the beginning of an incredible week

sunday, june 6

it was so great to be able to sleep in til 10 this morning! ilaria's daugther (emanuella - sp?) and youngest granddaughter (elisa, 8 months old) came for lunch and then brianna came over so we could make plans for the day. there is a caravaggio exhibit at the palazzo quirinale in rome now until june 13 that the school is paying for, so we decided to hit that up today...BIG MISTAKE. we got to the quirinale around 4 and when we finally figured out the line and tickets and what not, we learned that the line was taking 4 HOURS to get through (by this time it was 4:30) and the exhibit closed at 10 that night, not to mention we both needed to be home for dinner...such a disappointment. we climbed up this HUGE hill to get to the piazza di quirinale and were so discouraged by the unfortunate predicament we found ourselves in because of the ridiculous line for caravaggio. we wandered around aimlessly for about twenty minutes but after consulting our blue guide to rome, decided there was a lot to see in the quirinale and sat on a balustrade at the top of the piazza to look at a beautiful obelisk from the forum of augustus, flanked by the statues of castor and pollux (a famous roman story of brotherhood...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_and_Pollux).

obelisk and statue of castor and pollux

but just as we sat down and got over our disappointment from the caravaggio exhibit disaster, a guard came over and told us we had to move...um what? not gonna lie, we were pretty pissed. then all of a sudden the guards start closing off the area and a big van carrying some military band comes driving into the piazza...people start crowding around and brianna and i just had to stay to find out what in the world was going on. turns out, there is a building in the piazza di quirinale in which the president of italy resides and EVERYDAY there is a military procession (band included) to signal the changing of the guards at the palazzo (imagine the white house with way less security, in the middle of an ancient roman piazza, with the band of the armed forces putting on a show to announce a shift change of security...um what? never in america).

military presentation of the changing of the guards at the palazzo quirinale

brianna and i could NEVER have planned a day that turned out like the one we had and although i was somewhat disappointed with the caravaggio exhibit, the military procession - just chancing upon it - was one of the coolest things EVER. there's always something INCREDIBLE happening in rome and the best ones to experience are the ones unplanned :) then brianna and i got some insanely delicious nutella garnished gelato and parted ways at the metro.

when i got home, i had dinner with the family, watched some scooby-doo in italian (an interesting culture shock to say the least), played dress-up with martina and went to bed! just another day in the eternal city...loving it.