ROME, ITALY, Tuesday, March 22, 2011 — Tonight, we’ve decided to give you a few snapshots of favorite moments we don’t want to forget:

Boys brave the restroom in restaurant at lunch. Boys arrive back in hysterics with wet hands. Will had been unable to operate the cloth towel-roller. Dad says, “Let me show you!” and grabbed the cloth with both hands and ripped it off the wall. Will’s eyes widen. We pay the bill and leave quickly.

First nice dinner in Rome, at Il Bacaro, a lovely little restaurant in the historical center near our hotel. We dine like the Romans at 8 p.m. OK, so the restaurant was empty because real Romans dine much later. But still. Will in super bad mood — tired, hungry, you name it. We order orrechiette with broccoli and truffles, along with a bean-based soup for him and hope for the best. Rick gets mad because I order two appetizers — huh? I was thinking one starter and a main dish — is that so weird? I guess he’s in a food-mood too. So we are served a lovely dinner, with wonderful service, lovely ambiance, the whole experience you would imagine a dinner in Rome to be. But Will is grumpy, Rick is grumpy and it makes me super grumpy. Wine arrives and things are a little better. But then the first appetizer — duck pate. Will hates his soup, hates his pasta. Want some duck? we ask. Will bites. Then bites again. And nearly eats all the pate until he suddenly says, “Tastes like dog.” And puts it down. We break out in hysterics. We find out tonight he meant it tastes like the time he returned Zeus’s kiss by licking Zeus’s fur. Gross. But actually the pate was fabulous. We have not yet told him it was duck liver. Go Ducks!

We spent the morning at the national museum at the Palazzo Massimo viewing statues and busts of emperors both blood-thirsty and benevolent, empresses, and normal Roman aristocrats with enough money to commission statues of themselves. Unlike the Greeks, who loved perfection, the Romans were into realism, and wanted themselves portrayed as they really were, literally warts and all, to a point. We loved this one statue with the head of an elderly Roman man, wrinkled and losing his hair, and the body of a Greek god. So we all tried to decide on the statues we want to commission when we get home — Rick’s head on the Discobolus, my head on the crouching Aphrodite, and Will as the famous sculpture of a boy removing a thorn from his foot. Anyhow, it was hilarious to us; maybe you had to be there.

Will has taken to asking for the check, “Il conto, per favore,” impressing all the waiters. “Subito, signore,” they respond, “Right away, sir.” He does not hesitate to speak Italian, and had a little exchange in the elevator. “Grazie,” he said, as the man held the door for us. “Di niente,” responded the man, it was nothing.

While Will (nor Rick) has quite my passion for ancient Greek ceramics, Will surprises me at every turn. I think he’s not listening to my endless talks about history, Greek and Roman art, etc. etc., and then I turned to him yesterday at the Vatican museums and pointed to a pot and said, “So Will, what do you make of this?” “Dark ages,” he said, referring to a mysterious time between about 1100 BC and 900 BC when some catastrophe happened and cultures in the Mediterranean contracted severely. The pot was crudely made, had some decoration, but not well-wrought. He had nailed it. The label said 10th to 9th C. BC. My little archaeologist….

Anyhow, for our mothers, and Kym and Anne, who are the only ones who really love us (perhaps including Mike Francis, I mean, Zeus) here is the rundown of the day. Slept in, had Rome’s reputed best coffee at Sant’ Eustachio (standing up at the bar, which freaked Rick out) near the Pantheon, then amazing Roman and Greek sculpture at the National Museum at the Palazzo Massimo, including some amazing frescoes and mosaics. We then took a peek in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli (the former baths of Diocletian) but despite it’s Michelangelo-esque splendor, was too literal for Will. He wanted ruins, not some baths turned into a church.

So off to the mind-blowingly enormous Baths of Caracalla — massive atmospheric brick and concrete 3rd century AD baths on a scale hard to imagine. Very beautiful and evocative and room for an 8-year-old’s mind (and body) to wander. One disturbing note, according to Will: We were trying to find the metro station, and I saw some Japanese tourists who looked like they knew where they were going, and I COULDN’T ask them how to find the station, perhaps the easiest thing in the Japanese language to say!!! My brain is fried on Italian.

Then on to the Jewish Ghetto, where we had a much anticipated lunch (2:30 p.m. very Roman) of carciofi alla guidea (Jewish-style artichokes, which I unfortunately called carciofi alla guida, or driver’s artichokes, sounds similar, eh?) and some excellent pasta at Al Pompiere, a lovely oasis. The Jewish ghetto was extremely interesting, with 1st C. BC ruins juxtaposed against the 1943 horrors of Nazi deportations in one tiny square.

We then wandered through some lovely old streets, including the “old bank” and the “new bank,” presumably for the changing whims of the nearby river, and back to our hotel. We were exhausted, but Rick insisted we cab to a little pizzeria he’d read about in the New York Times — very cutting edge, very trendy, very Portland. Well, it turned out to be a REALLY little pizzeria, with two tiny bar tables barely able to accommodate six people. Rick, ever adventurous, had me order four trapizzini — small calzone-like pizzas — in increasing order of challenge for an American eater — meatball, chicken cacciatore, oxtail, and intestines. Well, guess who got stuck with the intestines. Yes, yours truly. But guess what? It was the best of the bunch. Absolutely fantastic. I hardly wanted to share a bite with Rick. Anyone who is going to Rome anytime soon, check out PIzzeria 00100 in Testaccio. Boy, it’s great having such an adventurous husband and son!

But as we headed out of the pizzeria, my stomach full of tripe and beer, I went to the counter to pay, and my brain tried to churn up the words, “I’d like to pay” or “How much is it” or “What do we owe you” but I just sort of gestured, and the proprietor looked concerned, and asked if everything was “buono” or good. I said “Buonissimo” meaning super good, and then he smiled and said, “Il conto?” I said, “Si, il conto, per favore.”