Renee and Stefan: New Year's in Rome

04 January 2006

New Year's in Rome

(Here's a link to the pictures.)

Renee and I had the excellent fortune to be able to meet her dad and step mom in Rome for New Years. After having a great Christmas with my family here in Zurich (blog entry to come), it was nice to be able to at least partially complete the family connection. (We didn't get to see her brother's family, or the families of my dad and my sister Alice.) Renee's parents actually had plans to go to Rome for New Years before we even moved to Zurich, so it was really a great coincidence. Without knowing that you might think that we're a pretty worldly family, just meeting in Rome for New Years. (Well, actually we are. =))

The flight to Rome from Zurich is only about an hour and a half. The connection from the Rome airport to our hotel actually took longer than the flight! But it was really fabulous to be able to swing down there so easily. Unfortunately it wasn't super cheap, but I guess that's what you get living in Switzerland.

We had a really great time in Rome...but it wasn't the warm, sunny holiday we might have expected. It rained the entire time. Hard. New Years Eve we went out to the Piazza del Popolo to watch fireworks, and it was POURING. But everyone was out there with their umbrellas - including us - and celebrating! We didn't really know exactly where to go to see the fireworks, and it turned out that Piazza del Popolo only had a partial view of the bigger fireworks. But of course random people were setting off firecrackers and other stuff all the time. Everyone was in the street saying "Auguri" (which means "Best Wishes"). Past New Years celebrations for me have been mainly a visual experience, but this was something for all of the senses: smelly firework smoke, wet rain and clothes and shoes, loud firecrackers, and a really packed subway.

But despite the rain we had a great time. We met two friends of Renee's parents there (the original reason they went to Rome). One of them, Rob, is currently living for a year in Rome and showed us all around. He really knows his stuff, being an architectural historian, so we had an awesome tour guide.

We had tons of Italian food, of course. I think every single meal involved some kind of drama - they didn't have our reservation, or they messed up our order, or they misunderstood our order so many times that they had to go get a different piece of paper to start over with. But it all worked out great.

I got a ton of pictures too, even though I only took my small point-and-shoot camera instead of my big camera. I've already posted them on the web here. The experience of using only that camera prompted me to reflect a little on cameras - expect a blog entry on that in the near future.

All in all it was a great trip. Thanks to Scott and Diane for inviting us...and for hauling 6 cans of Rosarita refried beans all the way across the Atlantic! =)

posted by Stefan Pharies at 21:48

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