Mom and Dad come to Rome!

As mentioned in my last post, my parents visited this past weekend with the Garbarts. This was really a lot of fun, and a great change in pace for me. It was the first time I saw the Vatican museums, and we ate at a lot of great restaurants, but my favorite times were walking around the city and talking about home.

I tried to bring my parents to as many churches as possible without it becoming an exhausting exercise. St. Peter's Basilica is amazing of course, and my parents loved it, but other more personal Basilica's seemed a little easier to enjoy at times.

This is a picture of my Mom in Santa Maria in Trastevere, one of the best sites of the trip. It's one of the very few churches in Rome that acts well as a parish because most times there are too many churches for the amount of space that real parishes can't be established. However, Santa Maria in Trastevere seems to have a very active religious community that interact in very cool ways (as seen by all the offerings at the statue St. Anthony).

The group's first stop at the Colliseum was on a gorgeous night! After seeing the inside of the ancient monument along with the Roman Forum on the following day, Mama G remarked that my Dad was like a "kid in a candy store".


Once again, the Borghese Gardens were a favorite for visitors. It was forecasted to rain all day, but it held up giving us almost perfect conditions. We even were blessed with awesome street performers in the form of an Italian roller skating show (videos to be posted later) in the park.

This is a picture of Mama G taking a picture of Papa G who is taking a picture. We often had to wait for Papa G who took more pictures than anyone else by far! So, if you want to see any pictures for the trip, don't ask me because he has all the good ones. I'm sure they turned out great!

My Mom and Dad celebrated their 34th Anniversary here in Rome! I'm glad I was able to be a part of it. I don't think they ever imagined they would be spending an anniversary visiting their youngest child in Rome! But I guess surprises are just another part of marriage.

That's all I have for right now. It's 2 A.M. here and I have to meet T, Rosina, Joanna, and Marina early tomorrow for a day of adventuring! The time with my parents and the Garbarts made a truly a great weekend, now I'm gearing up for a great week.

Ciao!
Matt