Ciao Roma!

This post is bittersweet. While visions of Nutella crepes are dancing in my head aboard my flight to Paris, I can’t help but think that the last four days went by too fast. We saw practically everything on the map, but I could see those monuments a thousand times over and still never cease to be amazed. But I tossed that coin into Trevi Fountain, so with or without Neptune’s blessing, I’ll be back.

Some final thoughts on Rome:

1) Gelato just trumped froyo in my book. Sorry Red Mango, you’re going to have to do better than that. There’s nothing more perfect in the ice cream genre. It’s creamier, lighter, it doesn’t melt as easily, the spoons are neon… need I say more?

          

      2) What’s up with the cat obsession? Every street vendor and souvenir shop carries a large 12-month calendar of cats posed on various Roman architectural structures. 

I don't understand.

I've been to the Colosseum so I can safely say this vantage point is not real.

    I mean, I have two cats, but that doesn’t equate to wanting to see Whiskers lounging at the Colosseum for the entire month of November or Oswald playing in St. Peter’s Square all of July. Out of curiosity though I put together my own calendar using the CatPaint app, just to see how it feels.

Fat cat on the Spanish Steps.

Black cat at the Roman Forum.

Laser cats at the Trevi.

       It feels creepy.

    3) Lack of drinking water. Water fountains don’t exist, except for the occasional janky pipe coming out of the ground in some of the piazzas. They should put all those bathtubs on display in the Vatican Museum to better use. Water isn’t free at restaurants either. So there is no advantage frugally to order water at a restaurant. Oh except for the fact that a Coke costs almost $9 US. Which leads me to my next point,

    

     4) Everyone in Europe is skinny. Or rather, no one in Europe is overweight. At first we were shocked, but now I kind of understand. Soda consumption is severely curbed by its uneconomic cost, for one. We saw one Burger King and one McDonald’s the entire trip (and none in the airport), suggesting that fast food is not a celebrated concept over here. Convenience stores don’t have endless aisles of chips and candy, though interestingly enough they are big on Pringles. Still, candy is packaged in what we would consider “fun size,” and cookies are more like biscuits than giant sugar bombs. They are also masters of portion control. A novel concept I realize. But how is it that I could consume an entire three-course meal in one sitting in Rome when at home I can’t even finish an appetizer as my entrée? Calorie count aside, I’ll take the three courses.

      5) Everything here is smaller. Not just the people. Cars, streets, buildings, shopping carts, etc. Yet everything functions just as well, if not better. America’s obsession with largeness is becoming increasingly evident to me as I spend more time in Europe. We’ll see if Paris is the same. One thing I know for sure is that my first automobile will be a Smart Car.  I don’t care if it’s barely bigger than the Fisher Price my dad used to push me down the street in. It’s so small that it’s length is about the same width as a regular car. I’ll never have to learn to parallel park. I can just pull in perpendicular to the space. Win win.

   Well I'm in Paris now so it is time to move on. Ciao Roma, it's been real. Bienvenue à Paris!