Vicenza

Not a lot to talk about today.  We drove up to the Army base in Vicenza to get some of the paperwork out of the way, and that was about it.  Michael had a rough night last night, so we were up with him from about 12:30-3:30 am.  Around 1:30, Robbie just decided to take him for a walk so I could try and get some sleep.  They were out for about an hour and a half, then Robbie couldn't get back to sleep and was up the rest of the night.  It made for a long day today! But he got some neat pictures of the castle and cathedral all lit up at night:

We had to go to Vicenza today to take care of some stuff--we got our Italian drivers licenses (even though we don't have our car yet), made a trip to the cell phone store, the PX, Commissary, and some other general errands.  Thankfully it all went pretty smoothly (which never happens)!  Vicenza is about an hour and a half away, so we enjoyed the drive down the Autostrada looking at the Italian countryside. There are so many gorgeous churches with tall spires even in the smallest towns. We also passed another castle we should probably check out sometime.

The highlight of the drive was passing several fields full of thousands and thousands of sunflowers. I've never seen anything like it before.  We stopped on the way back to take some pictures:

Tomorrow is more house hunting, then in the evening some of the kids of Robbie's coworkers are having a recital, so we're going to go to that and meet some people. 

House Hunting Part I

We started out the day pretty lazy--Robbie, Michael, and I went down to eat the hotel's breakfast buffet.  The standard breakfast here consists of pastries and coffee/espresso.  There was a huge assortment of different kinds of pastries plus cereal, yogurt, some meats and cheeses, fruit, juice, and a coffee machine that made various different types of coffees.  We went back to the hotel and hung out for a while, then Michael was ready to take his first nap (and so was I). By the time we woke up, we didn't really have enough time to go explore before we were getting picked up to look for houses, so we just stayed in the room.

We looked at four houses today and were pleasantly surprised by what we saw.  When we were looking online before we came, all the houses and apartments looked really tiny and cramped.  We saw some pretty huge, spacious places.  The first house was our favorite--it was three stories plus a basement.  The first floor had a living room type area with a weird spiral staircase that led up to one of the bedrooms.  The kitchen, dining room, and a bathroom were also downstairs and opened into a little yard, which is apparently very hard to come by "inside the wall" where we were looking.  The second floor had the bedrooms and bathroom.  The staircase was carpeted, but according to the landlord, it was made of gorgeous white marble so if we pick that one, we'll request that they remove the carpet.  There's some funky tile in the bathroom and one of the bedrooms, but that just adds to the charm.  The third floor is just a room with skylights that could be used as an office. Any of the furniture or pictures or whatever that are in the house we can use.  If we want them to take stuff out, they'll do that too.  There are AC units in the upstairs bedrooms, but we'll probably negotiate for one downstairs as well.  Here are some pictures:


Master Bedroom

The yard

 

Front room with the spiral staircase

Attic room

Smaller bedroom

The second house was just huge.  The house itself was three stories with all kinds of bedrooms and bathrooms, a terrace, a bigger kitchen, a yard, and a guest house.  While it was a gorgeous house as well, it was just too big. There's no way we could use that much space.  The third was a bright, airy apartment on the third floor of a building about a block away from the castle.  It was nice, and is still in the running, but the kitchen needed some work (it didn't have an oven), and had one less bedroom than we were hoping for. The last apartment was two stories, had a tiny garden/yard but the layout was a little weird (the downstairs bathroom was at the end of the kitchen) and the rooms were smaller than we'd like.

We still have more houses to look at Wednesday and Friday.  We're hopeful the first one will work out if we still like it after we see the rest and nobody swoops in and gets it first!  Michael stayed with our sponsor's daughter while we went and did very well.  Apparently after they played for a couple of hours he crawled over to his car seat, climbed in, and put himself to sleep until we got home.  When he woke up, I was eating a peach and he crawled in my lap and pretty much ate the whole thing for me:

The little peach thief

 



We went out again to dinner at a little seafood place downstairs from the hotel. It was a little different than the more traditional Italian food we've eaten so far, so it wasn't as big of a hit as the past two nights.  I also met one of Robbie's soon to be coworkers who is staying in our same hotel as I was walking up the stairs, so she came in and talked to us a little bit and gave us some ideas about places to visit and things to do. 

Tomorrow we're heading up to Vicenza to do some inprocessing stuff and that should take most of the day.

Day 2: Hot in Ferrara

Today was full day #2 in Ferrara, and since it was a weekend we didn't have any official business to take care of and had the day to ourselves.  We had big plans for the day, but it's been so hot here--a respectable 102 degrees today with 35% humidity.  Which feels at least 150 when you're jet lagged, tired, and lugging around a sometimes fussy baby. There are also tons of mosquitoes, and according to our waiter last night, they never go away. Even in the winter. But we forced ourselves out anyway, and first went to the castle this morning.  The Castello Estense has four towers and is surrounded by a moat with three draw-bridges into it. We missed the guided tour, which was probably best since Michael tends to be a little unpredictable, and just walked around ourselves.  We saw the dungeons, the kitchens, the chapel, and all the rooms on the second floor with beautiful frescoes on the ceilings.

The castle, from Wikipedia

 

Robbie and Carolyn by the cannonballs.

 

 

 

 

Creepy face in one of the paintings

 

Ceiling Frescoes

 

 

After that, we were hungry so we went back to the hotel and ate. Michael took a nap, and we tried to take it easy and stay out of the heat a little while.  Once we felt better, we decided to venture back out to the cathedral.  I took the super-quick walk around because there was an actual service going on and Michael decided he wanted to see how loud he could make his voice echo, but Robbie and little Robbie stayed in for a while and got the whole experience, including listening to the pipe organ. The church is beautiful, but our pictures are better than any description I could type!

 

 

 

We got back "home" and Michael needed another nap. He woke up around 8:pm (ugh... that's supposed to be bedtime) and we went out to our first Italian pizzeria! Our sponsors had said they weren't very impressed by the pizza in Ferrara, but we loved it!  It has a thin crust. The place we went cooked the pizzas in a fire right by the entrance to the restaurant.  Our waiter, Paulo was super nice and thankfully not only was happy to speak English to us (he wanted to work on his English skills) but also gave us a few pointers on our Italian and came back to talk to us the whole time we were eating.  We heard that some of the people in Ferrara aren't too friendly, but we've lucked out in the waiter department.  Both waiters we've had at dinner so far were great, very accommodating, and understanding that our Italian is pretty much non-existent.  We were glad to find good pizza, but tonight was the last night they were open before they go on vacation until August 23.  Paulo said he'd wave us down to talk if he saw us walking around town.

Robbie and little Robbie spent some time last night going through some Italian lessons after Michael and I went to bed to try to improve.  It an be intimidating to go out knowing we can't understand what people say. The castle was full of older Italian, probably volunteer docents who kept trying to talk to us and give us instructions we didn't understand.  We got along with the few words we know and some pantomiming, but I think Robbie and I both just try to smile and nod and not look totally lost.  We're all feeling the push to learn more Italian, and hopefully we'll have time to sit down and really work on it while.

We are still trying to adjust to the time change. I think little Robbie is there, but Michael is having a tough time and consequently, Robbie and I are having some problems.  Both nights we've been here and this morning, Michael has woken up almost inconsolable in the middle of the night because he's starving. We have to get up and feed him real food before he'll go back to sleep, usually an hour and a half to two hours later. I've tried to feed him as much as I can throughout the day to try to help with the problem today, so we'll see if it helps. 

We have tomorrow morning free, then are going to see 4 houses in the afternoon. It's supposed to be rainy, so maybe it will be cooler.  Hopefully we find something we like!



First Day in Italy!

We made it to Italy! 



At the airport in Frankfurt.

We left Tucson at about 8:00 am and flew to Phoenix, Charlotte, Frankfurt, and finally Bologna.  The flights were pretty uneventful--a few small delays, an airport rush or two, but we made it on time to Bologna all in one piece and with surprisingly few baby meltdowns.  Little Robbie is a great traveler, and Michael slept the majority of our flying time. 


Our sponsors picked us up and drove us to our hotel in downtown Ferrara.  We're within easy walking distance to the big cathedral, the castle, and tons of little shops and restaurants.  They brought us a big bag of groceries, let us get settled in, then picked us up and took us back to their house for dinner to help keep us awake until bedtime.  After dinner we made it back to the hotel and went to bed.  Little Robbie slept all night. Michael woke up at about 1 am starving and had to eat some actual food before he finally settled back down at about 2:30, and Robbie and I were up and down throughout the night, but felt much, much better after finally getting some sleep.



Outside our hotel

To make sure we woke up in time this morning (to help with getting used to the time change), our sponsors came and picked us up to take us to the grocery store at 10. That was an experience! The store was a big Wal-Mart type with food and electronics, toys, small kitchen appliances, etc. All four wheels on the shopping carts turn, so you can glide your shopping cart sideways to "parallel park" easily, but it makes it harder to turn normally. The store was packed--our sponsor said if we can handle grocery shopping on a Saturday, we'll be good. They have all the usual stuff--a large bakery with all kinds of fresh baked breads and sweets, a butcher, a big produce section with amazing fruits and vegetables.  I ate a nectarine this afternoon and it was probably one of the best I've had. When picking out produce at the store, you have to wear a plastic glove before touching any of the fruits and vegetables.  We were told if you don't, you'll probably get yelled at.  Then you put them in a bag, weigh them, and it prints a sticker you can put on for the cashiers to ring up.  They also don't bag your groceries and don't provide bags, so you have to get your own reusable ones and bring them to the store each time. 

 

Among our finds at the grocery store was horse meat baby food.  Robbie and little Robbie really wanted to get some for Michael, but of course weren't going to try it themselves.  I intervened on Michael's behalf.

After the store we took a little driving tour of Ferrara. It's such a small city, but it might as well be Los Angeles to me right now.  I have no idea where anything is and no sense of direction. They assure me that'll come! We stopped by a park and had our first Italian gelato, then stopped at a pastry shop and got some little pizzas and a macaroni filled pastry (neither of which we've tried yet).

 

 

Then is was back to the hotel for naps.  Michael was so tired at one point he woke up, tried to crawl away, then gave up and face planted back onto the bed and fell back to sleep. I think that's about how we all felt! Once we woke up, we decided to walk around the city a little bit. We didn't really go in anywhere, just looked around at what was close. We're only about a block away from the castle, the cathedral, and a bunch of shops and restaurants.  It took us awhile to figure out why none of the restaurants were open. I guess most of them are open for lunch then don't open for dinner until about 7:30. We had our first Italian dinner at a little restaurant right downstairs from the hotel and it was wonderful!  Little Robbie got spaghetti, Robbie and I got Ferrara's specialty--a pumpkin-filled ravioli with meat sauce.  Our waiter brought us some bruschetta  and it was all amazing.  Everything you hear about how good Italian pasta is isn't an exaggeration!

We're back up in our room now trying to wind down for bed. Tomorrow is Sunday, so we're planning on visiting the castle, the wall around the city, and actually going into the cathedral. Monday we start house hunting!