The saga of Thursday September 19, 2024 in Rome, Italy
Thursday morning was more leisurely. We had tickets to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel for 10:30AM and nothing else scheduled. Scarred from our prior experiences with the delayed train and bus combined with a confusing calendar invite from the Vatican for thirty minutes before our entry time, we showed up to the Vatican Museum at 9:45AM! We spent much of the time talking about how Vatican City is a separate country, that we need our passports to enter, and wondering how many people live and work in Vatican City. The boys waited nicely for forty minutes while drinking Gatorades and enjoying a snack from a nearby vendor. As soon as we entered the museum, we made a beeline for the toilets!
My plan was to show the boys the Sistine Chapel and then head to the Vatican. I didn’t really think they would be interested in the Vatican Museum. Boy was I wrong. Every time I tried to rush them ahead, Amichai and Shai would chide me for moving too quickly. They wanted to spend time reading about each item in the museum. In contrast, Matanel was bored (“we’ve seen this stuff before!”) and Eitan was overheating. Ninety-minutes later, when we finally reached the Sistine Chapel, Shai and Matanel had to pee so badly that we could only stay for five to ten minutes. The two of them and I raced out of there and ran through the rest of the museum to reach the bathroom in time. Well, mostly in time. Amichai was catching up to us just as the twins entered the men’s bathroom, which was fortuitous because Matanel was too short to reach the urinal, and all of the stalls were taken. Amichai ended up having to pick him up while he peed. Matanel had to pee so badly that he couldn’t control where he was aiming and ended up peeing on Amichai! (I am laughing hard as I write this. I can just imagine the hilarity of it all.) Amichai must have washed his hands a hundred times before he was convinced that he was clean.
By the time we left the Vatican Museum, Chaim needed to return to the apartment for work and to wash several loads of laundry. The boys and I walked to Piazza San Pietro to see the Basilica. I tried to convince them to wait in line to see the inside of the Vatican. Although they were floored by the sheer size of the Vatican and the piazza, they saw no need to see the inside. I tried to explain the papacy, its significance, and its importance, but to the boys it was just another church. We stayed about ten-fifteen minutes and then caught a bus to the Jewish Ghetto.
In the Jewish Ghetto, we decided to have lunch at BaGhetto (Dairy). Amichai took a risk and ordered fried Roman anchovies. The waiter brought us a large plate filled to the brim with what must have been thirty to forty anchovies. Amichai was a good sport and tried to eat as many as he could even though he didn’t really like them. The boys also tried a Margharita pizza, which they sort of enjoyed. Bellies not so full, we walked around the corner to the Tempio Maggiore (The Great Roman Synagogue) where we joined a thirty-minute tour of the main sanctuary. The tour was really more of a lecture. We sat in the pews, hard benches that the twins struggled to sit on, and did our best to listen to our guide. The Great Roman Synagogue was the first synagogue we had seen on our journey that made a point of mimicking a church. We learned that this was done intentionally because it was built after the unification of Italy in 1870 and the disbanding of the Jewish Ghettos, which granted Jews citizenship for the first time. Visiting the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, the Vatican (even if it was just the outside), and the Great Roman Synagogue all on the same day made for some very interesting discussions about similarities and differences between Judaism and Christianity, and synagogues and churches across Europe.
Before heading home, we stopped at the kosher market. I mentioned to the owner that I was trying to find food for a shabbat in Naples that required very little prep. She was so concerned that the boys were going to eat she kept pointing to different options and telling me how to store them so they would last. I was surprised to learn how cheap the meat was and happily bought several packs of fresh cold cuts along with grape juice, challah, and some cakes. It wasn’t much, but at least it would feel like shabbat.
And just like that, three days in Rome flew by. All of the boys agreed that they would need to visit again because there was so much to see again and so much that they didn’t get to see.
