A Gelato Story

To be clear, Katherine and I made a few joking references to this comment throughout our trip in Rome:

 [9/17/16 1:15:57 PM] Friend: if you don't go to Gelateria del Teatro I'll consider it a personal insult

On our last night in Rome, we had been unsuccessful in getting there and did really want to try it before we left; to the point where we actually moved our dinner up by 30 minutes from 9:30 to 9pm so that we would guarantee making the midnight closing time.

We managed to successfully arrive at 11:30pm where the place was clearly closed and left us demoralized. Somehow the guy inside was waiting for his girlfriend. We basically begged for gelato in whatever mediocre Italian (but mostly English) we could muster He explained the place is only open until midnight during the summer, which was technically over.

He let us in the store to take this sad picture, note the lack of gelato, and his annoyingly happy face.

All he gave us were the options of some pops which weren’t put away and we went with the chocolate wine, and the banana rosemary – which we would later find out was a mis-translation and was actually banana raspberry – we probably could have figured that out with our eyes had we not been so flustered. Fail on getting anything herb related.

At this point I start looking to see if there are other locations (which there are) but all of them are listed at a midnight closing as well. We had zero chance getting there before midnight if we walked, and probably a 10 % chance if somehow we could find a cab but figured these places also likely closed at 11 now anyway so it wasn’t worth the effort. We gave up.

It is worth noting that we had this ugly looking gelato (egg nog, with a shot of whiskey poured on top) which tastes way better than it looks at a mediocre restaurant in Rome. It was by far the best thing we ate there.

Additionally, we had this gelato in Cinque Terre which was simply incredible. Basil gelato finished with olive oil and a crostini:

That is how the story was supposed to end, but as we walked along the river home we passed another Gelateria del Teatro where the doors were open….

A miracle oasis, but we (read: I) were still extremely skeptical.

Turns out it was somehow still open. 

We got in and got the following;

       

       Pineapple Mint

       Rosemary Honey and Lemon

       Garden Sage and Raspberry

       Lavender and White Peach

All were incredible. We thanked our friend for a great recommendation, and the universe for aligning in such a way that got us both delicious gelato, and a great story.

Reflections on This Blog (A Post On Not Posting)

This blog started with an excitement and passion for travel. I am not a huge Facebook user, and I felt this medium gave me a bit more freedom for sharing stories and photos. Originally there was some live blogging, which felt perfect later in the evenings when on vacation as a productive wind down activity. Never mind the reality that I enjoy writing.

Regardless, a lot of the documenting process was inevitably pushed into the future. I kept some notes here and there, and there are thousands of pictures archived from a couple different trips, waiting to be filtered through and posted. As vacations became busier, I would lose focus on daily updates. This could arguably be reflective of packing too much into a vacation, or it could be the reality that sitting in front of a glowing screen typing when in magical locations is plain silly.

Ultimately I wanted this to be a place to share experiences, because sharing is caring. Seriously though, it was both a combined way of having a centralized place to communicate my travels, and a way to outsource some memories for personal reflection. The former prefers quality, where the latter prefers quantity.  I want to write more, and I want to create good content, but that desire for ‘good’ is holding back quantity. Quality vs Quantity is always a delicate balance, and particularly difficult when there are two goals at odds.

Of course life has gotten in the way and I am a bit ‘behind.’ The second half of the Thailand trip hasn’t been covered, Turkey has only a few posts, and the blog doesn’t even know about Italy. From here on out I will try to push a little harder, maybe post things that might resemble photo dumps, but if that is all I can muster it will still be better than nothing.

Thanks for reading.