I was up long before anyone else this morning. Both Dominica and Ryan have a lot of catching up on sleep to do before they will be functional. Dominica was awake hours before Ryan was. When Ryan visited us in Spain two years ago he nearly slept through the entire trip. This time he has allotted a lot more time and knows that he has to power through the exhaustion or he will miss everything again. At least he was able to see a lot of Rome on his way here two days ago so he has a lot of sightseeing under his belt before even arriving.
Dominica and I went down to the big grocery store this morning. We are extremely low on groceries around the house. So it was a big trip down. Probably our largest grocery trip to date here in Noto.
At five thirty Ryan was really awake and ready to do something. So since there was no time to go anywhere we figured that a good hike around town would be the next best thing. The best use of what resources we have at hand. I had two hours before my one phone meeting of the week, so we took the two hours and did a long walk around town.
We started by going north to the top of town and out west and then down alone the ravine. We got to see loads of town that I have not yet seen. It was pretty interesting. We covered a lot of ground in about two hours. We stopped along the western edge of town for coffee, as well. And we found a small grocery store over there, a tiny version of the big one that Dominica and I normally go to. We stopped in so that Ryan could check it out and miraculously I found Hellman’s mayonnaise which is the only thing that Dominica will eat! She is going to be very happy. They had pistachio liqueur, too, so we grabbed some so that Ryan could check that out. The same kind that we had previously.
This evening, after my call, Ryan and I went out for dinner again. Dominica stayed home, she did not feel like going out at all. She is still very tired and working to catch up from the week in Florida and the last three days of travel. So Ryan and I checked out the restaurant right up at the top of our little back street, the one that I saw that first night while I pulled the luggage up the hill to get it to our new house, back in January.
The food tonight was excellent. We both got pasta again, and wine. And we got pasta to go to take back for Dominica.
After dinner, and after dropping off Dominica’s food, Ryan and I took a walk down to the train station to determine exactly how to get there and how long it would take and how hard it would be for the kids. It is certainly a good hike, but one that we can do. Much farther than I would have hoped, though.
We tried to get everyone to bed early tonight. Luciana has been sleeping on the couch and Liesl in the bed with us. Ryan has the girls’ room upstairs. Tomorrow we are heading out to Siracusa for the day and the train comes early in the morning, way too early. We already have our train tickets for tomorrow. So our plan is pretty set. We will be in Siracusa nice and early, our first outing in Italy since Rome!