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!