Say a prayer for my family.

MY WONDERFUL FAMILY WAS HERE IN ITALIA!!

My family made it to Italy safe and sound on saturday April the 5th. My Aunt Selena, Momma, and Daddy arrived in Rome and we had a great time. Our first night, we took a night tour of Rome where we quickly saw: 

an eyehole in a door with a beautiful view of the dome of Saint Peters

a piazza with a view of the city

the Spanish Steps

Trevi Fountain 

Basiica di San Pietro

Vatican entrance

Pantheon

Castel Sant' Angelo ("the angel castle")

Piazza Navona ( "the 3 fountains")

Colosseum

Palazzo Venezia

the wedding cake monuement

We finished up our first amazing evening together with dinner at a restaurant named, La Maieletta. This is not the correct spelling. I should spell it correctly due to the fact that I have it written on one of our Holiday Inn Rome West maps. However, since I have ten maps from our Holiday Inn experience I cannot find the map our wonderful hotel clerk, Vincenzo, gave us with the name of the restaurant. Our waiter at La Maieletta was a hoot and a half. My family got to experience their first shot of Limoncello. They thought I was insane when I ordered it because they were absolutely full and they thought I was ordering "Limon Jello"! Silly silly fun fun times! 

The following day we took the day to revisit all of the above places and much much more to see them during the day and get better pictures. We saw the tomb of Rafael in the Pantheon, the inside of the basilica di S. Pietro (Saint Peters Church), had some of the best coffee and hot chocolate in town from San Eustacio's, and later treated ourselves to some of the best gelato in town from Crispino's. This was the day following the horrible earthquake. Thank you all for your concern. We were not affected by its disaster. We probably would have felt something but my parents were recovering from jet lag and I sleep like a rock. We also went shopping and had dinner at a nice little Trattoria. 

The next day, April 7, was our Vatican tour. It was amazing. Crazy and hectic but all in all amazing! We then soaked up some of the beauty the colosseum had to offer. We ended our night with dinner in our hotel and it was to our surprise OUTSTANDING!

April 8th, we took a sweet little trip to Naples and Pompeii. One word... Glorious! Oh minus our tour guide that smelled of cigarette smoke and loved the sound of her voice a little too much. Naples known by some here as "Mafia central". My personal opinion is that it is worth seeing during the day. Pompeii was one the best experiences we had on our trip. We had a much better tour guide for our walk through Pompeii. I got to see casts of people that are FROZEN IN TIME! Great creepy picture opp!  

April 9th was Cinque Terra Giorno! (Five Islands day) My momma is convinced they are not islands and simply villages. This was so much fun and the beauty of the islands is unreal. We became experts on using the train in italy on April 9. We took the train to Cinque Terra in the morning and ended our night by taking a train to Florence. We had dinner at my favorite Restaurant "Gloden View" and then had some Hotel Chaos but ended up at a wonderful bed and breakfast.

April 10 my family and I visited the Uffizi gallery, saw the David, Piazza Sinoria, Piazza Vecchio, Duomo, had an exquisite tour of the Basilica di Santa Croce by one the best tour guides in town (Me!), and of course we hit up San Lorenzo Square for a little shopping. That night we made the complex decision to come back to Rome via train.

April 11 we soaked up our last day together shopping and enjoying each others company in Rome. To conclude our magnificent Italian experience together we decided it would be best to have dinner at our favorite restaurant we went to our first night in Italy, La Maieletta. Our waiter remembered where we sat and a lot of what we ordered. 

Unfortunately, we did not get to end our trip happily. On the night of April 11 (early Easter) my grandmother, Jessie Hagood, passed away. My grandmother was the cutest woman and she looked adorable in hats. She use to teach me to croce (you know ... that thing you do with yar n) and would make me the most rockin' egg sandwiches ever. We also loved walking over to the dollar store together and buying useless knickknacks that served no purpose but to make us happy. She lived such during such an interesting time. During her lifetime her husband fought in WWII and the first African American was elected president of the USA. Woah! 

I do not want my grandmother to be gone but I understand that she had to go. I especially do not want her to go while I am unable to say goodbye but I understand I will get to say goodbye. I do not like not being able to lend some support to my family, I hope that I am able to do so from across the globe. 

I love you Grandma.

I love you family.

I love you EVERYONE!!   

 

Thank you for reading and HAPPY EASTER!