Roaming Roma

Old green-shirt couldn't have stepped to the side just a little? - and how's old glamour-red next to us??

Bugger the Trevi - where's me icecream Mummy?

Ah Rome - what a city.  If really old shit is on the agenda for your viewing pleasure, look no further.  The city is a virtual open museum of totally old shit.  You walk around, or in my lazy case, taxi around going "look at that", "wow, check that out" all day long.  In fact there is so much old shit that you become immune to it after a couple of days.  It's like going to any museum in Europe.  In museums in Australia there may be the odd treasure spread out between a few stuffed kangaroos and a fake model of an aboriginal family making a fire in a canoe, but in Europe the treasures abound.  Halls of ancient statues, mummies, priceless art, and whole sections of Egyptian temples have been transplanted into museums.  There's only so much you can absorb.  After a few hours you're like "Another fucking statue of Zeus....I can't take it, where's the cafeteria??"  But cynicism aside, there's a lot to be impressed about in Rome.  Stumbling onto the Trevi Fountain while looking for the best ice cream shop in Rome was a bonus.  I also enjoyed our guided tour into the Colosseum.  I'm usually not so much for the guided tours, but when you find out that people are waiting 2 hours in the baking sun just to get in, and discover that for an extra 10 euros per adult, you can join a group and line up for ten minutes.  Weeeellll, it seems obvious doesn't it?

In it's olden day splendour

taken by me inside

Not looking good for the dude with the lion

And even though I couldn't hear our tour guide so well, and the whole place was jam packed with sweaty visitors, it was still worth it.  It was interesting, and kind of horrifying too.  I didn't realise the extent to which some species of animals were driven into extinction because of all the animal fights they had on for the morning entertainment. Apparently in just the opening 100 days of the Colosseum, in 80AD, 9000 animals were killed - either by each other, or gladiators.  What a gruesome image.  I wondered, as I do, whether there was opposition at the time to these bloody displays of brutality.  Were there groups of Roman lefties with signs, stationed outside the Colosseum  that read "Bloodsports are for Bloody Idiots", or perhaps "Save the Lion, and the Crocodile, and the Bear and the Tiger, and the Elephant, and the Giraffe and the Hippopotamus and the Rhinoceros", or the controversial "Stick it to The Caesar"??  Maybe they wore tie died togas and grew out their crew cuts.....Love it, or hate the very thought of it (like my Granny who was upset when I told her I went there), the Colosseum is what it is - A mighty monument to pagan brutality.

Or a classic tourist shot opportunity.....

Cord and her Fifu

So after torturing our children by dragging them around a pile of rocks, we decided the next day was for them.  So it was off to the Rome Children's Museum.  My verdict.  Absolutely brilliant.  I can't wait to go back there.  Seriously, I can't believe I'm saying that, but it was.  There was a fake vegetable patch with plastic planted vegetables.  Children could put on gardening gloves, grab a basket and pick like crazies.  They could also go into a mini supermarket and shop up a storm.  You even put the stuff through the check-out where a small bossy child was playing check-out chick and scanning the items (all of which had barcodes).  All the kids were jostling for their place in the queue and trying to get their baskets on the conveyor belt first - fighting and pushing.  Chalky was saying that it was a vision of what the world would be like if kids ruled.  And it was utter chaos.  Valli was actually inside the sausage counter, Cordi was stocking up on a lot of Fifu Cat Food - I think she wants a kitty (she tried to take home a little ragged wild one - with blood shot eyes, and a kink in it's tail - from the service station rubbish bin yesterday).  There was a kitchen with all the cooking facilities, a dinosaur room, a padded play centre, a water world, a mini pebbles zone, a fire truck with working water hoses.  Plus, outside flying foxes and climbing equipment which we didn't even get near.  Seriously, what a winner of a place.  Except when it's time to go home.  No matter how long you stay, or how much they play or have fun, the going home tears always flow.

Valli going hard for the salami - Meanwhile, Mums step in to control the check-out chaos

The girls have almost stripped the veggie patch

That was a real good thing you killed that dog Anthony...

There were lots of tears in Rome.  This was largely due to the fact that the girls were buggered from being dragged around all day (or from picking plastic vegetables), but more so from the fact that we could only get dinner reservations after 9.30pm.  What a nightmare.  Luckily I had stocked up on fancy sticker books at eight euros a pop.  But each night they had to be new.  The novelty only lasted one meal.  We didn't care.  It was worth the relative peace.  However, sticker books can inspire major meltdowns - one sticker rips, it won't stick, they can't find the right page, one took the other one's sticker.  When your children are on a hair-trigger, and you're out for dinner in a relatively nice restaurant, surrounded by people obviously wanting to enjoy a peaceful meal, you almost become afraid of your own flesh and blood.  Particularly the audio damage they can do.  So anxious are you to avoid tantrums and/or tears, you become like their pathetic slaves, catering to every whim.  "You don't want to try even one bite of that 15 euro meal darling? - No problem".  "Mummy will pick up that fork you chucked on the floor five times sweetie, throw it again if you like".  "You want chocolate icecream and you're wearing a new white top?- of course honey".  It reminded me of that old black and white Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life".  The one where the evil six year old boy holds the whole village in his grip of terror because of his god-like powers, and everyone has to smile and applaud him, even when he kills other people, or they risk being "sent to the cornfield" themselves....."That's a real good thing you did there Anthony, a real good thing".

Another icypole girls?  Sure....

A whole room of creepy dolls Cordi - of course!

So innocent now.....

The sweet face of terror

So apart from being pathetic, snivelling, grovelling parents, we actually had a rather good time here in Rome.  As always, it's never enough time though.  Next on the agenda - a road trip to Sicily.  But, I seem to have forgotten to consider keeping "The Terrorists" happy all those hours in the car.....Fear actually now grips my heart - I wonder if you can program "Sticker Book Shop" into the GPS......

Don't push me, cause I'm close to the edge.......