Sights (and sites) in Ferrara

It's been hot and we've been kind of lazy so we've just been hanging out around Ferrara and trying to see what the city has to offer.Without going inside any museums or anything, since little Robbie gets bored and Michael tends to yell. So here's a few things we've seen in the past week. 

 

A few blocks from our hotel is this huge monument with a fountain. Apparently it's some kind of monument for soldiers or something. The statue is of a guy pouring water on (bathing?) a bunch of babies.  

 

Wednesday nights are the busy nights in the square in Ferrara, so as we were hanging out waiting for the restaurants to open, these three girls walked over and started playing violin and singing. They were really good! Lots of people stopped to listen, and I think they made a good bit of money.We listened for about 15 minutes, then went to dinner planning to stop and listen more when we were finished but they had already left.

While driving around one of the house hunting days, we saw a park with a zip line and a few slides built into the side of the hill. It was also by the wall, which we had been wanting to check out. Our hotel is right in the middle of Ferrara, so nothing is too far away. We decided to walk over there and check it out.

The next day we decided to walk to another park. At this one, there was a fountain and some playground equipment and lots of walking trails. We hung out for a bit, played, then the jungle gym turned into an obstacle course/speed challenge (Robbie is the undisputed champion of making it up over the "web", up to the slide, and down in the shortest amount of time). We even had to go back today for little Robbie to try to win, but alas, he was unsuccessful!

Little Robbie leaves on Tuesday, so this is our last weekend to hang out and enjoy Italy before he leaves.  Not sure we have anything major planned, but I'm sure we'll be visiting many of these spots again in the next couple of days!

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

Happy Birthday Robbie!

 

Venice!

We decided we wanted to see as many neat things as we could before little Robbie goes back to Texas, and heard that Venice was an easy trip from Ferrara. Robbie had the day off on Friday, so we decided to hop on the train and head to  Venice for the day.

It was beautiful. I feel like most of these posts are going to be the kind where there isn't much I can say about it and just post a bunch of pictures, but I'll try.  The train ride was a straight shot (no train changes) from Ferrara and took a little over an hour.  It was actually really comfortable and nice--definitely a good way to see the country.

Then we arrived in Venice.  It was beautiful from the first glance out of the train station and I made Robbie take a picture of us, but that was nothing compared to the rest of the city.

We first stopped and had lunch at a pizza restaurant that took FOREVER.  We had been warned that in Italy sometimes things don't really happen on a schedule. It's very laid back and the land of "domani" (tomorrow). Apparently this can be especially true in the restaurants where they take awhile to get around to you, but we hadn't experienced that in Ferrara.  But, we finally got food, drinks, ate, paid, and were on our way.

We knew we wanted to get to Piazza San Marco, but kind of took the scenic way around.  The streets are gorgeous. The canals are wonderful. Some of the streets are just wide enough for one person to squeeze through.  I loved walking through and seeing laundry hanging from the windows and stuff. It was very charming.

It was also very hot and humid. And crowded.  There were places where really only two people could fit side by side, and people would stop in front of you for no reason and completely block the way which got frustrating.  It was very touristy--lots of shops that all sold the same things (postcards, keychains, and carnival masks).

We finally got to the Piazza and looked around. It was huge and stunning. Because it was so hot, we opted not to wait in the long line to actually go into the cathedral, so that'll be something we do next time. But even just the outside is impressive.  Michael liked the pigeons.

We sat for a little while on the steps down to the water and just hung out before walking back to the train station.  We probably walked about 5 or 6 miles, which is a lot in 100 degree weather, and even more with a 20 pound baby on your back.  But overall, it was a really fun trip and we can't wait to go back when it is cooler and there are fewer people around!

We Picked a House!

Well, an apartment anyway.  We had talked a bit about this apartment before we even got out here--the guy who was originally our sponsor moved about 2 weeks ago and he had described his place and sent us pictures. It was the 6th place we looked at. We were getting a little tired, and had high hopes for this last place on our list... Once we saw it, we decided to take it. 

 

One of my main priorities for a house was that it be near the "wall". I may have mentioned before, Ferrara is surrounded by about 9 miles of a big wall built in the 15th and 16th centuries. There are walking and biking paths on top of the wall and below it, there are lots of little parks along the route (including one with a small zip line and some slides build down the hill), and it's a big part of my "get back in shape while in Italy" goal.  While we originally wanted to live inside the wall to really get the Italy experience, the other houses didn't really jump out at us.  I was nervous about too many stairs with Michael and didn't want to spend my days trying to keep him from falling down marble staircases. Parking also would have been a problem at many of them, and the buildings were so close together it was a little claustrophobic.

 

This apartment is on the 6th floor of a building just outside the wall.  You can see it from one of the three (!) terraces. It's also very close to a grocery store, has a garage space, and a little more open space to walk and play.  The apartment itself has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a study, a kitchen, and a living/dining room.  It's pretty much move-in ready, except that the landlord is in Greece and we don't know when exactly he'll return.  It is fully furnished, but we're going to have them remove most of the furniture and wall hangings so we can put our own stuff up and it won't seem too full and cluttered. 

 

I'm really excited to move in and make it ours. It's one of the smaller places we looked at, but the rent is more reasonable and I'm actually looking forward to having a little less space to maintain.  Their goal for us moving in is the end of August/beginning of September (to allow for the landlord to return and accounting for the August holiday that is coming up where nothing in Italy gets done).  Though we'll still be in the hotel for awhile, it's nice to have some progress and feel like we're one step closer to getting settled somewhere.

 

So pictures! Here's what it looks like now--I'll post more once we get moved in and get it set up the way we like.

 

 Michael's room

 

 Bathroom

 



 Bathroom (they're right across the hall from each other)

 



 Master bedroom

 

 Little Robbie's room/guest room with a terrace

 

 Kitchen (with another small terrace)

 

 Living room

 Study

 



 View down the street