Sheep Guarding Llama

Day 63 of DuoLingo Italian Streak!

Jet lag is still kicking our butts and we were struggling hard to get up today.  This is what happened to us in both Spain and Greece last year.  We have decided that the experiment of doing a “vacation” upon arrival in Europe is a failed one and something that we need to avoid.  We need decompression time ahead of trying to do anything.  We would be all far happier if we were in our final apartment, had time to unpack and relax and did Rome as a jaunt or something.  Then we could be traveling lighter and not be dealing with the “getting to Europe” fog of jet lag and have an apartment that we fit in.  We can’t even walk around here it is such a mess with all of the luggage everywhere.

By the time that we finally got everyone up and moving it was super late.  Our one project of the day was to go see the Pantheon which is a decent hike from our apartment near the Colosseum.

Before anything it was a light lunch at a local upscale place where I got a fishburger which was two fish fillets with loads of veggies on a giant toasted black bun. Delicious.  I got it with chips (fries for the Americans) but only ate a few.  My healthy European eating is already kicking in.  We did get coffee, though.  But being this close to major attractions, coffee is six Euro per cup!  Ouch.

We finally got the family underway and talked the kids into doing the whole thing by allowing them to do a Pokewalk on the way and by strapping me up with a backpack that lets me carry one of the girls on my back while we walk.  Ciana just cannot handle long walks at all and we knew that this would go badly if she had to walk all of it.

It took quite a bit to get Ciana comfortably situated on my back but eventually we figured it out and it worked pretty well.  This is good because I can carry Luciana 80% of the time and Liesl 20% of the time and that makes them able to walk with us without getting overly exhausted and gives me more of a workout to even Dominica and I out a bit more as my ability and desire to get out and just walk so dramatically exceeds everyone else’s.  This also gets me a lot more exercise as I am lifting forty to fifty extra pounds with every step and they tend to ride when climbing hills and walk when descending.

We started by walking along the Roman Forum, which starts right at the end of our street, and then to Trajan’s Column.  From there we went to the Altar of the Fatherland and visiting the eternal flame memorial.  Then through the Piazza di Venezia and to the west to the Pantheon, which was amazing.  The Pantheon is definitely one of the most amazing things to see in Rome, or in the world.  Breathtaking and in continuous use for 1,900 years!  It’s insane to think about all of the people who have been in there and what a completely solid, intact structure it is.  And it goes through earthquakes all of the time, too.  And it is open in the center so it rains into it regularly as well.

We spent a bit of time at the Pantheon.  Then the girls demands some gelato because I told them the other day that they could have some.  But it was cold, so they froze as they tried to eat it.  Banana for Ciana and vanilla for Liesl.  On the way back we finally found a grocery store and stopped to get some supplies.

We walked back home in the dark.  We got home and we did some posting of our pictures and stuff then everyone, except for me, climbed into beds and just watched videos.  I set out for an evening walk since no one wanted to hang out as a family any longer.

I did a far, far longer walk tonight than we had done as a family.  We did about six kilometers as a family, I did an additional twelve on my own.  I went back to the Altar of the Fatherland and climbed the hill behind it, which was really neat and gave some incredible views of the Forum.  I walked a lot of the streets to the west and ended up along the Tiber River, which I explored for a very long way.

I was so far west and north that I decided to continue on to Vatican City.  It was after midnight when I made it to the Vatican walls.  Then I came back through the city along a different route than I had taken so I ended up doing a large loop and coming back the way that we had come back from the Pantheon.  It was nearly two when I got back home.

I had some bread and butter back at the house, my only food other than my fish burger today.  Everyone was still awake and stayed awake for hours yet.  I put in a tonne of time working on SGL updates and got caught up almost to December and I have nearly all of January completed already and bits of December.  So progress is very solid at this point.  I did not manage to be totally caught up by the time that we got to Rome, but I managed to get decently close.

It was nearly five when we finally all got to bed.  Jet lag is taking its toll.

Dominica and I were up at nine this morning.  I think that today is Wednesday, I have lost all track of time as usually happens with a move back to Europe.  We spent a bit of time getting ready this morning, then we made an attempt at waking up the girls.  Luciana had been awake until almost five in the morning so was very tired and cranky this morning when we tried to get her up around ten.

Before we left the apartment I felt, very clearly, two strong earthquakes.  The chair that I was sitting in moved like someone had grabbed the back of it and was pulling me side to side .  I could sense the room shifting and the curtains were swaying significantly.  Dominica said that she could not feel it but Liesl could see things moving.  It was strong enough that I instantly looked up and said that it was an earthquake.

Before we made it out the door, there was a second earthquake.  I managed to look it up and see that there had been a precursor quake that we had not felt.  The big one that I felt was a 5.3.  It was big enough that Rome had to close the schools and send the kids home and the subway had to be shut down.  Up in the mountains there was a blizzard and people were struggling to get outside into the snow to avoid houses falling like happened here a few months ago. But it appears that everyone is okay today.

We finally got out of the apartment around eleven.  We decided to do our City Sightseeing Tour today, so we walked around the Colosseum to the far side where we were able to catch the bus. For just 64 Euros we got three day passes for the entire family which will make getting around the city very easy.

We rode around for a while and got to see a lot of the famous bits of Rome.  The girls were not in the mood to be riding the bus, however, and wanted to get off.  It was pretty cold up on the top of the bus.

We got off at the Trevi Fountain stop and walked to see the fountain.  That was pretty cool but overloaded with tourists which really ruins things.  Rome is neat, but it is nothing but tourists and hawkers trying to take advantage of them.  It kind of sucks.  They need to go all Morocco on them and make them go away.  It hurts the city, a lot.

From the fountain we went to a little restaurant nearby.  We knew that it was a tourist place but we had no idea how to find something better without it being a huge undertaking.  I got a smoked salmon penne, Liesl got seafood risotto, Luciana got eggplant Parmesan and Dominica got mushroom risotto.  It was pretty decent.

From there it was back onto the bus.  Both girls fell asleep this time.  They are really exhausted.  So we just rode the bus to the end of the route and walked back to the apartment.  They needed time to just play and relax.

I checked on the earthquake status and found that there had been ten earthquakes in the Rome area today!

Our first day in Rome, Italy.  We were so tired that we all slept until about three in the afternoon!  A full twelve hours of sleep. Boy were we exhausted.  This is what thirty hours of travel plus seven hours of jet lag will do to you.

We got out the door and walked up the street to see the Colosseum.  It was already getting dark by the time that we were getting there.  It’s winter and Rome is decently far north so the sun was already getting low even though it was not all that late.  Travel in the winter is difficult.

We discovered that even in the cold, off season, in the evening that the streets of Rome are packed full of hawkers trying to sell any junk that they can to you, mostly selfie sticks and phone battery chargers or plastic light up figurines.  It’s awful.  It immediately makes me dislike being out and about in Rome.

We did our walk but the girls were thirsty because they had planned poorly so it was right back to the apartment.  Dominica was very impressed by my ability to navigate around town.

Before getting all of the way back we stopped at a little corner shop just outside of the apartment and picked up a few snacks.  The girls were really hungry and we have nothing at the apartment for them to eat and it is hours until it will be dinner time.

We spent maybe two hours back at the apartment.  The girls had cereal and biscuits.  That held us until it was time for actual dinner.

For dinner we had been recommended to check out Ai Tre Scalini by the girl that rented us the apartment.  That was a good walk to the north a few blocks.  It was chilly but not horrible.  The girls were quite tired of walking by the time that we got there, though.

The restaurant turned out to have rather a large line, we were the six table waiting to get in.  But we had walked a ways and it was evidentally popular so we decided to stick it out.  It was eight when got to the restaurant and it took about forty five minutes before we were able to get seated.

While we were waiting we got to hang out with a nice young couple from San Diego that we had a nice time with.  They were two tables ahead of us.  After they were seated we talked to a group of girls from NYC that are studying in Italy right now.

Dinner was excellent.   Luciana discovered that she adores eggplant parmesan.  It is new her favourite food.  All of the food was excellent.  It was Dominica and me who had ordered eggplant parm, but Luciana stole it from us.

We got some desserts, too.  Luciana and Dominica got Italian cheesecake which is kind of like a cannolo in slice form.  Liesl tried a chocolate salami which was interesting.  I went for the Italian classic of anise biscotti that I dunked in moscato dessert wine – so good.  I used to have that when we were in Italy five years ago; I have missed it.

After dinner we just walked back to the apartment.  We were all very tired and wanted to get to bed on the early side.  It was probably ten when we got back and we did a little but were in bed around midnight.

Not a very intense first day, but we have a lot of jet lag and travel time to overcome.

We arrived in Oslo this afternoon.  Our flight last night went well and the crew from HiFly was excellent, probably the best crew that I’ve ever flown with.  They really went out of their way for us.

Going through immigration took forever, it always seems to in Norway.  Our customs agent told us that many European countries have individual immigration deals with the US and that those supersede the Schengen Visa status so if we looked into it and knew what we were doing that we’d be able to potentially stay in Europe for closer to two years.  This requires some research.

We had hours to kill at Oslo airport so we camped out in the food court area for a while, then we moved up to O’Leary’s where we ate two years ago, the last time that we flew through Oslo.  The wait there was pretty long, but we managed to eventually get a shared seat with a woman from northern Norway.  She had a big booth and was all alone.  She, of course, had to ask us about what we thought of Trump.  The “Trump Apology Tour” has officially begun.  We’ve not even left the first airport yet and we are already being asked about it.

Luciana tried her first fish and chips here and liked it.  She did a good job eating it.

From our lunch it was time to head to gate E15 and wait for our flight.  We ended up getting delayed by about an hour and a half because the crew was late.

The flight from Oslo to Rome was just two hours and forty minutes.  Not bad at all.  No movies on this flight, but everyone slept, even I nodded off a little bit.  The flight was actually cold so I had a blanket on me most of the time.

We arrived in Rome later than we had planned but not too bad.  Dominica had arranged with the people renting us the apartment that we would be late so we were all set.  No immigration to deal with as we did that in Norway so this was very fast.  Rome’s airport got our luggage out super fast and the girls had a playground in the luggage area to keep them busy while we waited on the luggage.  What a great airport.

We got a station wagon taxi for seventy five Euros that took us to our apartment.  Dominica was impressed by my ability to talk to the taxi driver in Italian while we drove.  It was only about thirty minutes.

Our apartment is right next to the Colosseum right in the middle of everything.  The taxi ride took us by nearly everything as we came into town.  We saw Vatican City, the Circus Maximus, Palantine Hill, Trajan’s Column, the Colosseum, the forum, the capital and tons more.  Unbelievable.

Our host was waiting for us at the apartment.  It’s a one bedroom, not a studio like advertised so even better, very small but comfortable.

It was midnight when we got into the apartment.  I immediately set out and found pizza to bring back for everyone.  I easily found a place around the corner and brought back half a pizza which Dominica and I loved. Luciana was not very interested, she wanted something with less cheese.  Liesl tried it but did not like it.

And off to sleep.  We are so tired!

This is it, it’s “go day.”  So much to do.  We were awake around seven thirty and put in a few hours getting the final packing and electronics testing done.  We discovered that our GoPro Hero4 Black was damaged (we can tell that someone at a party hit it against a brick wall!!) which is a major problem since we use this while we are traveling.  Not what we wanted to discover on the morning that we were setting out for a six month adventure in Europe!

It was maybe eleven when we finally got out onto the road.  It’s about a six hour drive to the airport.  In the car we did hours of research on video cameras, stores and what are options were along the path to the airport.  That took up a large percentage of our drive time.  We ended up deciding that we could not get an Osmo+ like we wanted before this trip and just have to hold that off until our next set of adventures.  For this one, we need to find a GoPro Hero5 Black.

We ended up stopping at the Best Buy in Vestal and picking up both a GoPro Hero5 Black as well as a GoPro Karma Grip for it, which is a digital gimbel.  That triggered our credit card to lock up so we were stuck there for a while getting that released, as well.  Always something to keep us on our toes.  We also found some cool new stuff for the girls including new Pokemon watches that they bought for themselves and a new Pokemon case for Liesl’s Nintendo 3DS New XL.

Back on the road, we drove straight on down to Brooklyn.  There was a lot of traffic as it is Sunday evening and New York City always gets crazy on a Sunday evening.

We got to JFK in good time.  Dropping off the car was quick and easy.  The drop off was right beside the Enterprise shuttle to the airport so we were able to load right up and be on our way.  We have learned to get two luggage carts to move all of our stuff around; that makes things actually manageable.

Getting checked in to our flight presented a bit of a challenge.  Norwegian customer service tried to claim that our kids did not get a full luggage allotment and we thought that we were going to have a really tough time.  Not a good start to things.  But we got that mostly resolved (and contacted their central customer service) and got through security and off to our gate without too much problem.

Our flight today was a Norwegian flight, but operating by HiFly, which we found out early this morning.  So we did not know what to expect.  We got underway on time, though, and the flight was decently comfortable.  It was not the Boeing 787 Dreamliner that we had been scheduled for, but instead was an Airbus A340.

The girls and I got the middle section, as usual, and Dominica got to sit on the other side of the aisle.  We had very limited movies to watch during the flight, but at least there was something.  Both girls started watching Rio.  Liesl watched it once and then started it a second time.  Luciana’s movie didn’t work properly and she gave up.  I watched Rio, The Grand Budapest Hotel, She’s Funny That Way and I started watching Home which was so painfully awful that I had to stop watching it and could not finish it, even on an airplane.  It was that bad.  The other movies were much better with Budapest Hotel being the big winner, quite an interesting movie.

Everyone except for me managed to sleep some on the flight, which is good as this is the red eye to Oslo.  Tomorrow is going to be a very hard day for all of us.