In the middle of August of 2008, 2 weeks before my 17th birthday, a few months after the death of my paternal grandmother, and 2 months after the death of my maternal grandmother, me and my parents took a week of vacation in Rome. We went on plane from Elmas Airport (1 hour away from Oristano) to Ciampino, just 3 hours of voyage (from Oristano to Rome).

In the first days, we went on a sightsee of the city with the Victor Emmanuel II Monument, Porta Pia, the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain (where I tossed a coin in the water and made a wish, unrealized yet), Piazza Navona (which was all closed for repairs, but we saw the Obelisk Pamphilius from a distance), the Pantheon, Piazza del Popolo with its twin churches, the wonderful Spanish Steps between Piazza di Spagna and Trinità dei Monti.

After a couple of days, we decided to go to the Vatican (my second time “outside” of Italy), more precisely, to St. Peter’s Basilica. It was magnificent, and everything was going well. Until we decided to do the queue for the Dome. It was noon, or another hot hour like that, in the middle of a huge crowd, and one of my classmates calls me at the phone and tells me that one of our Middle School classmates, who was in a coma for a car accident from a week (and I had no knowledge of any of this), just died! We gave up on visiting the Dome, we semi-sat outside, in the square, and all of that triggered my vagal crisis and made me “faint”. Mom and a few strangers came to my aid…

The next day, we decided to step up our game, and we got in touch with my great-uncle, Grunkle An, if you will, but without the negative traits (100 points if you got the reference), who I met, for the first time, 2 months before, and lives next to the Vatican. He was an Italian ambassador in Paris, France, and when we went to his wonderful apartment, I saw he had the book “Stanchi (Tired)” by Italian comedic duo Ficarra & Picone, and he gave it to me as a birthday present! He took us to his favorite restaurant, we saw some catacombs, he brought us to Ponte Sant’Angelo (Aelian Bridge), where we heard a kid pointing at the River Tiber and yelling to his mother “Guarda, mamma! Una pantegana! (Look, mom! A rat!)” and we had a special tour of Castel Sant’Angelo.

The last day of vacation, my great-uncle gave us a ride to the Airport, and in 3-4 hours, we were back in Oristano, with 2 wonderful souvenirs: the book and a crystal cube with 3 Rome’s monuments inside.