Well the whole Fagan clan somehow convened in Italy at the same time (minus poor Talia, that's what you get for being normal and going to school). And it was right around my birthday time, so I'll consider this my present.
Showed Mom and Chelsea around my beautiful little hill town.
Not sure Mom appreciates the goofy pictures...And of course took them to Zepplin's for a FABULOUS dinner.
And even got a surprise when I heard that, after Chef Lorenzo hearing that I was coming for my birthday dinner, was all in a bustle and spent the day making me a special cake :) which was DELICIOUS. It was layers of cake drenched in that good pink stuff that the Orvietans put on all the pastry desserts, with two layers of ice cream, and a light coffee cream frosting
An incredibly hectic journey back to Rome early in the morning: getting down the hill, four minutes to get to the train, hassle buying train tickets, getting fines on the train for not having enough train tickets, getting off in Rome and having 14 minutes to get Mom on her tour bus before it left. Getting mom on the bus, getting mom's luggage up to a room that didn't exist. And finally after all that, Mom's very nice tour director invited us to join them for the day's tour to the Vatican. Sure, why not?! (Too bad I was in just whatever clothes I had thrown on that morning and didn't even have a camera.)
So Chelsea and I had missed the first tour bus but hoped on the 2nd bus, got to the Vatican and ran ahead to try to find the 1st tour group (mom's tour group), all the while passing the 3 mile line of people without reservations trying to get into the Vatican. So we got to the front and ended up sneaking into the Vatican with the 2nd group anyway. Chelsea had to check her bag after security found her Ghanaian knives in there (she needs them to cut coconuts duh!) We found the tour director and he said the 1st group had already gone in but just find the pink scarf thing on the stick that they hold up so the group can find then. Of course by then we were red flagged looking all suspicious and the guards knew we weren't in a group. So they told us to sit down and wait until 9am when we could go in with the people without reservations (we did skip that whole 3 mile line though!) So after the guards turned their backs, we stealthily sneaked between the mass of people and up the stairs and bought tickets.
Now for finding Mom in the Vatican... how hard can that be right? Amazingly enough, it wasn't all that hard. She was so surprised because she had no idea we were coming, yay! She wan't to show us something that we had missed so we just went back inside for 5 minutes, but of course when we walked too far away she couldn't hear the guide on her headphone unit anymore and we had lost them... So then we spent another 20 minutes running around the Vatican searching for a pink fluffly scarf on a stick... too bad EVERYBODY has a pink fluffy scarf on a stick! Chose a different color people!
Well we ran into the 2nd group and just took the tour with them. But I swear it took both Chelsea and I, like secret service men, to make sure we always had a visual on Mom and the tour guide. Towards the end the guide realized what had happened and said that the 1st group was just ahead a bit and pointed us in the right direction. Reunited at last! And all was good.
We said goodbye to Mom and left. But it was a whole other fiasco for Chelsea and I to walk all the way back around the Vatican to pick up her bag, and then walk all the way back to that same point to pick up a bus. Where we ran into Mom again! And in trying to find the bus we got a little turned around and ran into Mom again! Her tour directed joked that we just kept popping up everywhere and that he just couldn't get rid of us (that was at least the 4th time we had shown up unexpectedly). But we did finally make it back to the train station.
At the end of Mom's tour I was invited to attend the farewell dinner with the group. So I went to Rome again which entailed: walking, funicular, train, walking, metro, walking along a highway outside Rome for far longer than it looked on the map. It's always an adventure getting anywhere without a car and having to rely on all these modes somehow working together.
But dinner was very nice and I loved hearing about Mom's first time in Europe!
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