The Jarvii 
Our sleep was still a bit messed up, as expected. We also ended up having a very late dinner last night (although that’s a very Italian thing to do anyways), which meant we were up late in general. My daughter is worse than my son when it comes to time change. He’s the type that when you wake him up, he is happy and ready to tackle the day. My husband also came in early that morning and headed straight to the AirBnB and went to sleep (my daughter takes after him in that they are high maintenance sleepers).
After we skipped breakfast for sleep and had our lunch, we took the Metro to the Colosseum. It’s actually quite amazing to come out of the Metro because you are literally right in front of one of the largest, oldest structures in the world. My son was quite impressed, my daughter not so much (but I think that’s because she was hot and still tired from traveling and the time change).
We waited in line to purchase our tickets to get inside, though you can order your tickets ahead of time for a timed entry. Because we didn’t know how we would feel or what we wanted to do, I didn’t want to book tickets ahead of time. Luckily we went later in the day and only had to wait a half hour to get our tickets to get in. Thankfully they had large fans that misted water to those in line exposed to the sun. Top tip: if you have an international student ID, you get a discount.
Once inside, we explored the vast nooks and crannies of the building. In one of the library books, my son recalled what he learned about the Colosseum. We then filled in any gaps and tried our best to answer any questions he had. My Italian cousins also tried their best to answer his questions with their limited English. I don’t think they were at all impressed about the pope doing Good Friday mass at the Colosseum, but they were interested in learning about the animals the gladiators would fight.
After walking around in the heat for a bit, we took a bit of a respite in the gift shop. Of course my children managed to find kid books about the Colosseum and Rome, and suckered my mom into buying it for them.
When we were done seeing all that we could see of the Colosseum, we made our way to Piazza Venezia. Of course people needed to use the bathroom, so we stopped midway to use a public restroom. Insert our lesson on Euros as you have to pay to use the restrooms. This was actually quite an interesting lesson because my son just started to learn about money in school. Of course the USA doesn’t widely use 50 cent, dollar, and two dollar coins, so we needed to explain that we really need to look carefully at the money before we use them just so we know how much they are worth.
Again, like most of Rome, once you are at a main tourist spot you can easily walk to others. Piazza Venezia is literally down the street from the Colosseum, maybe a half mile walk. It’s also quite an interesting walk because you have the cobblestone road where cars are driving by surrounded by ancient ruins and older buildings.
After taking pictures and gawking at our surroundings, we decided to call it a day. The kids were visibly jet lagged, my husband was exhausted having just come in on a red eye, and we were just hungry.
What do you eat in Italy when you are starving? Pizza! At least there were no arguments with the kids about what food to eat, which was nice–one margarita pizza please. We actually didn’t eat pizza the previous night because my absolute favorite pizza place was closed (they are always closed on Mondays). I have to admit, I actually really don’t like pizza. But I will happily eat pizza in Italy, especially from my favorite pizza place down the block from my aunt’s apartment. It has the perfect thin crust and char from the wood burning pizza oven. The owner of the restaurant is a good friend of my uncle and aunt, so by defacto he knows me as the American niece. His English isn’t the greatest, but he still greets me with a warm smile and always asks if I would like “Champagne de Americano”, AKA a coke.
It was nice sharing that restaurant with my kids. There’s just something special about a place that knows you as a neighbor and treats you as such. Hopefully my kids will continue to visit this restaurant on their subsequent trips to Rome, since obviously they are coming back since they threw their coins into Fontana di Trevi!
Successful day 2!
P.S. Some of you may be wondering how stroller friendly the Colosseum is. The answer is yes and no. You do get to take an elevator to second floor, but it’s out of the way and hard to find your big group (which was us). What ended up happening is we just folded the stroller (thank goodness Baby Jogger has an easy fold stroller) and carried it up and had my daughter walk up the stairs. Most of the time she was not in her stroller because she wanted to roam around and pose for pictures like her brother. There wasn’t a stroller check in area (that I was aware of) because I think that would have been the better solution for us. Also the Colosseum is very crowded, so weaving the stroller through people on a bumpy surface isn’t quite ideal. Once we were outside of the Colosseum and needed to walk was when she wanted to just lounge and be pushed around like the princess that she is.
