We got to see Aaron and Lynne again (I think we saw them more this trip than we did in the entire year of 2003! Which is great!) We saw Ronnie and Miss Margaret who was the kids’ Sunday school teacher and several others that we care so much about. The service was fantastic and the teacwas from the Bible and very heartfelt.
We took a taxi to church and realized we needed a ride back to Tynemouth so Charlie gave us a ride thankfully. I coined him our taxi driver since he was also kind enough to take us to Aaron’s Gypsy Eyes gig in Boldon that night.
We visited the market again so see if we had missed anything the day before. Cam made me have Marshalls fish and chips again which was fine. It truly is the best fish in chips in the world!
We visited the Priory and Castle,which I know was a highlight for him. This is where his love of history was shining. He bought a program and read everything about all of the parts of the priory that used to just be a big playground for him when he was 8. This time is was different.
Collingwood Monument. We could walk to this from our flat and the kids loved to play around it.
- Cam stopped to thoroughly read every board. He also stopped to sit and read the guide book he bought. He loves this history stuff!
- We took a break at the learning center at the Priory. I used the restroom (or "toilets" as they call them here) and walked out to Cam standing in this! He thought he was pretty funny but he scared the dickens out of me!
- Taking a break to get out of the wind and rain and read the guidbook.
- The Priory
We were getting weary to we opted to skip dinner and rest a while and pack before visiting the Johnsons house to see Suzanne and her husband Marc and son, Micah. Suzanne was Cam and Hailey’s only babysitter while we lived in Tynemouth in 2003. We got her name from the people we were renting our flat from. In turn, she told us about the church where her dad was pastor and that’s how we ended up at NSEC. We had a wonderful time chatting with them and also seeing Michelle! Michelle Suzanne’s younger sister and she is always fun to talk with. The only Johnson family member missing was Daniel and his family that are living in Nottingham now. Sure hope we can meet up with them some day!
Charlie (Jay’s friend from NSEC) picked us up at the hotel and we went for our big unknown adventure…Sleepers pub in Bolden near Sunderland for a Gypsy Eyes gig with Aaron as bass player. Charlie is a sportsman so he opted for a small detour past Sunderland Stadium of LightJ We were not sure what we would encounter when we got to Sleepers but it turned out to be fantastic and had we not had to get up at 3am the next day, I’m sure we would have stayed until they finished playing for the night. The band was out of this world! I have to admit it was really fun to watch “the rev” jam out to some pretty great classic rock and roll tunes
- He gets tired of me taking pictures all of the time. The smail came when the ravioli showed up. It got bigger when we stopped for melon gelato afterwards.
- View from restaurant in front of Pantheon. Food was okay, view was stunning and inspiring.
- Pantheon oculus. My students always find this so fascinating to learn how this was built so very long ago. Check out this link: http://www.rome.info/pantheon/
3:15 am came too soon but I hadn’t slept well so it really was more like staying up all night. Took the taxi to Newcastle airport, flight to Heathrow, very very crowded and long (10 minutes at least) bus ride to the plane and we were finally in Rome! For the record, I’ve always loved British Airways and I still do. We had tons of leg room so I could lean on my tray table no problem and we got food on both legs.
Arriving in Rome we waited for about 45 minutes for our luggage and then found our arranged taxi driver with our name displayed on his ipad. I’ve always wanted to do that! He was quiet unfortunately but we had a nice ride to the Hotel and here we are. I think I’m up to date on blogs now.
We opted to go eat at a place we researched that was really a nice small mom and pop type restaurant called Enoteca Corsi, with a lovely small menu. We both had wine and pasta and bread and then went for gelato! We napped for almost 3 hours and then went on a “heart of Rome” tour from our Rick Steves book.
Noticing that all of the workers here know English and I don’t even get to try my Italian…except the GRAZIE!!! ….which I learned how to say much better.
Cam chose to have dinner at a touristy place in front of the Pantheon. I try to steer clear of these places where the servers stand outside and try to get you to come in, where the menu is in English and Italian etc.. but he was right, the view was to die for and it wasn't any pricier than anywhere else. This was where we got to try our first "Il Vino Rossa de la Casa" the official only phrase I know in Italian. It came in a little jug and was great!
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