Misc Pictures

We've been in Italy for almost 2 weeks now!  It's been fun, but still feels like a vacation. Our Italian is sloooowly improving (we think) and I definitely don't feel the culture shock I did when I went to Germany in 2000 (or whenever that was).  Maybe because I'm older. Or because I learned on that trip not to expect ice or refills of my tiny drinks, that you specifically have to order water "naturale" to get regular water (as opposed to sparkling), the streets are tiny, and there are giant, ugly, lumbering vans made by Mercedes.

There are a couple things unique to here. I don't know if it's all over Italy, or more of a Ferrara thing.  There's a large northern African immigrant population here.  Apparently many of them haven't gotten the proper paperwork to be able to work here, so they've kind of created a job for themselves: they hang out in parking lots and tell you where to park.  There's a small parking lot right outside our hotel window and Michael and I watch this every day.  The same guy is there every day. He stands in the parking lot, and when cars come in, he points to an empty spot.  Then waits by their car or follows them to the pay station to get money for his services.  It's kind of funny--like people wouldn't know where to park otherwise?  I've seen the guy in "our" parking lot occasionally help someone carry their shopping bags across the parking lot of they have a bunch of them or something, but it's mostly just pointing at empty parking spots.  Apparently at the grocery store, they wait to take your cart back for you.  But here, you have to put either a 1 or 2 euro coin into the cart to use it, then when you take it back, you get your money back.  So they follow you back to your car and then take your cart (and euro).

We're also not used to the schedule here that things operate on.  Stores and restaurants are open in the mornings. Then, Italians eat their largest meals at lunchtime, so everything closes for 2-3 hours in the middle of the afternoon.  The restaurants don't open back up again for dinner until around 7.  We always end up trying to kill time somewhere or sit around our hotel room staring at each other waiting for dinner to start. 

I think we're adjusting well. We're getting anxious to move out of the hotel and into our apartment, but it will still probably be 3 weeks before that happens.  It's been really hot since we've been here, so we've spent more time in our room than we would like.  So here are some random pictures of the boys playing in the hotel room, and some of our quick trips around town.

Baby taco



A little wet after playing in the fountains

 Fountain water fight

Voldemort?

 Michael watching videos of himself. His favorite thing to do.

 Little climber playing in the cabinets.

Playing with Daddy