The Tilting Tower of Pisa

I am all for flying by the seat of my pants. I love exploring. However, when DH and I were planning this adventure, I did demand one thing; we had to book a hotel for our first few nights in Italy. Having the forsight to know we would be exhausted after traveling over night, and with a 6 hour time difference, I wanted a place to stay. A week prior to leaving for Italy, we weren't even sure where we were going to start our exploration. Should we try to jump on a military flight and head up to England? At least they spoke English. We could head to Germany, my German is rusty, but I could at least order a beer. As you can tell, we decided to get our feet wet in Italy. It was going to be our home for the next three years, so we might as well jump in head-first.

The train was a lot more forthcoming with information than the bus. We actually knew we were getting off at the right stop, no guesswork required. Finding the hotel was a different story. DH grew up in South Texas. If you know anything about South Texas, you know that most all of the streets run either North/South or East/West. Not true in Italy. The Italians built their towns around a central point, a piazza. So, a lot of the streets wrap around and end up close to where they started. Just when you think you're going straight, you hit a piazza (a square) which has a couple of other hubs coming off of it. Then, you have one street having many different names. Also, confusing. It was one of those Grizzwald, "Hey kids, Parliament" moments. I was SO glad we decided to use public transportation and not try to rent a car. That would have probably pushed me over the edge at that moment. You can only expect so much from Zoloft.

One thing Italy has done extremely well is to accomodate English-speaking travelers. Throughout the cities, there are brown signs which have the names of hotels and the direction to head. Near the train station, there was a pole with about 25 hotel names on it. Luckily, one of them was ours. Off we went, on a treasure hunt, with the prize being a warm bed (we would later find out JUST how warm) and a hot shower.

During our stay in Italy, I have learned that there are European hotels and Americanized hotels. American hotels have wonderful things like air conditioners and showers that are large enough to shave your legs in. This is not the case for European hotels. I now see why Italian women are either slender or hairy. I would have had to be one of those contortionists in Cirque de Soliel to actually complete the task with the shower door closed. Then there was the bidet. Our youngest son had to change his shirt after doing his own exploration. Did you know that bidets are fine little basins to have children wash their hands in when they can't reach the sink? A little tid-bit of information for you.

Ciao' for now!