Going Out With A Bang, And In With Open Hearts And A Smile

Napoleon invading the city might have been quieter. As December 31st wore on – here, there and everywhere throughout the day came the sound of firecrackers. Beginning at about 7pm, the pace picked up and by 8:30, you might have thought it was midnight already.

As the kids and I enjoyed a New Year’s dinner at the restaurant around the corner, a very loud boom seemed to come from the middle of the thoroughfare. The entire sidewalk dining section was shocked and went silent. After that moment of assessing whether we were in danger, people returned to their dinner conversations. I had thought I had seen someone drop the responsible firecracker out of a car into the middle of Viale di Trastevere, but I’ll never know.

The kids didn’t take well to Roman vigilante fireworks. An organized display in the sky at midnight is one thing, but guerrilla fireworks around every bend was New Year’s terrorism as far as Sennen and Ailyn were concerned. We didn’t stay and linger at the restaurant – whose food was only so-so and service was lacking.

The original plan was to walk around, get gelato and then walk up Janiculum Hill. Only the temperature had dropped a lot. I felt unusually cold. So the plan quickly morphed into each kid getting a cannoli from our local gelateria, heading back to the apartment and staying warm and safe until about 11pm when we would walk up to the park for fireworks viewing.

As we got into our nice warm apartment, two things happened simultaneously that changed the course of our evening. I began sneezing and my nose was beginning to run – which in combination with the feeling cold told me I might be coming down with something – though I didn’t want to divulge it to the kids. At the same time, the local fireworks picked up and the kids began asking if we HAD to go out later – they didn’t feel safe.

I told them I didn’t want them to miss out on an important memory – seeing the fireworks over Rome – if they valued it. I also didn’t want them to feel pressured or unsafe. You can’t enjoy an experience if you feel you’re walking through a minefield, which wasn’t that far from being literal. I was happy to put on another layer of clothing and go up to Janiculum Hill. And I didn’t want them doing anything to please me.

A few more booms and Sennen suggested we get under the covers of my bed and watch movies for the evening – and look out the windows at midnight. It was cold, I was sneezy – it suited me too. So our big night out became a Wicked watching party in bed. As much as I had wanted our New Year’s in Rome to resemble 2024 on the Seine and Notre Dame – which is an awesome memory – for how much longer will Sennen suggest movie watching together in bed? One win can be replaced by another.

To a lesser extent, I did question the safety of the evening. The number of ambulance sirens had also been increasing through the day into the night. It couldn’t be people trying to get their heart attacks in before 2026. The pattern seemed clear – increased fireworks, increased sirens until as we reached midnight both were at their peak.

When we jumped out of bed at two minutes to midnight to watch the “real” fireworks, we were able to catch a glimpse of them. I’m sure they would have been far more spectacular from the hill, but it wasn’t nothing – which was enough to make the kids feel like they saw some fireworks in Rome. The neighborhood also came alive with localized bangs – followed by more sirens.

The municipal fireworks display lasted 10-12 minutes. The local fireworks continued on intensely for another two hours and gradually reduced until about 9 am.

All of this loops back to Sennen’s conclusion that Italians are louder than other cultures – which Ailyn expressed this morning over our Giselda breakfast.

“I liked it a lot, but I don’t think I need to come back to Rome,” Sennen said. Ailyn didn’t adopt the same position, but she didn’t make it clear she wants to return. I think the firecrackers really put them over the top.

However, when we discussed our trip as a whole – and what we thought of Italy – both kids said they learned traveling isn’t all having a string of fun times, but learning to deal with the ones that aren’t as fun to enjoy the parts that are special and that they like. And that’s great.

Their whole lives, Emily and I have delivered the kids very polished experiences because we have taken them to places we know well – often where we speak the language and understand the systems. Sennen and Ailyn’s experience of Thailand has very much been linked to the fact that I lived there and speak Thai. We go places they might not otherwise go and have experiences not necessarily in the guide book.

This time we went somewhere new for me and where I don’t speak the language. It’s touristy – but not in the same vein as Thailand. In Rome, people are looking at important sites with the art, culture and history spanning the entirety of Western Civilization. In Thailand, we go down alleyways to see how life is really lived, eat at markets, get massages, see beautiful temples and swim with elephants. Certainly, they learn lots about culture, history and art – but in a less formal, concentrated way. Even Paris, where we had lots of art, culture, history and sites had more of a “soft edge”. Like Thailand, you can enjoy Paris for its lifestyle – the streets are interesting because they are so full of local life. So much of Rome feels like it’s setup for tourists. Instead of finding that comforting, I think we found it a little wearing and inauthentic.

All of this to say, the kids have grown and evolved from every trip we’ve ever taken – but on this one, I think they’ve learned some lessons about being travelers and adventurers. If I have a wish for my kids, it’s for them to be in love with the world and have the skills and know-how to continue exploring it themselves. I would have expected someplace edgier like India or Borneo to be challenging and teach them how to navigate what doesn’t meet expectations or doesn’t go smoothly. But I suppose how developed a country is and what it takes to navigate it comfortably aren’t necessarily linked.

For the first day of the New Year, we acknowledged how special it is to start 2026 together in Italy and how fortunate we are. Especially because we don’t get every New Year together, the years they have them mean all the more to me.

We also decided to take things down a notch. Given it’s New Years Day and our last day in Rome, the consensus was we wanted a slow day. Vacation should sometimes feel like vacation. We slept in (which also helped me battle my cold), had a leisurely brunch at Giselda where we talked for a long time and then walked our neighborhood, stumbling across a few streets we somehow missed before. There were a lot of people out also strolling and eating. It felt like we had the right idea. Even though the weather was turning colder, grayer and getting ready to rain, we were in a good mood, talking about all the things we saw we liked and what most impressed us over the past two and a half weeks.

Then came packing. We took a little late afternoon time to get everything into bags – including our new giant suitcase capable of holding all our dirty laundry so the kids’ bags could accommodate their newly acquired treasures.

At breakfast, I showed the kids an old blog post from 2010 when my carryon backpack ripped in the Rome Fiumicino Airport as I was changing planes. That led them to look at another post highlighting how Emily used to want me to smile more naturally for photos. I don’t smile well on command and on our year-around-the-world, my fake smile was bugging Emily. So, one day on Rhodes we took a series of selfies in which I tried to smile genuinely. It didn’t go well – or at least it took a lot of attempts. The kids were so entertained by these photos that they wanted to recreate their favorite of my fake-smiles.

So, I’ll start today’s photos with a few that highlight the original and our recreations. Starting the year with a real laugh about a fake smile seems like a good way to go.