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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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!