Don't know when the next post will be. Have to investigate internet access in Rieti as I am spending all my time there waiting for "le gas" I may have to resort to emails again, so thanks for being patient...
ciao ciao,
joelle
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Firenze and Internet cafes
Colin and I are in the internet cafe here in Florence. We so desparately need a connection to home, that we are will to pay to sit in the °caldo bruto° (brutal heat) to use their computers (of course, no AC in here...)
We arrived in Florence last night. It took about 3 hours to get here from our apartment in Rieti. We stopped for dinner on the highway (the A1) and the °chef express° service station is fast food italian style. Pasta made fresh for you with choices of sauce, and of course wine is a choice of beverage. In a rest stop. It's Italy dontcha know (Side note: caught the latest video from the Pussycat Dolls on Italian MTV. Wow they are trashy and don't make American women look good at all!!!)
Then thank goodness Brian was driving because the GPS had us going every which way to get to our convent. Yes, we are staying in a convent. It's actually beautiful. Brian joked that we were dropping Julia off there. The convent is Casa Santo Nome di Gesu. You can try and find it at www.fmmfirenze.it Franciscan sisters own it. For those of you familiar with Florence, it' on the south side of the Arno near the Pitti Palace. The kids are in a quad room with private bath and amazing fresco on the ceiling - Ed particulary likes the naked cherubs. ANd Brian and I are in a double donw the hall. Double. Convent. Single beds for all.
Luckily the rooms came with fans.
Up this AM for nice breakast and my first cup of coffee in 2 days... ah wonderful.
Then a walk down and across the river into the city center. We all climbed the 414 steps of the Campanile (bell tower) of the Duomo - there's no wait to climb the bell tower vs. the long wait to climb up to the top of the Duomo, so we opted for the the no wait. The breeze felt lovely up there, as the heat wave continues today. I am not enjoying anything over 32° and it's hovering in the high 30's. Down we went, found a supermarket (thank you Rick Steves) and got a picnic lunch. THe first of our gelatto experiences happened. Very messy and sticky. Then off again to the Duomo and inside where there is not much to see, but it is blessedly cool. Then the long walk home via the Ponte Vecchio.
I know it might be blasphemy, but I am not finding Florence to be that stunning. Nice, yes. Could be the hear. Could be doing it with the kids. Could be that Prague is so spectacular to me, that I end up comparing everything to it. We have reservations to see the David tomorrow. I have a feeling he'll make up for it.
So Colin and I have braved the heat while everyone else is napping. We needed a break to get back to some normalcy. And it's been hard to type this a bit as the Italian keyboard is slightly different. So if you see any weird typos, it's the keyboard. :)
We head back to Rieti tomorrow and then le gas is supposed to be there on Monday between 3 and 5. Please cross your fingers and send good thoughts this way that they actually show up.
Ciao,joelle
We arrived in Florence last night. It took about 3 hours to get here from our apartment in Rieti. We stopped for dinner on the highway (the A1) and the °chef express° service station is fast food italian style. Pasta made fresh for you with choices of sauce, and of course wine is a choice of beverage. In a rest stop. It's Italy dontcha know (Side note: caught the latest video from the Pussycat Dolls on Italian MTV. Wow they are trashy and don't make American women look good at all!!!)
Then thank goodness Brian was driving because the GPS had us going every which way to get to our convent. Yes, we are staying in a convent. It's actually beautiful. Brian joked that we were dropping Julia off there. The convent is Casa Santo Nome di Gesu. You can try and find it at www.fmmfirenze.it Franciscan sisters own it. For those of you familiar with Florence, it' on the south side of the Arno near the Pitti Palace. The kids are in a quad room with private bath and amazing fresco on the ceiling - Ed particulary likes the naked cherubs. ANd Brian and I are in a double donw the hall. Double. Convent. Single beds for all.
Luckily the rooms came with fans.
Up this AM for nice breakast and my first cup of coffee in 2 days... ah wonderful.
Then a walk down and across the river into the city center. We all climbed the 414 steps of the Campanile (bell tower) of the Duomo - there's no wait to climb the bell tower vs. the long wait to climb up to the top of the Duomo, so we opted for the the no wait. The breeze felt lovely up there, as the heat wave continues today. I am not enjoying anything over 32° and it's hovering in the high 30's. Down we went, found a supermarket (thank you Rick Steves) and got a picnic lunch. THe first of our gelatto experiences happened. Very messy and sticky. Then off again to the Duomo and inside where there is not much to see, but it is blessedly cool. Then the long walk home via the Ponte Vecchio.
I know it might be blasphemy, but I am not finding Florence to be that stunning. Nice, yes. Could be the hear. Could be doing it with the kids. Could be that Prague is so spectacular to me, that I end up comparing everything to it. We have reservations to see the David tomorrow. I have a feeling he'll make up for it.
So Colin and I have braved the heat while everyone else is napping. We needed a break to get back to some normalcy. And it's been hard to type this a bit as the Italian keyboard is slightly different. So if you see any weird typos, it's the keyboard. :)
We head back to Rieti tomorrow and then le gas is supposed to be there on Monday between 3 and 5. Please cross your fingers and send good thoughts this way that they actually show up.
Ciao,joelle
"Le gas" and Italian utilities,
Hey all.
The past 72 hours have been an adventure. We are experiencing Italian culture to the fullest. We got into the apartment on Thursday. I took Brian to work and then went back, packed up the car from the hotel, went to the Emmezeta for some sheets and towels, went grocery shopping and then found the apartment again and parked the car = uphill. Yes, I did all the driving in the stickshift car. We made the many trips to up the to the apartment of various bags of food and dirty laundry. Thankfully, there is an elevator (very small) in the building because our apartment is on the third floor - up 4 flights of stairs. Europeans consider the ground floor as "0". We unloaded, plugged in the fans that we had bought and got to work unpacking and making lunch. I noticed that the gas stove wasnà t working, but decided to wait to try and turn anything on until Brian got home for fear of blowing us up. We left with much time to spare to go and get him, because you"ll remember that I parked uphill. In the stick shift. I'm proud to announce that I only stalled the car 3 times!!!! getting off the hill. (side story: I asked Brian what the name of our street was and Aidan chimes in "I know!!! Senso Unico!!" That cracked us both up. Senso Unico = One way.) SO I got off the one way hill, made my way around and picked up Brian. Since we were so early to get him, we spent the time searching for English songs on the radio. We found quite a few, to which Colin kept on asking me, "you know *this* song too?" And I swear if I hear Mariah Carey squeal "touch my body" one more time.... ugh! SO we drive home and that's when we discvoer we have no gas. No gas = no hot water. We called Mario and Luisa, who "own" the apartment (their daughter technically does, but she is only 18 so we are figuring it is a tax thing for it to be in her name) They said they would come over (all in italian/spanish) at around 9. They arrived at 9:45 pm (Italian time...) and explained that they would call "La gas" for us again tomorrow and I should be at the apartment all day to let the gas guy in. Meter is only accessible from the balcony through the apartment. Mario and Luisa then helped show us a few more things about the apartment, how to turn things on and such. Mario and I spoke spanish together, as he spoke a little spanish as do I (thank you God, for Sra. Harrington at SPHS) but then Luisa kept insisiting "solo italiano!" to him, for how else was I going to learn italian if I kept using spanish. For which I replied, nicely, "si, pero ahora necessito comprender esto!! (yes, but I need to understand this now!) They were very kind to us, but my brain felt like it was going to explode from having a 45 minute conversation in span-italiano @ 9:45 pm.
Next day, I started the wash in earnest, having had my lesson from Luisa on the washing machine. It's a small washer, doesn't hold a lot and takes approx. 2 hours (not the hour I was told..) to wash 1 load. Then I get to hang all the clothes on the lines outside on the balcony off the kitchen. THe only good thing about the excessive heat here in Italy is that the clothes dry quicker. Then I took my *one* burner on the stove (the stove is gas!but has one electric burner) to heat up a pot of water to dump in the bathtub so I could take a sponge bath in 4 inches of water. Then I made breakfast with the kids, washed the dishes in cold water and got to work ironing all the clothes off the clothes line. The iron is the only thing that makes the dried clothes feel non-crunchy. All while I waited for the gas man.
The kids spent time getting used to their rooms - the big boys share 1 room and the younger 2 share the other room. They would help me hang clothes occasionaly and hand wash the bathing suits that smelled funky from the hotel pool ( I have NO idea what was in that water...) There is a literal wash board on the side of the washing tub in the apartment. Yes, it felt like 1947 for me. Hand washing clothes; boiling water to bathe and wash dishes with; and no AC in the very hot Italian heat wave.
Brian came home at noon to let us know that he spoke with someone who spoke to Mario who spoke with "la gas" and sadly, they were not coming today. And of course wouldn't be coming over the weekend. So with no hot water, we opted to make a road trip to Florence. Brian went back to work and I went to work finishing laundy, more ironing, and packing.
Just a word of thanks here to Grandma Betty Jean for teaching me to iron and hang clothes on a line. Without her, I'd be having a major cow right now. (And for those of you who know me well, you KNOW I'm freaking out about all of this!!!)
The past 72 hours have been an adventure. We are experiencing Italian culture to the fullest. We got into the apartment on Thursday. I took Brian to work and then went back, packed up the car from the hotel, went to the Emmezeta for some sheets and towels, went grocery shopping and then found the apartment again and parked the car = uphill. Yes, I did all the driving in the stickshift car. We made the many trips to up the to the apartment of various bags of food and dirty laundry. Thankfully, there is an elevator (very small) in the building because our apartment is on the third floor - up 4 flights of stairs. Europeans consider the ground floor as "0". We unloaded, plugged in the fans that we had bought and got to work unpacking and making lunch. I noticed that the gas stove wasnà t working, but decided to wait to try and turn anything on until Brian got home for fear of blowing us up. We left with much time to spare to go and get him, because you"ll remember that I parked uphill. In the stick shift. I'm proud to announce that I only stalled the car 3 times!!!! getting off the hill. (side story: I asked Brian what the name of our street was and Aidan chimes in "I know!!! Senso Unico!!" That cracked us both up. Senso Unico = One way.) SO I got off the one way hill, made my way around and picked up Brian. Since we were so early to get him, we spent the time searching for English songs on the radio. We found quite a few, to which Colin kept on asking me, "you know *this* song too?" And I swear if I hear Mariah Carey squeal "touch my body" one more time.... ugh! SO we drive home and that's when we discvoer we have no gas. No gas = no hot water. We called Mario and Luisa, who "own" the apartment (their daughter technically does, but she is only 18 so we are figuring it is a tax thing for it to be in her name) They said they would come over (all in italian/spanish) at around 9. They arrived at 9:45 pm (Italian time...) and explained that they would call "La gas" for us again tomorrow and I should be at the apartment all day to let the gas guy in. Meter is only accessible from the balcony through the apartment. Mario and Luisa then helped show us a few more things about the apartment, how to turn things on and such. Mario and I spoke spanish together, as he spoke a little spanish as do I (thank you God, for Sra. Harrington at SPHS) but then Luisa kept insisiting "solo italiano!" to him, for how else was I going to learn italian if I kept using spanish. For which I replied, nicely, "si, pero ahora necessito comprender esto!! (yes, but I need to understand this now!) They were very kind to us, but my brain felt like it was going to explode from having a 45 minute conversation in span-italiano @ 9:45 pm.
Next day, I started the wash in earnest, having had my lesson from Luisa on the washing machine. It's a small washer, doesn't hold a lot and takes approx. 2 hours (not the hour I was told..) to wash 1 load. Then I get to hang all the clothes on the lines outside on the balcony off the kitchen. THe only good thing about the excessive heat here in Italy is that the clothes dry quicker. Then I took my *one* burner on the stove (the stove is gas!but has one electric burner) to heat up a pot of water to dump in the bathtub so I could take a sponge bath in 4 inches of water. Then I made breakfast with the kids, washed the dishes in cold water and got to work ironing all the clothes off the clothes line. The iron is the only thing that makes the dried clothes feel non-crunchy. All while I waited for the gas man.
The kids spent time getting used to their rooms - the big boys share 1 room and the younger 2 share the other room. They would help me hang clothes occasionaly and hand wash the bathing suits that smelled funky from the hotel pool ( I have NO idea what was in that water...) There is a literal wash board on the side of the washing tub in the apartment. Yes, it felt like 1947 for me. Hand washing clothes; boiling water to bathe and wash dishes with; and no AC in the very hot Italian heat wave.
Brian came home at noon to let us know that he spoke with someone who spoke to Mario who spoke with "la gas" and sadly, they were not coming today. And of course wouldn't be coming over the weekend. So with no hot water, we opted to make a road trip to Florence. Brian went back to work and I went to work finishing laundy, more ironing, and packing.
Just a word of thanks here to Grandma Betty Jean for teaching me to iron and hang clothes on a line. Without her, I'd be having a major cow right now. (And for those of you who know me well, you KNOW I'm freaking out about all of this!!!)
Finally to Italy!
OK - so we made it to Italy. And I'm on borrowed time on the laptap battery. I'm grateful that Brian could figure out the dial-up connection here in the room. I'm having serious 21st century withdrawls. No cell phone (no phone for that matter most of the time) no internet, no email... It's nice, but a culture shock just the same. Colin and I are experiencing it the most. He has settled for watching Cartoon Network in French (and now Italian) when football isn't on - which there has been MUCH of lately. A truly cool experience to be part of Euro 2008. Google that, if you want more info.
So here I sit on the bed typing in my room in our hotel in Italy. Apartment won't be ready til Wednesday - and that's Italian time, so who knows? So Brian picked a hotel with a pool. Good thing too since it's friggin hot here. Hotter than I expected. Way hotter. And I can do 105 in Santa Clarita without batting an eye. Brian says it's not even 90, but I swear he's lying. I really need to figure out that celcius thing. I thought Colin would be more help with that. He isn't, but he can convert km to miles just fine for me, so we're good.
The hotel is called the Villa Potenziani. Go look it up: www.villapotenziani.it. Seriously, go now. OK now that you have seen it... Oh. My. Goodness. Words can't express the amount of fancy going on here. And I don't mean in an upscale NYC Ritz Carlton kind of thing either. Think summer palace of a prince. 250 years ago. Yeah. Now picture Ed running through the halls dressed in his bathing suit. And now picture him in one of the salons downstairs playing his gameboy with his feet up on the (beautiful) chair. Now hear him saying "Mommy, look, there's 2 toilets in this bathroom!" (and yes, the kids and I have all tried the bidet out. Not all at one time.) Wow. It's spectacular.
There is a pool here - whcih is a very good thing as Brian took the car to work and the hotel is located on a hill up above the town. The drive down is at least 1 1/2 km - and so is the WALK UP. so we are kind of stranded up here. But the kids and I spent the day in the hotness by the pool. We had to be creative as the minute we got down to the pool, Aidan naturally jumped right in and got a stern lecture from the man in charge about not having a swim cap on. Yep, swim caps are required. Who knew??? He kindly offered us the only 2 he had and I gave them to the boys to start with. The kids spent the afternoon taking turns with them and playing connect 4 and war in the shade. 2 Italian-isms: little girls do not wear bathing suit tops over here. I imagine they only start to wear them when they start to develop. By Italian standard, Julia was hugely overdressed with her tankini AND swimshirt. And while the speedo seems to be the main choice for older men and boys(Ugh...) the younger men seem to prefer longer trunks. And while most of the older women *do* shave under their arms, the younger teen girls do not. And if you are la nonna, you have a fancy swim cap and you wear your New Jersey girl-esque large gold jewelry while you swim, and reapply red lipstick as soon as you get out of the pool.
We went to the Emmezeta tonight for swimcaps of our own, and goggles too, so that we can swim tomorrow - all at the same time!
We also needed purchase some fans because while the rest of the hotel is perfectly lovely and cool, sadly the bedrooms are not. The "efficient" fan/A/C is a little too efficient. So we have the window open - I think original to the building, if not a very good facsimile - and the shutters open (no screens...) and the fan is pleasantly cool now that the sun is finally down at 9:45.
We have been staying up late almost every night - watching football - and also last night just trying to find a place to eat. Found an "English Pub" (in name only) and confused the heck out of the waitress when we tried to order courses out of order. It all turned out all right in the end. We were literally the only people not at the festival - The festival to honor St. Anthony. The coolest part of the festival/parade that we *did* see was the street lined with drawings down the middle made out of flower petals. Think of a chalk festival in the middle of the street done a la Rose Parade technique. Not just flowers made up the designs and pictures, other organic materials too. (Lots of colored finely shaved sawdust) It was beautiful - hard to appreciate a bit by our rumbly tummies, but we tried. We didn't stick it out for the procession though, being too hungry.
The day before that, we spent in the Alps. We drove to the town of Engelburg and then took several gondolas (one of them spinning 360 degrees) up to the top of Mt. Titlus. Hee Hee. Spectacular views. Sliding down the peak in the snow, going through the glacier ice cave and picnicing in the Alps. Pretty cool. Coming down (I was much better coming down the mountain, goin g up I had to do some Yoga breathing. I was the only one affected) we stopped about 1/4 way from the bottom and rented bike/scooters to make the final journey down on. The boys loved it. Julia and Ed had to ride with Brian and me, but then had fun too: they learned about saying "Hop, hop.hop, hop..." when you pass someone. I didn't know what that was until then. I couldn't figure out why all the Swiss signs said "Hop Suiss!" I gues it's a skiing thing?? Someone look it up and get back to me.
So I'll leave for tomorrow's email my adventures on driving the car. I'm not sure if I'm going to make it on that one.
Ciao Ciao!
Joelle
So here I sit on the bed typing in my room in our hotel in Italy. Apartment won't be ready til Wednesday - and that's Italian time, so who knows? So Brian picked a hotel with a pool. Good thing too since it's friggin hot here. Hotter than I expected. Way hotter. And I can do 105 in Santa Clarita without batting an eye. Brian says it's not even 90, but I swear he's lying. I really need to figure out that celcius thing. I thought Colin would be more help with that. He isn't, but he can convert km to miles just fine for me, so we're good.
The hotel is called the Villa Potenziani. Go look it up: www.villapotenziani.it. Seriously, go now. OK now that you have seen it... Oh. My. Goodness. Words can't express the amount of fancy going on here. And I don't mean in an upscale NYC Ritz Carlton kind of thing either. Think summer palace of a prince. 250 years ago. Yeah. Now picture Ed running through the halls dressed in his bathing suit. And now picture him in one of the salons downstairs playing his gameboy with his feet up on the (beautiful) chair. Now hear him saying "Mommy, look, there's 2 toilets in this bathroom!" (and yes, the kids and I have all tried the bidet out. Not all at one time.) Wow. It's spectacular.
There is a pool here - whcih is a very good thing as Brian took the car to work and the hotel is located on a hill up above the town. The drive down is at least 1 1/2 km - and so is the WALK UP. so we are kind of stranded up here. But the kids and I spent the day in the hotness by the pool. We had to be creative as the minute we got down to the pool, Aidan naturally jumped right in and got a stern lecture from the man in charge about not having a swim cap on. Yep, swim caps are required. Who knew??? He kindly offered us the only 2 he had and I gave them to the boys to start with. The kids spent the afternoon taking turns with them and playing connect 4 and war in the shade. 2 Italian-isms: little girls do not wear bathing suit tops over here. I imagine they only start to wear them when they start to develop. By Italian standard, Julia was hugely overdressed with her tankini AND swimshirt. And while the speedo seems to be the main choice for older men and boys(Ugh...) the younger men seem to prefer longer trunks. And while most of the older women *do* shave under their arms, the younger teen girls do not. And if you are la nonna, you have a fancy swim cap and you wear your New Jersey girl-esque large gold jewelry while you swim, and reapply red lipstick as soon as you get out of the pool.
We went to the Emmezeta tonight for swimcaps of our own, and goggles too, so that we can swim tomorrow - all at the same time!
We also needed purchase some fans because while the rest of the hotel is perfectly lovely and cool, sadly the bedrooms are not. The "efficient" fan/A/C is a little too efficient. So we have the window open - I think original to the building, if not a very good facsimile - and the shutters open (no screens...) and the fan is pleasantly cool now that the sun is finally down at 9:45.
We have been staying up late almost every night - watching football - and also last night just trying to find a place to eat. Found an "English Pub" (in name only) and confused the heck out of the waitress when we tried to order courses out of order. It all turned out all right in the end. We were literally the only people not at the festival - The festival to honor St. Anthony. The coolest part of the festival/parade that we *did* see was the street lined with drawings down the middle made out of flower petals. Think of a chalk festival in the middle of the street done a la Rose Parade technique. Not just flowers made up the designs and pictures, other organic materials too. (Lots of colored finely shaved sawdust) It was beautiful - hard to appreciate a bit by our rumbly tummies, but we tried. We didn't stick it out for the procession though, being too hungry.
The day before that, we spent in the Alps. We drove to the town of Engelburg and then took several gondolas (one of them spinning 360 degrees) up to the top of Mt. Titlus. Hee Hee. Spectacular views. Sliding down the peak in the snow, going through the glacier ice cave and picnicing in the Alps. Pretty cool. Coming down (I was much better coming down the mountain, goin g up I had to do some Yoga breathing. I was the only one affected) we stopped about 1/4 way from the bottom and rented bike/scooters to make the final journey down on. The boys loved it. Julia and Ed had to ride with Brian and me, but then had fun too: they learned about saying "Hop, hop.hop, hop..." when you pass someone. I didn't know what that was until then. I couldn't figure out why all the Swiss signs said "Hop Suiss!" I gues it's a skiing thing?? Someone look it up and get back to me.
So I'll leave for tomorrow's email my adventures on driving the car. I'm not sure if I'm going to make it on that one.
Ciao Ciao!
Joelle
Sun is out!
The sun finally came out today, and it was truly beautiful here in Switzerland. We had another late morning - due mostly to the rowdy crowd celebrating Italy's win in the soccer game last night. There was horn blowing and shot firing for about an hour late last night. Brian had a late dinner tonight and so I ventured down to the waterfront with the kids to check out the open-air festival/game watching area. It was like a fair in that there were several stalls from different ethnic food vendors selling food and drink for people during the game. Every stall seemed to have a big tv next to it, as well as a few tvs in an open area. The kids ordered "glaces" (ice cream) and I had a samosa. Then Colin and I split a chocolate crepe. We may take Brian there for dinner tomorrow night. The variety of food was astounding. The vendor from Portugal had a huge set up with really yummy looking food, so it may be even more exciting to eat there if Portugal is playing tomorrow. I can't keep track of the schedule. I rely on Brian and Colin for that. The kids and I ventured out in the car today, and managed to find the Funicular (the old fashioned way: map and road signs instead of the GPS) The Funicular took us to the top-ish of the mountains above Lake Neuchatel. Form that mountain range, we are actually very close to The ride up was fun. The parallel parking of the car down the street from the funicular station - not so much fun. Aidan got out and helped me. The car we rented is equipped with one of those beeping in reverse systems. The closer you get to an object while backing your car up, the more spastic the beeping gets. Not exactly conducive to my type of driving these days. It's more of the "BE QUIET, I'M TRYING NOT TO KILL US!!!" type of driving I'm doing. But we made it there and back with some success. As Brian was at work all day, and then had a work dinner to attend, I had promised the kids I would take them to McDonald's. We went and $50 later - and of course the *only* take cash - the kids and I really did enjoy ourselves at . I think we are all suffering from a bit of culture shock. THe familiarity was comforting and the salad really wasn't that bad. Of course, there are things that are different about it: no refills on soda, no free ketchup, smaller drink sizes. But all in all, a pleasant experience. They were very friendly and accomodating with our pitiful french.We headed back to the supermarket after dinner and got food for breakfast. We went through our same friendly checker, only this time he looked at us and said "Hello!" and proceeded to speak english with us. At the end I thanked him in french and then said, "See you tomorrow!" He laughed. We got some cool souvernirs - the Eurocup stuff is all 1/2 priced now that it's coming to the end. We got some of the best deals on shirts I've seen since we arrived in Europe. I am also amazed that people are dressed as well as they are. It must cost a fortune to stay in fashion! OK -- off to bed.We may rent a paddle boat and go out on the lake tomorrow. Wish me luck.
La madame et la petit famile
Bon jour - or actually Bon soir as it's 10:30 pm here
Well, we made it to Switzerland. The flight over was pretty painful - at least for me. Colin and Brian fared very well in business class. Edwin was unfazed as he sprwled himself over both his and my seats. Julia, Aidan and I fared about the same as we unsucessfully tried to sleep sitting upright on the plane. Aidan was content to watch movie after movie and I finally made him turn off the movies at about midnight. On good advice from Aunt Mimi, we bribed the flight staff with a box of See's candy (yes, it was "their box of candy") before we took off. They were very appreciative and friendly to us. But the kids were actually very well-behaved, so we didn't need to make up for any bad behavior with the preemptive bribe of chocolate, thank goodness.
Landing in Zurich was nice - much better than landing at LAX: getting bags and going through customs was a cinch. Renting the car was fairly easy - expensive, but easy. Gettting the luggage (as some might remember, one of my fears for coming over) into the car was downright comical. We should have been clowns. Suitcases and bags were everywhere in the "7" seater. Yeah, 7 seats, no trunk/luggage room. While we were driving the 1 1/2 hours to Neuchatel, I couldn't even see Aidan's head behind all the stuff. At one point I couldn't see Ed's head either. But everything fit, just barely. The Swiss love their tunnels: miles and miles of them on our drive here. Because Switzerland and Austria are hosting the soccer EuroCup this year, there are a lot of people on the road either going to soccer games, or just proudly displaying various country flags on them. The team from Portugal is actually staying here in the town of Neuchatel.
Neuchatel is a very old town/canton (region) in Switzerland. It's one of those towns/areas that has been around longer than the country has- I'm sure it's changed in ownership many times over the last 1000 years. Currently it belongs to the swiss, although they fly their own town/canton flag in addition to the swiss flag - which always makes me think I'm in a big red cross station.
We pulled up the the hotel on the lake and it's a very nice hotel. the kids have one room (very big) and we have another smaller room. We went to a pizzeria last night and had a nice pasta/pizza dinner. It's an expensive country. We are paying 4 and 5 dollars for cokes. I guess expense is relative as we are paying 4 and 5 dollars for a glass of beer or wine too. 2 glasses of wine and no sleep left me plenty ready for bed. After waking up a few times, and then going next door to check on the kids and decide I really needed another rest, the kids and I all dragged ourselves out of bed at 12:30 pm (Brian was up and gone to work at 8:30). I wasn't too disappointed because I figured that was less time today I'd have to figure out what to do with them. It's been a bit overwhelming actually.
We got dressed and ready and headed out and stopped at basically the first place we found. Luckily, most everyone speaks English. We had some sandwiches and then walked a little further on a found a super-market. The kids loved it because there were escalators leading to a floor above and one below. The escalators were only for people - but there was a funky contraption next to it that was an escalator type device that took your shopping cart up and down. Aidan thought it was really cool. We found the pull-ups we needed, plus a few other things and then as we proceeded to check out, the young gentleman pronounced "Bonjour madame....et petite famile." I got the joke and laughed with him. We haven't seen many families (some large groups of school-children:young and older) but not many families with 4 kids. None actually. I've seen at most two children per family/mom out for a walk. As we left we saw that there was a deli/take away bar with food, drinks and coffee, so I think we'll go back to the supermarket tomorrow for some meal.
As you know, Brian left his cell phone at home, so I have spent some of the day trying to figure out how to find it and get it back over here. As of now, it's been found and Brenda -thank you!- will be sending it to us. That has been stressful. I can't connect to the internet with my computer without paying 12 swiss francs and Brian's computer won't let me log onto my blogspot: hence the email. He also took the car keys with him to work today- not that I was in any shape to drive the (now empty) car anywhere. Maybe on Wednesday we'll venture out. This area does have a lot to offer. We did manage to get to the tourist office and get maps and tourist attraction brochures. We'll be off on a walking tour to a castle and tower prison tomorrow.
So I'm going to go and tell the kids to go to bed now. They aren't tired. They woke up at 12:30 for goodness sake. But we'll try and manage through the jet-lag. Me and my petit famile
More tomorrow,
Joelle
ps - I have figured out one reason women over here are thin - after I ordered my meal from the very friendly Turkish man at the Kebab house tonight, he very politely said that women don't usually order something quite so big, and didn't I want the smaller version?
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Stock Tip
For all of you savvy stock people, here's a tiny tip: buy stock in Hanes. I must have purchased 3000 pair of underwear and socks over the past 2 weeks. And I may not even be done. Underwear and passports. These are our essentials. I have been advised that there is definitely no clothes dryer anywhere in Rieti - unless I pay for full laundry service - which I still may consider. So the underwear cache is really important. On the emergency days, everyone will be wearing their respective bathing suits. I'm hoping this doesn't happen often, as I'm sure that this is pretty much a guarantee of "not blending" with the culture (although, we may be surprised. Ed might not be the only little kid walking around with the Disney "Cars" on his hiney).
So I'll end with a picture of our first graduation this year. (Yes, it's a tuxedo) Edwin "graduated" from pre-school last Thursday and wanted to know if he could start Kindergarten on Friday. He's ready. He's a big boy. He wears Hanes - and wears them well. Go out and get that stock.
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