July 25, 2019 Thursday

We arrived at the airport in Rome right on time on the 25^th.  We took the Leonardo train to the Termini train station, and then a bus to meet our Home Exchange partner, Franca at the apartment.  It is a gated apartment area.  We settled in, actually Sue does all the “settling” I just walk around.  Then Franca came back and took us to a nice restaurant around the corner from the apartment.  The address is Via Sebastiano Grandis, 5 Rome if you want to see where we are staying.  That is when we told Franca that we could connect to the router in the apartment, but that there was no internet connection i.e. the router isn’t connected.  She was surprised, since she had the internet before.  After lunch we went back to the apartment so she could see for herself that there was no internet.  Later she sent a text (that I received when I was walking around the neighborhood) saying that she contacted the provider and they would see about fixing it in the next FOUR days.  I think since it was Thursday afternoon that means something may happen by Monday.  I am not optimistic.  I assume this is also why there is not TV reception.  Try to imagine living with no internet, no TV, and no phone service in the apartment.  The building walls are about 18” thick, so we have to go outside to get phone service.  This is like life in the 1950’s before TV.  Sue adding a comment here…also no AC, and it is 98 and sunny.

Sue needed to take a nap so I went out to see the church Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, the Church of the Holy Cross.  The church is only a couple of minutes’ walk from the apartment.   My first visit was right after a funeral left the church.  There is a Chapel of the Relics, and outside the Chapel there are photos and commentary about the relics, as you can see in the photos, because no photos are allowed in the Chapel.  I sat in the small Chapel for a while, and I was the only person who didn’t take pictures.  There were a couple of young ladies who came in and knelt before the Relics.  Even a group of about five Filipino Nuns took pictures of the Relics.  While a group of Americans was taking photos an attendant told everyone that the Chapel was closing.  It was closing because there was another funeral about to take place.  I walked around the neighborhood for a bit and went back to the church after the funeral was over.  That is when I took a few quick photos in the Chapel of the Relics.

There is a grocery store around the corner so we picked up some cereal, milk, and bananas for breakfast.  I also got a bag of “chocolate chip” cookies.  This is when I remembered that Italians don’t do cookies very well.  These, like most others cookies I’ve tried are really biscuits.  They may be good for dunking in coffee, but not very good for just a snack.

It is brutally HOT in Rome, 98°F and humid, and it has been hot the week before we arrived.  Did I mention that the apartment walls are about 18” thick?  So the apartment stays hot all night.

Later in the day after Sue had recovered a bit, and the sun was going down so that it was bearable in the shade, we went for a walk down to the church San Giovanni in Laterano.  It is only about a 15 minute walk from our apartment.  The entire walk is through a narrow park.  The park is a long grassy section between two parallel sidewalks, covered by trees.  It is very nice in the late afternoon.  The park was busy with families with kids, dog walkers, and seniors like us.  About halfway through the park there is a small outdoor bar with outdoor seating.  We visited this place quite often during our stay in Rome.  

I noticed while I was posting photos to the Google Photo Album that some of the photos have a button to Turn On Motion!  I have no idea how this happened, and I don’t know if it only works for me when I’m in the album.  You will see my surprised comments on a couple of the photos.

July 25, 2019 Thursday