Layers of Rome

Just outside the Orange Garden on the quiet and peaceful Aventine Hill

Mosaics from a medieval church (4th century AD) near the Colosseum.  These churches (we visited 3 on Saturday) were built over houses where the early Christians are know to have met.  How cool is that?

This statue is in the church called "St Peter in Chains....the chains are in a box on display in the church.  This beautiful piece of marble was carved by Michelangelo and is called 'Moses'.  It's incredible to think it was just a block of marble carved into this lifelike, almost breathing piece of art.

Pasticeria in Rome.  The Bocca della Verita made from bread dough.  Art in itself really.

We had the couple in Frankfurt, whom are some of our 'bosses', come to our house on Friday.  They are Steve and Anita Canfield.   We had a good chat and a thorough discussion about the next few months concerning refugee relief.  They are actually moving to Rome next month to launch the Friendship Center for Refugees here in Rome(April 20).  Our responsibilities at that Center will be as much or as little as we choose, it will only be as true volunteers.  We are not responsible for it's success, as they are the ones who will be officially in charge.  Great.
Then as far as our projects are concerned.  We will continue to process projects that come to us, but we no longer seek new partners.  That phase of refugee relief is coming to a slow close.  We will also process requests from the 10 Stakes in Italy for their projects.  Those will now all be activities in which there is member/refugee interaction.  No more 'hygiene kits' but interactive projects such as dinners, sharing of talents and skills in classes, sharing music/dance events, etc.  So the Stakes will have to be more creative in their activities as the hygiene kits were an 'easy' activity so to speak.  If funding is needed, it will still be the same process as before but the funding will only be approved if the activities meet that criteria.
Lastly, our partners in the North of Italy will have a small gap of 'leadership' as we wait for a new couple to be called and sent there.  We will continue to service those partners and maintain their projects until the end of our mission and tidy everything up as much as we can for the interim between when we leave and they arrive.  The hope is that the couple will arrive by Sept or Oct.  This couple will handle the projects as well as launch another Friendship Center which will open in Milan.
So our job morphs into two jobs for two couples:  A Friendship Center in both Rome and Milan as well as servicing the 10 Stakes in Italy and the partners that have been established.
Hey, when you see it all written out in black/white it does look pretty good.  Sometimes you do have to stop and take stock to see your progress.  

Our Mission at the One Year Mark

I remember posting a photo of the Colosseum when we first received our mission call.  Then one year later we found a bench on a hill overlooking the Colosseum and we had a nice 'assessment' chat with each other.  What have we accomplished this past year?  What have we learned?  Should we have done anything differently?  What were the highlights and what have been the challenges?  It was a great conversation and most of it can't really be shared, but in a nutshell:  a mission is hard, even for Senior Couples, but there are rewards.  The adjustments are different for each couple but I think everyone would say it's hard if they are honest.  How is it hard?  Well, maybe you'll have to go on a mission as a couple and find out for yourselves.  Dad says that compared to the young missionaries we have it easier, but there are still challenges. Missions are about sacrifice.  All I can say is that we got 'lucky' in many respects but that doesn't mean 'easy street' either.  

 Feb 20, 2018.  One year ago on Feb 20, 2017 we entered the MTC.  This day is also Hanim's 75th birthday (the lady in the red sweater).  We took her to lunch and invited Louiza and Pamela to join us.  We went to a small cafe in the Pamphylli park.

We just found this setting so typical.  Everybody glued to their cell phones.  So here we are on the Spanish steps. "Even when we are with our friends, we seldom give them our undivided attention because we are constantly checking our smartphone, convinced that something far more interesting is probably happening elsewhere.  Modern humanity is sick with FOMO:  fear of missing out.  We have lost the ability to pay attention."  (Yuval Noah Harari in his book Homo Deus)  

MEDU is one of our main partners here in Italy.  They took us to lunch to thank us for LDS Charity support.  They really do a lot of good and we are honored to be associated with them.  

A New Life

Here is our apartment building at 24 Archimede, 00197 Roma.  We are on the 5th floor, top floor.  The large open terrace on the R side of the building is our landlord.  Our terrace is on the front of the bldg. with the overhead ceiling.  Civilization!  We are thrilled to be here.

This is the front gate.  During the day it is open but only when the concierge (portiere) is on duty.

Here are the front steps into the lobby.  The concierge is in the small room on the Left side...so he can watch to be sure he knows who is entering the building.

Here is our concierge:  Fernando.  I think he is from Bangladesh.

Hallway to the elevators.  

Two very small elevators.  However only one of them works.  The second one broke and the homeowners of the building can't decide if they want to fix the elevator or pay the money to make one big elevator.  This was two years ago.  Tom asked our landlord (Francesco and Paula) why they don't just take a vote:  The Francesco looked at Tom like he was crazy.

Our door is the one on the right.  16A.  

Our foyer.  The IKEA rug doesn't really go with the decor!

The next foyer.  The living room is to the left with the Christmas tree, and the room on the right is our bedroom.  Behind the wall to the left is the kitchen.

Any guests that come, this will be your bedroom.  But for now this is our office, and the terrace opens off of this room and the bedroom.

Our bedroom.  Only this one small armoir to hold the clothes.  We bought a small rack to go next to it.  And as I said, my clothes are in the foyer.  We taped up the family pictures to the armoir.  We can access the terrace from this room as well.

The very small, tiny kitchen.  BUT it has a dishwasher!  The stove is just 2 burners, no oven.  Small microwave.  Small sink.  it does the job.  We usually eat on the terrace or in the living room.

The terrace which gets all the morning sunlight

No view but at least it's above the street noise.    It's a nice, bright apartment.

Here is the gate to the park where we walk every morning. It's right around the corner from the apartment.   Okay, it's not the Cinquantinare, but at least there is a park we can walk to.  So nice!  I really hated where we had to walk in Montespacatto...well, there was nowhere to walk there!

Trees, greenery.  I need it!  Love the umbrella pines in Rome.  The park isn't very big but it's plenty for a morning walk full of these beautiful trees.

Gotta get outside everyday.  If I don't I turn grumpy in a hurry...just ask Tom.

Also a small grove of olive trees in the park.  Not every park in the world has these kind of trees.

The building on the left is the entrance to the metro....well at least the train to the A line metro.  Our stop is Euclide.  This is piazza Euclide.  Shops, sidewalks, hotels, restaurants, metro.  The area is called Parioli.  Nice area.  Supposedly a chic area.

 This is the other side of the piazza and the park is on the back side of the church.  Our apartment is literally steps away from this piazza.  Welcome to our new neighborhood.  It feels like a new life.  Both of us are much happier here.  Smart move we should have done much earlier, but at least we did it!  This post will be fun for us to remember where we lived.

Caprarola and local Coppede District

Spiral staircase.  This villa is cool on the inside and the gardens are well known for their fountains.  We visited in Jan however so the fountains weren't in service.

Map Room

In the garden, on Jan 11th one beautiful rose growing

Frescoes

Not so beautiful from the front....and it doesn't show how big it is.  This place doesn't make the tour books, but it should.  Only one hour north of Rome.

Church with beautiful mosiacs....an area of Rome not far from our new apartment called the Coppede District

Here is the Piazza Mincio with a 'frog' fountain in the center.  A Dad and his son had bought a remote speedboat and had it in the fountain.  The kid was in heaven.

These were apartment buildings, but at one time they were single villas

Hard to capture this small area of the city.  But yeah, a chandelier over the arch....cars of course drive through.

The Sella Ronda.  Fantastic snow conditions.

Basically the view from our apartment, however it wasn't a place to go in the winter....the ski bus connections were not good.

 Santa Christina one more time.  It's a really gorgeous area of the world.  We had 4 lovely days of sunshine and warmth and great skiing conditions.  I doubt we get back there to ski again.  I tried to soak it in as best as I could.  We had planned a full week here, but of course Gilles called his whirlwind tour of the Rome projects so we had to train to Rome and back mid-week.  Then when we arrived on Thursday, it was snowing very heavily and we left on Friday to try to get to Trieste for more meetings.  Such is life, but I'm glad we made it back even for a short time.

Etruscans were in Rome before the Romans

Our 41st anniversary was Jan 7th so we decided to take a couple of days to celebrate and check out the area just an hour and a half Northeast of Rome which is loaded with Etruscan history.  This little town of Tuscania has 2 churches dating to the 4 & 5 century BC!

We stayed in the town of Tarquinia which is just a bit inland from the sea.  Our apartment was located in the old town and was actually IN one of the towers.  Tom is just walking towards the apartment and it's just by this old church (on his left)  The name of the hotel/apartment was Palazzo Castelleschi.  It was extraordinary b/c it was full of the treasures that was found in the tower when they renovated.  It was like sleeping in a museum...but comfortable and nice as well.  The town had something like 30 towers.

Many little piazzas like this one sprinkled throughout the town.  The well is just next to an old Etruscan villa (which now is a museum)

Just outside the town, but still walking distance is a Necropolis.  Inside the tombs were some stunning frescoes.  Again, about 600 BC.  

It's January, so a little rain would be expected.  The walled city, the towers, the necropolis made this town a great place to base ourselves.

The Etruscan Museum, once a villa.  The showpiece was the 'winged horses' shown below.

This stop was in the town of Cerveteri.  Here is the Necropoli della Banditaccia.  Very unusual burial ground.  These tombs were carved from the rock,  all by hand!  It was an entire 'village' and it reminded me a bit of Ankor Wat again, but of course much more tame.

These tombs didn't have the paintings/frescoes but they were in better shape as far as the inside 'furniture' was concerned.  I learned that if the bedstead had a headboard, then it was a woman that was buried there.  This one had two women.  The next room held the pottery, jewelry, etc that would make their life comfortable for the next life...

Here is a better picture of one of the tombs.  This one was particularly large.  Can you imagine carving this out by hand with a pick ax?  Of course it was only the most wealthy that were buried here.  You were able to go inside via a staircase (slighting visible on the right side of the picture)  There were 100s of these tombs to make up a sort of village.  20 of those you could enter.

On the way home we stopped at the seaside at Santa Severa.  The beach was sandy but not too large.  This is only about 45 minutes from Rome.

This is Villa Guilia in Rome and also part of Etruscan history.  We toured the museum for free on our anniversary day (all museums are free on the 1st Sunday of the month)!  This is actually walking distance from our apartment.  So now we feel educated about Etruscan history, toured all the sites and museums and necropolis'.