My kids love checking things off of lists.  This is a good thing.  I can make lists for how to get ready in the morning for school that actually get followed.  I can make lists for what to pack for a trip.  I can keep them interested a walking tour of a city simply by virtue of their being numbers to follow and check off as we go.  It should have come as no surprise, therefore, that when I read the Lonely Planet’s list of “Must See” attractions of ancient Rome, and Margaret realized that we only had one more to go before completing all five, her mind would be made up about what to do the next day.

As a result, we have spent half of each of the last two days in museums.  It was worthwhile.  Tomorrow, however, I want to wander medieval streets and do a lot of shopping.

The fifth and final stop on the Ancient Rome list was the Capitoline Museum.  We spent some time learning about Archimedes.  The museum has a temporary exhibit about him, a Greek mathematician, scientist, & engineer who was killed by the Romans, despite orders to the contrary, during the siege of Syracuse (in Greece) in 212 B.C.  The kids liked the hands-on example of an endless screw, the videos demonstrating the way to measure mass through water displacement, and replicas of the catapult that he designed.  The Capitoline is also home to scores of beautiful Roman statues, and we enjoyed looking for the characters we knew, like Diana, Bacchus, Hercules, and Cupid.

After the museum, we headed off with the promise of gelato toward the Trevi fountain, which we found crowded with teenagers and street vendors hawking toys to them.  Our gelato was mediocre (we should have consulted the guidebook for better place), but the girls aren’t connoisseurs.  They loved it.  Margaret is being adventurous and trying a new flavor whenever possible.  So far her favorite has been lemon rosemary.  Yesterday she tried coconut.

We walked on toward the Spanish Steps, and if anyone thinks that we walk the girls too far, they should have seen what happened when we got there.  After admiring the boat shaped fountain at the foot of the steps, Margaret turned around, challenged Steve to a race, and started running up. To both keep her safe and maintain his honor, Steve told Caroline to stay with me and took off after Margaret.  Already closer to Steve than me, Caroline yelled, “Wait for me!” and tried to run after them both.  Watching our five-year old race away from me up the stairs (she is surprisingly fast), I breathed a resigned sigh and began my own run upward just to keep her in sight.   Do we never stop?

Today, we enjoyed a coffee and croissant standing at a counter (like folks on their way to work do) as we hurried to the Vatican to try to catch Pope Francis’ Wednesday address at 10:30.  Lo and behold, we joined the crowd in seeing and hearing his homily, which was subsequently summarized in French, English, Spanish (again by him), Portuguese (I think), and German.  He encouraged us all to let Advent remind us that God draws near to us and encourages us to love each other and particularly to consider the needs of the poor.

Although we were wowed by the Sistine Chapel and the ancient Roman and Egyptian statues in the Vatican museums (the politics of whose collections were disturbing to Steve in particular), the fact that we started the day with Pope Francis topped it all for me.