Today is a busy one for us as we work to get Dominica ready for her travels to the US. It is Monday. We got up this morning and first thing Dominica and I walked down to the big grocery store down the hill so that we could stock up on things that I will need while Dominica is gone so that I can feed the kids. We got extra supplies in the hopes that I would not need to return, although that might be a long shot.
On the way to the grocery store we stopped at the bus station and bought Dominica her ticket for the trip today. Less than eight Euros to go from Noto all of the way to the airport in Catania. That’s an important note about this region – cheap and simple transportation all of the way up to the main airport in the region. That’s not something that you would get back in the States. Less than ten dollars and you can just get on a nice, mostly empty, comfortable bus and in an hour and a half you are several cities away right at the airport. Perfect. There is a train that goes up there, too.
We stopped and got some espresso before continuing down, as well.
That was a major trip this morning and much of it was spent with Dominica trying to deal with getting checked into her flights. Her Vueling flights worked without a problem. But British Airways could not check her in due to glitches in their online system and their customer support was not able to help all day. Because Dominica gets so sick when flying being able to check in early and knowing that she has an aisle seat is a really big deal for her and helps a lot to keep her anxiety to a minimum. So she worried about that all day.
We got home and really only had about three hours before it was time for Dominica to get on the bus. So I worked while I could and Dominica verified packing and stuff. She has been super successful at getting a full fifty pounds of stuff that we “no longer need” with us in Italy packed up and ready to go back to the US. That is going to make things so much easier for when we are traveling around. Sadly, one of the things going back with her is the nVidia Shield, we just have not found time to use it and it is too big and bulky to keep with us in the luggage going back and forth all of the time.
The girls did not want to go for a walk today so we left them behind when I took Dominica down to catch her bus. It’s only a five minute walk to the bus station. We had to wait there for about fifteen minutes.
The bus was on time at twenty past four in the afternoon. I was able to throw Dominica’s luggage under the bus. The bus was only half full so she had no problem getting a seat to herself for the trip. We waved goodbye as her bus went south out of the square and disappeared to head down to the sea.
I walked back to the house and spent the rest of the evening with the kids. And thus begins our eight days of just me and the kids, alone in Italy. This is a new adventure for everyone.
Dominica’s bus ride to the airport was very easy. The bus dropped her off right there and she had no issues getting her flight on Vueling from Catania to Rome. She didn’t have overly long to wait at the airport; it all worked very well. We will do that in the future, I’m sure.
Dominica had no issue flying up to Rome. She made her transfer and was off on a Vueling operated British Airways flight from Rome to London Gatwick. It was around midnight when she got up there. Her flight out of London is not until about six in the morning so she has a long time to hang out in the airport with nothing to do.
The girls and I had a nice evening to ourselves. Luciana did not want to watch Spy Kids 2 today so we skipped it to watch tomorrow.
Our big thing this evening was that we bought the very first Nancy Drew book on the Kindle so that we could read it in bed. We made it through two chapters with me reading one page then Liesl taking a turn to read a page. It started off slowly, so I am hoping that it manages to grab the girls’ attention. It would be great if they got into reading more.
When we went to bed Dominica was still waiting to get on her flight. She should not be on the plane until long after we are asleep here and it is a ten hour flight over to Orlando. Then she still has to rent a car and drive to Cocoa Beach. She is going to be awfully tired when she finally gets to the hotel.