40 maps of Italy, apparently commissioned by the Pope of the 15th century, and painted by a local friar and geographer.

The Sistine Chapel was very impressive, and seemed larger than I thought it would be. It is where the papal conclave takes place, and having just seen Angels and Demons, we really enjoyed staying there and imagining one. In the courtyard just minutes before, we had been pointed to the chimney which emits black or white smoke when a new pope is elected.

We stared at the famous ceiling for a long time, with the tour guide giving us details on all sorts of meaning hidden in the artwork. In fact, we stayed there for so long that we lost our group, and had to run around for an hour before locating them at the St Peter's basilica - thanks to Kinjal's excellent sense of direction, tact with the security guards, and unflappability. I bought Kinjal a swarowski bracelet as a memory of the Museum, and a Mother Teresa magnet for Papa.

We rejoined our group at St Peter's , which again, is a building that defies description. It's the second largest church in the world I understand - we missed the tourguide's comments. The inside can only be described as lavish, decorated with marble, gold paint, reliefs, architectural sculpture and gilding. I have seen some beautiful churches in Germany, but this one was in a class by itself. Kinjal, so rarely impressed with anything, was mesmerized, as was I.

We saw the Swiss guard, and learned that Michelangelo designed their clownlike

costume. It truly stand out and I wonder how uncomfortable those guards are. They sure don't look unhappy - or happy. They could be androids for all we know.

The tour soon ended, and I had a surprise prepared for Kinjal's last evening in Rome - an evening of cooking lessons and dinner at the house of a David Sgueglia della Marra, some descendant of an aristocratic family, who was an advertising magnate, and then decided to chuck it all to follow his passion - cooking, traveling, teaching to cook and meeting new people. I was a bit nervous about the proposition - seemed a bit shady especially after I spoke to him, and he asked to be paid in cash.

His house was on a rooftop in a trendy part of Rome - Corso Vittorio Emanuele. The place was beautifully decorated, and there were about 12 other guests there, almost all American, and many from DC even. Two older couple, a family, a state department foreign services person stationed in Croatia, a student studying abroad - good cross section. Chef David was charming, gragarious and thoroughly engaged

with his guests. He brought out prosecco, and a variety of appetizers - savory croissants, local sheep-based cheeses including peccorio which Kinjal is already a fan of, and other local delicacies. We were starving in any case, and wolfed down large helpings.

After some relaxing on the beautiful rooftop weather, we went indoors in his kitchen, and began the pasta making lesson. The pasta to be made was called Bici (pronounced beechi), an almost extinct ancient Roman pasta made just with durum flour and salt. It was complicated to make, we had to first make dough, then roll it out in a specific shape, and then pass it through the pasta machine FIVE times to get the right width. And there was some unusual folding that had to happen. But it was so much fun!

Next Chef David taught us how to make the pasta sauce. Again, it was some ancient Roman recipe - his goal was to teach us to cook things one couldnt order at restaurants or buy easily in the supermarket. The sauce had meat, so he made us a

non-meat one, which seemed straightforward - tomatoes, olive oil, onions and salt. No garlic, no organo, no spices at all. And it tasted divine. I guess between good oil and tomatoes, you need little else.

The pasta was complicated enough to make that I don't know if we will ever make it back at home. We did learn some things that we are bringing back, like you put salt right before serving the sauce, and you never ever rinse pasta - you "fish" it out of the water using a sieve, and put it straight in the sauce. Soon all was cooked, and we were served. We went back out in the courtyard, where now there were beautiful little bulbs lit up and even a large heat light, so the ambiance was warm. Many different local libations arrived - and water too. The conversation was great, and Kinjal was charming. Everyone seemed interested in her school and career plans, and there were some questions about my planetary defense conference. The food was gone in no time, and it was so good, we could have eaten twice as much! Then the chef brought out some Roman biscotti and limone liquor that fit together perfectly. People lingered for a while longer, and then around 10, we all left. Chef David was charming to the last minute. He knows how he gets his future guests - word of mouth.

On the cab ride back, we drove past the usual sights - all lit up now. You haven't seen the Colosseum if you haven't seen it at night. Kinjal computed how much money Chef David made, and was quite impressed with his margins.

What a great evening to end the vacation. Kinjal and I went to sleep happy. Miles walked today - 6.5 m