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Still, and I can’t stress this enough: The coffee is worth it.

We continue to traverse the little cobblestone streets and we’re just about ready to give up and grab a cab when we spy a glint of a copper espresso maker inside a restaurant on the corner across from a gelato shop. We step inside the pristine storefront to order, finding it delightfully empty. Noting how hot and haggard we are, the barista suggests we sit outside and enjoy our drinks, sending a non-Singaporean-chasing-waitress to seat us immediately. Fletch asks for a
caffè macchiato
and I order a
caffè freddo
, which I assume is an iced coffee.

I assume wrong, but this is yet another in a series of happy Roman accidents. Instead of receiving a big glass of coffee over ice that I can doctor with the Italian version of Splenda and milk, I’m served what’s essentially a straight-up, shaken coffee martini, less the liquor.

This turns into one of those moments on the trip when we’ve inadvertently veered off the beaten path, only to discover something we never expected yet suddenly can’t imagine ever living without. Somehow this barista managed to compile everything that’s remarkable about a big-assed iced coffee, and compress it into one simple drink that is espresso at its very essence.

Fletch raises his miniature teacup at me. “If this macchiato is any indication, then we definitely need to eat something here,” he declares.

We order a couple of pizzas—Fletch has his with prosciutto and I get the one with bresaola (slices of air-dried, salted beef), rocket, and Parmesan. While we wait for our food, we continue to bask in the scenery.

He asks, “Have you decided if this is your Best Day yet?”

I’m not hot to the point of expiration now, thanks to the power of my chilly glass of miracle juice, so I’m able to better consider his question. After arriving on Italian soil, I amended my bucket list to
have a go-to greatest day of my life for when people ask
. Seems like everyone has an example, like, “That time we were scuba diving in the Galapagos Islands and narrowly escaped the Great White,” or “When my son was born,” or “Our wedding day,” but I’m not PADI certified, we don’t have kids, and our wedding? Was an unmitigated disaster. Thus far, I’ve had an awful lot of nice days in my life, but I’m not sure I can say that any of them have qualified as The Best.

The Best Day doesn’t necessarily have to be conflict-free or picture perfect from start to finish. Rather, said day should contain a variety of experiences and sensations. Plus, the day’s events could illuminate an answer to a long-asked question. A Best Day definitely will provide the fodder for a story I can tell for the rest of my life.

So far, today’s been pretty damn good. Our morning began with another wonderful breakfast, including mortadella, buffalo mozzarella, and fresh blood orange juice so sweet that you’d swear it was Hawaiian punch. Then, I was still tired, having finally succumbed to the jet lag, so I sent Fletch out on his own while I rested. I watched Italian television and couldn’t believe my fine fortune upon discovering
Vecchi Bastardi
(Old Bastards), which is
essentially their version of
Jackass
meets
Betty White’s Off Their Rockers
with oldsters pulling pranks on young punks.

Fletch returned to the hotel a couple of hours later with more new clothes, delighting again in how everything here fits him perfectly. Plus, this was the first time he tried to find his way around the city on his own. He went out with the intention of buying a couple of ten-euro belts he’d seen, but instead he allowed a salesman to talk him into a sweet pair of navy blue loafers.

I’ve been shocked at how easily Fletch has been trying new things and calmly navigating all that’s uncertain. When at home, he’s not so great about relaxing, but here? He is Mr. Chill. He is Dr. Cool. Twenty years after we first met, he’s still able to surprise me! That alone practically qualifies as Best Day material.

Add the Vatican trip into the mix, with the agony of sweat rolling down the crack of my ass while coupled with the ecstasy of a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and we may well have a Best Day contender.

“Maybe,” I gamely reply.

He smiles and holds my hand as he takes a sip of his macchiato. The foam sticks to his mustache, which is apparently by design. Honestly, I suspect he likes having his whiskers trap the flavor for a future savor.

“Maybe? What are you talking about,
maybe
? We’ve seen everything good. We’ve seen the whole city! We went to a museum—we saw priceless works of art! We ate pancreas!” he says, quoting one
of my favorite lines from
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
. “Screw your
maybe
. Today’s a keeper for me.”

We content ourselves with our drinks as we look around. “You know, this area feels like what Rome really is,” I say. “We’ve seen so many monuments and so much tourist stuff that I’m not sure we’ve gotten enough of a taste for what it’s like to actually
be
Roman, to live
here
. Like, when people come to Chicago and they check out the Bean and go to Navy Pier? Yeah, the sights are landmarks but visiting them doesn’t give you a sense of what it’s like to
live
in Chicago. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Fletch nods, and catches his upper lip with his lower lip, checking for stray foam. “Sure, it’s the difference between eating lunch at a nice chain restaurant on Michigan Avenue versus having brunch outside at Lula’s in Logan Square. One isn’t better than the other, per se, but the latter is where the actual Chicagoans are. When
you
go somewhere new, you want to get an idea of how they live.”

He’s right; I’m perpetually fascinated by how other people go about their lives, especially in new places, to the point I wish I could peek in their windows in a nonthreating-or-illegal way. I’m desperately curious whether they know something I don’t, and if so, can they teach me? And what makes them tick? What guides their choices? Why
this
house,
this
neighborhood,
this
city,
this
job,
this
spouse? What’s important to them? How do
they
avoid regrets? In what ways are they trying to live their lives to the fullest?

(Sidebar: I suspect these questions are why I’m so fascinated by reality television. Yeah, I’m a small enough person to admit I enjoy seeing the bitch who’s not here to make friends have her extensions yanked in a pique of rage, but that doesn’t negate how fascinated I am with what happened in their lives to lead them to the extensions-yanking portion of the show to begin with.)

So, naturally I have to wonder what it’s like to live in the very
cradle of civilization. Do the Romans exist in a perpetual state of wonder, all, “My God, this is freaking stunning!” upon seeing the Trevi Fountain on their way to their jobs as legal secretaries and orthodontists every day? Does it take their breath away to stroll the very paths that Julius Caesar once walked? Or is it human nature to become immune to one’s surroundings after a while? If so, is that the case for both beauty
and
misery—does everything eventually all become familiar to the point of forgettable?

When I lived in downtown Chicago, I valued having art and culture at my fingertips, but I never really dwelled on what that opportunity meant. Instead, what truly lit my fire were the new and often benign happenings, like when the three-story Whole Foods opened up on Kingsbury Street. Sure, I was grateful to have the option of gazing upon a non-bullshit Matisse painting whenever I wanted, but, honestly, buying organic Rainer cherries had a much larger impact on my day-to-day life.

(Shameful. But honest.)

While we eat and ponder, I notice some action about halfway down the block. “Fletch—check out those guys over there, smoking while they paint the shutters. I love that there’s nothing here that can’t be done with a lit cigarette. I wonder why the smoking doesn’t bother me? Remember the last time we went to Vegas? I wanted to buy a respirator!”

Fletch cranes his head around to see what’s happening behind him, appraising the two men in the distance at their outdoor workstations. One looks to be in his fifties, and the other one is probably in his seventies. Maybe they’re father and son? They’re standing in front of a shutter repair shop, putting the finishing touches on a recent job. Although they’re doing manual labor, they’re both wearing tailored slacks and dressy leather shoes, which neatly encapsulates everything that’s charmed me so much about this place. Rome engenders a certain level of formality and
elegance. I bet, unlike me, no one here even
owns
a pair of yoga pants, let alone spends seventy-five percent of their non-yoga-doing lives in them.

“I’ve noticed that,” he says. “The cigarettes don’t stink. I wonder if the Italians do something different during the manufacturing process? Or the filters are different?”

Given the quality of everything else we’ve experienced so far, I guess it stands to reason the Italians would rule tobacco, too.

The gentlemen have a couple of battered sawhorses set up, with two of the same large shutters that we’ve seen all over the neighborhood placed on top of them. They wield two crusty cans of forest green paint, which they slowly but meticulously apply with wide, worn brushes. They take a few strokes and then pause to raise their faces to the sun, inhaling the sweet Roman air.

And just like that, any question of whether or not the Romans appreciate their surroundings is answered.

I continue to watch them paint, their practiced hands performing the same operations so deftly that they don’t even need to look at their work. They smoke, they laugh, and they chat with such enthusiasm and familiarity that I’m suddenly transported to the back room of my Sicilian grandfather’s shoe repair shop. In this moment, these men remind me so much of my grampa Vitale that it hurts my heart.

While they labor, a small dog wanders out of their shop, thus snapping me out of my melancholy because he’s the most ridiculous creature I’ve ever seen. The dog is some sort of black-and-white terrier, deep-chested and extra long, but with stubby little legs. What’s incongruous is that he has the head of a horse. It’s a miracle of physics that he’s able to support his enormous melon with his tiny body.

“Look at that little guy!” I exclaim. At this point, Fletch is accustomed to me pointing out every pup in the city. I can’t get over how different the dogs are here, from their personalities to their
relationships with their owners to their level of independence. Their physicality is the biggest difference, as they’re all so squatty. There has to be some kind of story why they’re such low-riders. I assume these breeds were the best at catching rats, which would have been abundant because of the plague.

BTW, does everything here relate to the plague? I make a mental note to find a book about the Black Death when I get home, as clearly this was a
thing
.

(Sidebar: At home, I learn the Black Death killed more than two hundred million Europeans in the most gruesome and painful way imaginable, so yes, (a) this devastating pandemic was more than a
thing
, and (b) I am an asshole who’s clearly never taken a history course on anything other than Lewis and Clark. But that’s going to change soon.)

“That is the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen,” he says, not unkindly.

I reply, “Yet somehow he’s possibly also the cutest.”

A complicated set of body harnesses completes Ugly Dog’s ensemble, giving him the appearance of a tiny leather daddy or a miniature Hannibal Lecter. The dog circles each of the sawhorses, as though inspecting his masters’ work. Satisfied with their progress, and that they did not, in fact, miss a spot, he settles into a sunny patch a few feet in front of them.

Our pizzas arrive and we dive in—they’re just as good as we’d hoped! Fletch takes an enthusiastic bite of his pizza, hoovering in an entire slice of prosciutto in one mouthful. The downside of this trip is that I’m going to be ruined for regular pizza, particularly Chicago-style, which I never quite liked. The crust here is so thin, and
the cheese so sparse, with but a spoonful of tomato sauce. There’s only a couple of ounces of thinly sliced meats on top, so technically, their pizzas are inconsequential, but each bite is so fresh and packed with flavor that there’s no need to go over-the-top with the toppings. Plus, I like that this pizza hasn’t been dusted with cornmeal to keep it from sticking in a not-hot-enough oven—somehow cornmeal feels like a shortcut.