A Year: A Broad

On June 15th, the family stuffed itself into my cousin's car, and began the journey of a lifetime. 2 kids, 2 adults, 4 passports and a whole lot of gumption. The plan: explore Italy before my DH reported to his new duty station in Vicenza, Italy.

Nine and a half hours after leaving New York, our plane touched down at Marco Polo Airport. The pre-researched idea was to take a bus to the train station, then board a train for Pisa, where we had a hotel reservation for the next three nights. Sounds good, right? I mean, DH and I both worked for hours on Rosetta Stone. We can do this....What the f%*@ were we thinking? As we sat on the bus heading to the train station, it looked like we were back in the third-world part of Mexico. Graffiti, houses that were boarded up...this was definitely not the Venice we had pictured. Where were the gondolas?

And here we were, this haggard group of Americans. Dragging 2 small children and 2 heavy backpacks to who knows where. By the way, busses in Italy in the middle of June, no air conditioning. So, let's add sweaty, and probably after a 9 1/2 hour plane ride, a bit on the smelly side.

But, we made it to the train station. At least we hoped it was the train station, as the bus driver did not make any appoint to say "Stazione" - Thank you Rosetta Stone! We followed the throngs of people exiting the bus. They seemed to all be heading in the same direction, so we joined them. Luckily, they were heading to the same place we were. Thank you God! With my amazing grasp of the Italian language, I somehow managed to get us 4 tickets on the next train to Pisa. (At least I hoped they were tickets to Pisa). We didn't have time to grab lunch, so we got to the platform and promised the kids that we would somehow find them something to eat. By this point, all of us were about ready to cry. The kids, from hunger, the grown-ups from exhaustion and the fear that we had totally stepped into something huge.

We somehow figured out our seats on the train. Did you know that in Italy, there are different kinds of seats, but all on the same train? Some people pay for actual seats - you are in seat 2C. Other people pay for just any seat. The trick, figuring out which of those people you are, and if someone that didn't pay for a specific seat is in your specific seat, getting them to move. Luckily, the haggard-traveler appearance we were giving off worked, and Italians scurried out of our way. The other blessing we have during our traveling is 2 very cute little boys. We later found out that there are not a whole lot of little Italians running about. It seems that Italian men like to stay home and live with their mamas. Italian women do not necessarily like sissy men who live with their mamas. They are renegades; they want to work, they don't want to stay home and cook and clean like their mamas. So, fewer younger Italians are dating and fewer Italian babies are being born. Which for us translates to kindness for the 2 kids we are toting through Italy.

OK...back to the train ride. We had finally found a comfortable place to sit. The boys were watching a movie on the portable DVD player, the best invention EVER. Now, to tackle the rumblings in everyone's stomach. By this point in our journey, we had done a pretty good job eating the 3 months worth of snacks I had packed for the travel. Gone were the fruit snacks, asta la vista crackers, ciao Oreo cookies. We were down to the smushed remains of some granola bars, nobody's favorite.

Because I was a little more daring with trying Italian than my DH, ok, actually it was because I just needed 5 minutes peace from the family, I ventured to find food. I had seen people walking down the aisle with food in their hands, so I figured there had to be food somewhere. BINGO! Found it. They had a small dining car. OK, where are the hot dogs? Kids like hot dogs. Damn, no hot dogs. For the low price of $12 euro (which at the current exchange rate was like a million us dollars) we shared a baguette with some sort of smoked meat and mozarella cheeze, a short stack of Pringles chips, and a coke. DH wondered why I didn't bring back more, until he heard how expensive it was. Once again, the what the hell were we thinking feelings invaded my mind.

As we traveled across Italy, I began to feel better about the whole thing. The sights were amazing. Vineyards and olive trees surrounded quaint villages. We must have looked quite the site, pointing every little thing out to each other. The tension slowly eased away as we realized this was where we were going to be living for the next three years.

Ciao' for now!