Big update...

What’s happened recently? Well in no particular order…

We took a day trip up to Bracciano with another family to see the renowned Christmas Village that they’ve got there. We didn’t see much of a “Christmas Village”, but there was a market area set up with about 20-30 vendors for random stuff: pottery, wine, antiques, crafts, and that sort of stuff. We saw what appeared to be a renaissance festival, outside the walls of a real castle (which happens to be the place that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were married, if anyone is interested). We had lunch at a local restaurant. Well, we were going to have lunch but ordered antipasti, expecting to get a small appetizer. They covered the table with food; everything from bruschetta to some sort of octopus dish to a plate of different cheeses, a tray of mussels, different kinds of pancetta, prosciutto….. you name it, they brought it out. Incredible food, both in quantity and quality. The town is on the banks of a volcanic lake, so the fish is freshly caught – we took a walk on the shore of the lake and started an informal “Rock Relocation Program” for all of the lava rocks covering the shore. That job’s unfinished, and that’s one task we’re looking forward to going back to and working on some more. Any help you folks want to provide would be welcome.

On the way up to Bracciano, we saw signs for a Texas BBQ place, but I haven’t been able to find it on the internet. We’re going to drive back up there specifically to look for the signs, and if that place exists, I’ll post a review and comparison against real Texas barbecue. I don’t have very high expectations, but I’m looking forward to trying it.

Over Thanksgiving, we went truffle hunting. This was organized by the community liaison folks at Becca’s work; there was a tour of a winery, then we went out for a demonstration of truffle hunting. Basically, we followed a guy while his dog sniffed around the bases of trees. Wimpy (the dog) found a couple of black truffles… if you want to know what a black truffle looks like, think of a black rock about half the size of a tennis ball, give it a light mushroomy smell, and cover it in dog slobber. Buon appetito! The hunt was followed up by a meal (featuring truffles in every course) in the restaurant up the hill. The food wasn’t bad, but knowing that dog slobber is a featured ingredient in every bite of food changed the meal a bit for me, and maybe my sense of taste has been dulled by all the junk food I’ve eaten over the years, but… well, while the food was good, would truffles be worth $60 each? Not in my estimation. I’m certain that there are people for whom that would be a worthwhile expense; I’m just not one of them.

It snowed yesterday. It’s only supposed to snow once every twenty years, and this is the second time in two years. There was about a ½ inch accumulation, and it was gone by bedtime. It was apparently just barely enough to make people forget how to drive. I normally go down to meet the kids’ bus at 3:35, and end up waiting for about 5 minutes for it to get here. Yesterday, the bus didn’t get here until 4:20, and the kids said that they left school early. Becca’s commute home was a lot of fun, to hear her tell it. All I know is that it took her almost 2 hours to drive 8 miles. Last winter, it snowed in February or March, so I don’t know if that means that we’ll get a bunch of snow this year, or if we won’t see any more snow the whole time we’re here. One odd thing about the snow: it was a thunderstorm. I’ve never seen that before, but Becca heard the thunder at her office too, so I don’t think I’m hallucinating.

We didn’t bring a lot of Christmas decorations and stuff with us, since we packed out in June and July – at the time, it didn’t seem that important. All of it’s in storage. Well, not all of it, we brought one tub of ornaments, and one tub of wrapping supplies. Becca ended up buying a tree while at the base in Naples earlier this week, so we’ve at least got a tree, and all of the presents will be well wrapped.

That’s it for now. Hope everyone’s holiday season is filled with peace, joy, and lots of goodies. Ciao!

New pics:

Lots of pics here: link

Link is also available in the right column.

And now for your normally scheduled Rick....

Well, we finally got out of Rome (for REAL, this time!) and had a blast of a little mini-vacation. We left on Wednesday and drove to Assisi, where we saw the Duomo that bears St. Francis' name. Very impressive, seeming to hang on the edge of a cliff. We ate in that town, then moved on.

Next stop, Perugia. Our mission (and boy did we accept it!) was to eat chocolate. The Euro Chocolate Fest was going on, and there was more chocolate than I've ever seen before. I'd like to remind you... I've lived through 39 Halloweens, Easters And Valentine's Days, and I've never seen anywhere close to this amount of chocolate. There must have been 250 vendors selling different types of chocolate. Still.... we had to keep moving. We spent a little time on the ground there, then hit the road for...

Verona. 2 little hotel rooms. Halfway decent dinner. American-ish breakfast buffet include in the price of the room. Got on the road immediately post-nosh. Nuff said about Verona. Maybe we'll go back there, but that's it for now.

Next night was going to be in Garmisch, Germany, so we had to keep moving. It was a fairly long day... the drive took about 4-5 hours, up into the Alps, through Austria (we've heard they're picky on speed limits there, so I had to slow down!)... we stopped in Innsbruck. Pretty town, had a sandwich sorta thing at a restaurant in a mall. Nothing spectacular. Scenery all around the town? Exquisite. Town itself? 45 minutes of looking for lunch, 30 minutes eating, 30 minutes back to the car. I think it's got a lot more to offer, but we weren't in the market at that moment. Next stop: Garmisch.

Garmisch. Found the hotel with minimal problems. Room? Fine. Buffet downstairs? Fine (if a bit expensive). Scenery? Awesome. We could see an Alp from our balcony. (As an aside, is it called an Alp if there's only one of them? There were more to the left and right, but STRAIGHT off our balcony was a single perfect, mid-sized mountain. Mid sized, as in 1500+ meters.)

The next day we went to Neuschwanstein Castle. You'll remember that this is the castle that Walt Disney based Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland on. Absolutely magnificent. You'll all see some pictures at some point, even though the pictures won't even come close to doing it justice. The way the whole experience works:
Step 1: Pay for parking at the bottom of the hill.
Step 2: Walk halfway up to the town to purchase tickets for the tour in your choice of languages. Wonder how you're going to get up the rest of the mountain (to the castle itself) since buses aren't running today, due to weather. Start walking up.
Step 3: Walk the remaining quarter of the way up to the town. Follow the smell of freshly squeezed horses to find the horse-drawn carriage pick up point... if you need an additional clue, look for the hordes of people lined up on the side of the road as the smell of used grass gets stronger.
Step 4: Patiently wait your turn to ride an "Authentic Horse Drawn Carriage" up the remaining (probably) 2000 feet of the mountain. Get off the carriage when it stops, still 500 vertical feet down the mountain from the castle.
Step 5: Climb the rest of the mountain... past 3 or 4 souvenir stands.
Step 6: Enjoy the castle. It's a phenomenal tour... our guide was a native German speaker, who was pretty close to fluent in English. He had a very ummmm...... European sense of humor, and his sense of timing on most of his (rather odd) jokes was quite a bit longer than we (as a group) were used to. Entertaining? Absolutely. Informative? Absolutely. A little creepy? Absolutely. If I needed a babysitter? Absolutely NOT!

King Ludwig II was (a) a little bit loony, and (b) a LOTTA bit obsessed with Richard Wagner (one of Germany's best known playwrights and composers from the 1800's). Scenes from all of Wagner's epic stories decorate all of the interior walls of the castle. One of the original rooms in the castle is a cave. A man-made cave, to duplicate the set of one of Wagner's operas. Did I mention that Ludwig II wasn't wrapped too tightly?

Unfortunately, we only had one *really* good day of weather while we were there.... we putzed around a lot, but didn't really *do* anything. We walked around Garmisch, swam in the pool one day... just putzed. Our next trip up there, we want to go to Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany. You can take a cable car up to the top... it was in the original plans, but got scrapped due to weather.

I think I've almost got Becca broken down to let me get a Bavarian Cuckoo clock one of these times we go up there. Wish me luck, everyone.

Nice relaxing vacation. Will post pics in the next couple of days.

Ciao from Rome!

I have been invited to write a guest column for the Shores Family in Rome

This is Rick Shores also, but I'm the older one :)

My trip began last Monday with a flight over the big pond. It really was a long and not so easy flight. We were 2 hours late taking off from New York, most of it sitting on the tarmac.
I found it hard to sleep on the plane, so by the time we landed I was already feeling pretty weary and it was 9am or so local time. I had a very long strange day ahead. The very strong suggestion I was given was to stay awake that day to help with the jet lag and catch up to local time. After a while it felt like my body and brain had turned to mush. It took another day or two to really start feeling normal again.

Since then it has been very interesting to see the city where modern civilization began. It's chaotic, crowded, rather dirty, and amazing at the same time. Oh and pretty intimidating if you don't read or speak Italian.

I have begun to get comfortable riding the Metro, and had success one afternoon in figuring out how to get myself by bus from St Peter's Square back to home base in the northern suburbs with one bus change.
Everything involves a lot of walking, so if anyone reading this has had thoughts of coming over, I would suggest you start your training now :)

We all took a short drive on Saturday to the ancient Etruscan town of Orvieto. The Romans conquered them when they started getting powerful and renamed the town. It's name means something like "ancient town".
So it was really old when the Romans came along two thousand or so years ago. It was very beautiful. An impressive "Duomo", picturesque tiny streets and an incredible view from the volcanic hilltop it sits on.
I've posted a few pictures of it on my website. If you want to look, they're at http://www.rksimages.com

One of the many highlights had to have been my second taste of gelato. It was an awesome chocolate with an orange flavored candy mixed in. Heavenly!!

Tomorrow morning, my personal adventure continues with a train ride north about 4 hours to Riomaggiore, the southernmost village of the "Cinque Terra"
I'm staying there for 5 nights to hike and take pictures and further immerse myself in Italian culture.
I'm very excited!

When I come back to Rome next week I'll post more pictures before we all climb into the car for a road trip to southern Germany for a stay in the Bavarian Alps

Thanks for reading
Rick

Wierd experience of the day:

At this point, we're down to the minutia of daily life, and I won't inflict the majority of that on your poor folks, so I'll just hit the high (low?) points.

Today, I started with visiting one of the holiest sites in Christendom, and finished out my day driving down "Prostitute Alley." Perhaps I'd better explain:

Becca and I took a tour this morning of the Scavi, the necropolis under St. Peter's Basilica. Pretty interesting from an archeological perspective, and from an artistic perspective as well... We got to see the earliest known surviving Christian ornamentation, in the form of mosaic tiles in a 2nd century crypt (which clearly demonstrated the connections to the Bible and Christianity while being thinly veiled as Pagan to satisfy the local customs - Christians were still being persecuted at this time).

After all of the majesty of St. Peter's, I don't know what I was expecting from the necropolis. There was a fairly well defined route that we followed to see all the allowed rooms, through a partially uncovered brick (almost) maze, and at one point toward the end of the tour, we entered the Clementine Chapel. As you can see from some of the pictures at that link, this chapel is incredibly ornate, and reminds you of the Basilica upstairs. While we were in this chapel, another tour group came out of a recessed door on one side of the chapel. We waited until the whole group had come out, then we were led in (by our guide) and found ourselves in a room with the remains of Saint Peter. I'd already used up my (already schetchy) supply of "I see dead people" references, and I decided that this would be an opportune time to hold my tongue. It was quite sobering to see the Holy Relics which anchor the entire Catholic empire.

Cori had a birthday party this afternoon at a friend's house. Said friend happens to live (on weekends, anyway) in (what used to be) a monastery about 1/2 hour north of town. Both my GPS and the directions provided by the party organizer led me down a specific road, about 15 miles long. Every 1/4 mile or so, the road was lined with prostitutes, singly, or in groups of two or three. Mind you, this was not a big busy street - this was a road that stretches through farmland north of town. I'm still not certain why that particular road was selected (or how the PRU marketing department increases traffic on that road)... you'll notice that I didn't give you the name of the road. I'm not expecting a check in the mail for my marketing efforts, and don't want to wake up next to a horse head in the morning just because I squealed on the internet.

That's it for now. Lemme know if you have any questions!

Big update:

Rome is beginning to feel more like our home: the kids have survived their first week at school, Becca is getting into the swing of her work responsibilities, our belongings are mostly unpacked, our Mazda will be delivered on Monday, and I'm slowly adjusting to the responsibilities of keeping the house going while daily life keeps moving on at its leisurely pace.

Labor day was the first day of school for the kids, and Becca was off. She was out of town on business for the new parent orientation, and we drove Cori in to school on the first day so Becca could meet the kids' teachers (Palmer wanted to ride the bus). After the introductions and getting the kids settled, we left the school and came home to work on the house. Palmer's dresser won't fit up the stairs and the poor kid has no storage in his room at all, so we went to IKEA to look at dressers for him. Becca's boss called my cell while we were shopping, and told us that Palmer had fallen during recess and cut his eyebrow, right above his eye. The school didn't have any numbers for us (when we registered for school, we didn't have any local telephone numbers), so they went through Becca's office - calling one of the high level muckety-mucks in Rome and having him get in touch with Becca's agency. Our "Good Parent" cards got a little folded, mutilated, and spindled that day. Turns out Palmer was fine, just banged up a little. He's still got the black eye to show for it, and (on based on my advice) is now saying "You should see the other guy!" when asked about his shiner.

Becca was by herself in the office for a good part of August, which is a VERY slow month here. Most of the locals take at least 2 weeks of the month off, and it was a good chance for Becca to ease into her responsibilities. As September began, one of her administrative coworkers had to extend her time off for family reasons; her other administrative coworker has been out on maternity leave since before our arrival here, and comes back to work within the next week or so. As September has progressed, Becca's workload has increased steadily. She's working hard to keep up with not only her normal job responsibilities, but with the work that needs to be done to help the office run smoothly. This will get better as her coworkers return, but right now, she's working her butt off.

Our shipment arrived (mostly) in one piece. There were a few dings and scrapes, as are normal with any move. We've gotten the majority of our stuff unpacked; there are still boxes here and there, but I would say we're 75 - 80 percent done at this point. We've still got some challenges ahead of us: for all of the storage space that we have here (built in closets, storage area downstairs, etc) we still brought WAY too much stuff. Everything needs to be organized, and we need to make up spaces to put our remaining stuff to where we can find it later, if necessary.

We bought a car from someone who was leaving the country a few weeks ago. It's a 2000 (or 2001, I can't remember which) Renault Megane Coupe with about 50k miles on it... it's Becca's commuter car; when I drive it (or ride in it, for that matter), I have to push the seat so far back that there's no room for a child in the back seat behind me. I can squish up a little bit, but whichever kid's riding behind me gets a minuscule amount of footroom. Off and on for the last few weeks, we've been borrowing a car from one of Becca's coworkers and avoiding driving ours, since it's not registered properly (and probably isn't truly street legal without proper plates) and still has the "CD plates" from the previous owner. We're looking forward to getting our Mazda, which we'll drive with our Texas plates until it's properly registered. The general consensus around here is that while local plates which begin with "CD" rarely get pulled over (because the plates indicate that the driver has a connection with a foreign government in some form or fashion), U.S. plates almost never get pulled over, because the police here mostly turn a blind eye to U.S. drivers, except in cases where you blatantly disregard the rules of the road. Once both of our cars are properly registered in our (Becca's) name, neither vehicle will have CD plates on it; the basic difference between CD plates and normal local plates (which both of our cars will have) is that cars with CD plates are allowed to drive in the controlled sections of the city, due (in part) to the position (within a foreign government) of the owner/driver. Becca's position doesn't rate CD plates.

Things take longer in Rome. Things take longer in Rome. Things take longer in Rome. Maybe if I say it enough times, I'll actually remember it when planning tasks. Before returning Becca's coworker's car yesterday, I took it to a local gas station (5 minutes away) to get a car wash. It took 2 hours. We live a 5 minute walk up the street from a supermarket. Every time I walk down there, it takes over an hour to get just a few items. It's just a much slower pace here, and I get quite frustrated that at the end of the day, I've only managed to get a couple of tasks accomplished, whereas I should be celebrating that I've actually accomplished anything. It's a completely different mindset that you need to be in here. I go down to the store every couple of days for groceries - milk is sold in 1 liter bottles here, and I typically buy two or three bottles at a time, along with pasta, veggies, fruits, a bottle of wine every now and then. Wine is incredibly cheap here. Wine is cheaper than soda, bottled water, or beer. It's fairly decent wine, but it's not categorized by grape the same way that wines in the states are: there's no pinot noir, merlot, chardonnay, etc. There's rossa (red), and blanco (white). You can buy wines from different regions of Italy - I assume that different regions grow different varieties of grapes, but there doesn't seem to be any correlation between the grapes of certain regions and the traditional wine varieties.

It's been a while since our last blog entry, and I apologize. As you've read above, we've been keeping busy. We've got internet access at home now, along with home, cell, and U.S. telephone numbers. I've sent out a couple of emails with contact information in them, please let one of us know (via email) if you didn't get the numbers and we'll send them to you.

Unpacking:

I can report with 100% certainty that the gentlemen who packed our belongings have never even moved across town, much less internationally.

Please take this update in the spirit in which it was intended - a grousing anecdote - rather than a real complaint.

That is all.

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Latest update:

Here's a quick and dirty update...

Our stuff was delivered over the past couple of days, and there have been only a few stumbling blocks:
We brought WAY too much stuff. Our apartment is completely filled with boxes. We'll manage to get through it all somehow.
Palmer's pedestals (bed supports) won't fit up the stairway. There's no possible way to get them up there, short of taking them apart, and they're not Ikea items - they're all glued together. We'll have to figure out some other solution for both storage and to have 2 twin beds in his room. Cori's box spring won't fit up the stairs either... that one's not a big deal, but now we have to figure out where to store it. Minor items had issues... no other big problems have been discovered with the shipment at this point.
No high speed internet or telephone yet. A guy came out, but evidently, we still need to wait for another guy... I think the first guy worked for Telecom Italia, and we're supposed to be getting our service from FastWeb. I don't know any more than that. Might just be a union thing. Sadly enough, I'm not kidding.
No Mazda yet. Still waiting on it to get here. I may go talk with the guy who's arranging that. Becca is traveling now, so I may be able to use that as an excuse to talk to him.

We had school orientation this morning, and the kids are looking forward to starting school. I'm extremely happy with the teachers they've been assigned - they seem to be just about perfectly selected for our kids. Cori's teacher seems very caring and nurturing, but doesn't seem like she'll take a lot of crap from the kids (and that's what Cori needs!). Palmer's teacher reminds me of Nicole Kidman - she's an Aussie with reddish hair. She showed a great deal of interest in keeping Palmer engaged, and helping him learn at his own level. Both of their classes are small (around 11 kids each), so they should both get plenty of one on one time with their teachers.

That's all for now. I'll post more when I have an internet connection - I'm borrowing a computer for this post. Hopefully, FastWeb will call me shortly for an installation appointment. Everybody, keep your fingers crossed!

Status update:

Shipment delivery starts tomorrow morning, expected to take 2 days.

Internet install is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Blog updates are a pain in the ass from my phone.

We're expecting for the Mazda to arrive and start the inspection process in the next week or so.

Talk to y'all later!

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Moving day

We moved out of the hotel today. No high speed at the apartment yet, so blog updates will be sporadic and succinct for a little while. Becca and I are both still available via email on our phones though.

Till next time...

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Sorry we have been slacking on the blog, but our learning continues…

It is almost 10:30 and I just applied what I thought was body cream or lotion to my leg after a shower to learn that it was a body wash instead of lotion. Chalking it up to another lesson learned. Perhaps instead of writing the shopping list in English, I might have to write it in English and then find the translation into Italian before going to the store. See the picture to understand that I am not an idiot, it looks like a lotion type of bottle with the words ‘Skin Care’ and ‘crème’.

Also, we learned that Italian school supplies aren’t like the school supplies in the States. You get a list that seems easy enough, but there are some differences: The majority of the pencils don’t have erasers; None of the notebooks are spiral-bound; Binders have 4 rings instead of 3; Just little things like that.

We decided to open up an Italian bank account so we can get internet connection and a toll pass. My co-worker went with us to translate when we opened the account. Today I tried using my ATM card for the first time and it was all in Italian. I guess they assume if you open an Italian bank account, you must speak Italian – not so in my case. I got through telling it I wanted to withdraw and how much, I was pretty proud of myself at this point. But… then it asked another question and I had to ask somebody to translate it for me, it was asking if I want to donate to a telethon. I am learning a lot, but sometimes it isn’t a lot of fun to be the new one.

On another note, Rick finally got the ‘granny cart’ he has been wanting. He was pretty picky about his granny cart, so he had been holding out for the one that met his specifications. Now he has moved on to finding his “man purse”. Lord help us.

After six weeks in the hotel, tomorrow we move to the apartment. We’re pretty excited about this. We bought some pancake mix, syrup and sausage links to have a real breakfast in our real kitchen on Sunday morning. I also got a cake mix so we can bake some cupcakes too. The lady at the commissary must have thought I was crazy to be so excited about buying these things, but I know I am not the only one who has done the same thing.

Oh, our household goods shipment is in Rome now and we expect delivery next week some time; in the meantime we will be ‘camping out’ in the apartment with our new camping equipment. I think the kids will like the ‘camping’, but I am not sure that Rick and I are going to do too well with the sleeping part. I see massages in our future after sleeping on air mattresses. I just keep telling myself “this is the price of admission for living in Rome”.

More movies!

Trevi:





Pantheon:





Odd sighting:

Our apartment

The UAB contained our video camera, so I took a video of our apartment, and am trying this for the first time. A quick disclaimer first.... James Cameron, I'm not. Now grab some popcorn, and enjoy the flick.

House / Shipment news:

Becca and Christine did the walkthrough on our place yesterday, and there are only a couple of things that are left to be done. There's a railing outside of Palmer's room that needs to be painted, and the chimney needs to be cleaned out. Those are scheduled for today, along with.... (pause for effect)..... our UAB!

We caught a ride up there yesterday afternoon with our sponsor (one of the guys in the office), and looked at the whole place. There are immense (for here) amounts of storage, and I think we'll probably be fine on space, as far as our stuff is concerned.

Th work that was done over the past month didn't include the tile in either psychadelic bathroom, or in the kitchen. Just to remind everyone what we'll be looking at for the next 3 years - please ignore the text superimposed on each picture. The master bath is all white, the kids' bathroom is the brown one, and the blue one is a half bath downstairs.

Disclaimer: if there's a chance that you have epilepsy, you may want to skip these images - I don't want to be held responsible for any seizures.

Our air shipment is scheduled to be delivered to the house between noon & 2:00. The kids and I are tentatively planning on borrowing a car from one of the guys in the office and going up there to meet the shipment. If borrowing a car is not an option, we can cab up there from Becca's office... it's about a 15E cab ride.

I'll post more later, once the day's activities have concluded.

Traffic

One of the guys in Becca's office took his family out of town and lent us his car while they're gone. We took the opportunity to get a little bit out of Rome center, and go visit the kids school. Becca drove while I white-knuckled the maps in the passenger seat. Please see a word for word transcript of this adventure below:

Becca: This is a complicated intersection, which road do I take?
Me: Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh!
Becca: Shut up, you big baby - that bus missed us by at least 6 inches. Which way now?
Me: AaaaaaaaaRrrrrrrrrrGgggggHhhhhhhhh!
Becca: Whatever. Help me find the signs for Cassia.
Me: AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!

The previous paragraph notwithstanding, it actually went quite well. Becca came over and picked us up from the hotel, and quite honestly, surprised me a bit. I truly expected her to immediately turn the keys over to me and refuse to drive, and that didn't happen. I had already planned out a general route by studying the map, and was prepared to either drive or navigate, depending on which she preferred. She was comfortable driving, and I made myself useful (I hope, anyway... but only my darling wife can say for sure) by giving turn by turn directions to the proper streets.

Traffic in Rome is nuts. There are 2 sets of rules to the traffic here: the technical rules of the road, and the actual rules that everyone follows when driving. Lane markers don't typically matter - on a road with 3 marked lanes in each direction, you will typically have 4 or 5 lanes of vehicles lined up at the intersections, with 3 or 4 actual lanes of traffic between the intersections, and at least 1, sometimes 2 lanes of parked cars on the side of the road. There are dedicated bus/taxi lanes on some roads, these restrictions are generally respected, but following this specific rule is by no means universal. Double parking is quite common, and traffic (by and large) simply makes allowances for the unexpected narrowing of lanes as if by magic.

More than one third of the vehicles on the roads are either motorcycles or motorscooters (generically referred to as motorinis), and most of the normal rules of traffic don't apply to them. They are encouraged to split lanes at any speed. If traffic is moving, they manage to get between and around the moving lanes of cars and find clear spaces for themselves. If traffic is stopped, they wind their way through the lanes of cars to the front of the intersection - at stop lights, a pack of motorinis is almost always at the front of the line.

Please note that this missive is penned from the perspective of someone who's spent more time in the central (read "tourist") areas of Rome than "real" Rome, but I have reason to believe that these same general rules apply outside of Rome central - limited observation suggests that this is the case, but I'll know more as the weeks go by.

Here's where this blog entry gets a bit wierd. I think it'll make sense, but bear in mind (while reading this) that I'm trying to get a point across.... we'll compare notes at the end to see how successful I've been.

As of this writing, Rome appears to be among the most polite and respectful cities I've ever been in. There are no periods of waiting for someone to let you into traffic, or putting your blinker on and hoping that someone lets you into a line of cars - it's almost as if it's your right to be in that lane, and no one has a problem with you asserting your right. You simply put your blinker on, start moving in the direction, and space will magically appear. There's no need to say "Thank you", or give that friendly little wave - in fact, they look at you with a strange look on their face if you do! It's almost like the look you would get in America if you effusively thanked the people on the elevator for stopping on your floor to pick you up. They didn't have a choice with regard to which floor(s) the elevator stopped at, and you have as much right to be on the elevator as they do.

For as busy as the streets are here, there is surprisingly little honking. The only honking that you hear is when someone stops in the middle of a moving lane of traffic without putting their hazards on.

Each driver "owns" as much of the road as the next driver, and there seem to be minimal problems with this concept of rolling mass ownership. The same concept applies (in most cases) when crossing the road on foot as well. Assuming you're at a crosswalk that's not at an intersection, you simply walk out into the crosswalk, and traffic stops. In that order. If you stand politely on the curb at the crosswalk, waiting for cars to stop to let you cross, I hope you packed a lunch... you're going to be there a while. The Romans appear to respect assertiveness. It's a switch from the way we all learned to cross the street, but here's what I suggest (while in Rome anyway... I wouldn't recommend this in Anytown, USA): wait until you've got at least 100 yards of room in the lane closest to you, and boldly stride into the first lane. By the time you're halfway across the first lane, the car in your lane will be coming to a stop (or edging behind you - you're done with that part of the lane, right?). Any cars in the next lane will have seen either the car in the first lane slow down, or have seen you starting to cross into their lane, and will have slowed down. Double check this out of the corner of your eye, and once you confirm that they're slowing down, keep walking straight through their lane. Continue until you're across the road. DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THE CARS! That will instantly mark you as a tourist, and will skew your results.

Please note that I don't actually recommend striding boldly into an active lane of traffic. Watch how the traffic patterns work, and keep your head on a swivel. Be intelligent about how and when you assert your ownership of roads and crosswalks. That said, remember the preceding paragraph when you come visit, and see if it doesn't work like that.

Rome seems to hover on the fine edge of controlled chaos, and the inhabitants seem to be comfortable there. There are limited rules (which are actually heeded), and everyone thus far has been willing to make allowances for our inexperience in their culture.

This is truly an adventure, and we've only been here a couple of weeks!

Confession:

Dear readers, please forgive me. It's been 6 days since my last blog entry.

What have we done in the meantime? Well... here's our daily schedule during the week:

7:00 - Becca gets up, gets ready for work, and leaves.
8:30 - 9:00 - Rick & kids get up and begin doing nothing.
10:45 (on swim days) - Walk down to Piazzo Barberini and catch a cab to the pool.
1:00 - Walk back from the pool.
2:00 - Arrive @ hotel room, have lunch upon arrival.
3:30 - 5:00 Walk around the corner and do a load of laundry or two, meet tourists and and expats.
5:30 - Becca gets home from work.
7:00 - Dinner

There are random things that I'm skipping.... one day last week, the kids and I went and got a SIM card for a loaner cell phone... now, during our daily travels, we at least have a way of communicating with the mothership in case of emergency. Occasionally, we'll walk down to the local supermarket and buy supplies for the next day or two.

Over the weekend, we had an adventure...

There are two Ikeas in Rome, and we decided that we were going to find one of them. We researched the locations, and planned out our trip, but evidently, we got directions via bus to one of them, and GPS coordinates for the other one. By the way, that nameless Garmin hussy dosn't have any idea what she's talking about, and has never heard of Ikea.

We rode the Metro to Termini (Rome's main Metro and train station), and got on a bus which was supposed to take us to one of the Ikeas. We ended up getting lost, and hopping off the bus, crossing the street, and getting on a bus bringing us back to Termini. We had a quick lunch at the station, then got onto the Metro and rode it to the end of the line. We eventually saw Ikea in the distance, and took a cab there. We walked through Ikea, then went to the shopping mall next door. We bought a fan for the kids' room, an iron for Becca (which turned out to have the wrong plug on it), and a 'Granny Cart' for me. Then we started walking back, got on a bus for a couple of blocks, and Metro'd back to our hotel room.

We had Chinese food last night. Not too bad, but I'm having Sweet & Sour Chicken next time.

Random thoughts, from random family members:

• Note to self: Don't order Sesame Chicken again. My last order was still meowing.
• Cori's most insightful question thus far: "Dad, why can you see the nuts on all the statues?"
• Palmer's thoughts about art: (This one requires some back-story) The hotel we're staying at is affiliated with one of the art museums here in town, and there are random "art" displays throughout the hotel. One of these exhibits is a watermelon on a podium..... Yes, that kind of art. One of the other examples which we see every time we go in or out of the hotel is a brass colored soft drink can, with a small crease pressed into the side, with small holes punched into the end furthest from the mouth of the can. I don't know if you can tell from my description, but evidently, the vast majority of us were "artists" during our high school years, if you get my drift (If you don't know what I'm talking about, send me an email, and I'll be more specific). Palmer questioned the artistic merit of this particular piece, and for a couple of hours, was picking up random pieces of trash, and pointing them out to me as "Art". I thought that was cute.

That's all.... I think we'll be going to the zoo after our swimming trip on Friday. I'll let everyone know how that turns out. It may turn into a play-date with some of our new friends.

Celebrating one week in Rome

Today was our one week anniversary of arriving in Rome. We told the kids when we got here that if they would try new foods during the week, we would celebrate our one week anniversary by having American food. They were pretty good about sticking to their end of the deal, so we did too. They have been looking forward to McDonald’s or Burger King.

There just happened to be BBQ at my work today, so Rick and the kids came to have lunch with me. Palmer had a cheeseburger and Cori had a grilled chicken sandwich. The food was good, but they still were itching for some American fast food.

We decided that there are worse things than having two burgers in one day. Here are a few things Palmer thinks you should know about the McDonald’s in Rome:
-They made us pay for ketchup.
-They have really cool trash cans, they are automatic and they spin by themselves.
-They don’t have chocolate milk, but they do have chocolate shakes.

Oh, note to self: Walking up the Spanish Steps isn’t as rewarding as one might think; I will stick with walking down them in the future.

Yesterday:

Yesterday, Bec was at work, and the kids & I went swimming. There seems to be a severe shortage of swimming pools here, we're fortunate to have access to one.

We were planning on taking a taxi up there, but one of Becca's coworkers was headed up there, and he took us up. After we finished swimming, we were going to taxi back, but decided to walk.

It's a long walk. Did I mention LONG?

It wasn't too bad, it was all downhill, most of it was in the shade, and it wasn't too unbearably hot. We walked back to the room and had lunch, then did some laundry. Seems like we're going through a lot of laundry. Since we figured out where the laundromat is (right around the corner), we've done laundry every day.

That's all for now... we're still moving a little slow this morning. Nothing planned for today, except for the aforementioned laundry. I'll post more if we do anything else.

Maybe tomorrow will be more productive...

I guess it is a good thing Rick has been keeping up with this blog. Sorry to be such a slacker, but the last push to get out of Texas was a tough one for me. I worked my job in the Austin office until the day before we left. If I had been smart I would have put in for four days of leave and been finished when we left for Florida instead of coming back in to the office. I tried to be productive in the last few days, but wasn’t as successful as I had hoped. It was good to hang out with my co-workers for a few more days, I miss them already.

Today was my first day in my new office and once again I wasn’t as productive as I had hoped. This is my first overseas assignment and there is a lengthy check-in process for new arrivals. They gave me a ten page instruction sheet and many forms to complete and sent me on my way. I was able to check off a few of the items and schedule appointments to hit a few more tomorrow. My goal is to be finished by the end of the week, but I am on Rome time now, so maybe by the end of next week – who knows. I have regular work piling up while I tackle the check-in list, so I don’t want it to go on too long.

Tonight was did an abbreviated version of an authentic Italian meal. We started with Bruschetta, which had the freshest tomatoes. Add the house red vino and then the pasta dishes. Palmer read through the menu and said “I am not sure about this, I know I like bacon and I know I like eggs, but I’m not sure about having them together with pasta.” We decided to try one Carbonera pasta and one more regular meat sauce pasta (Ragu’) . Palmer liked the Carbonera and thinks he would like to try it again some time.

On the way back to the hotel, we tried gelato number five. Yes, we have had gelato every day we have been here. The small sized portions are plenty. By the time we have visitors we will be able to direct them to the best spots in town (in our opinions).

Tomorrow Rick and the kids will go to the Ambassador’s residence complex to go swimming and I will go to work. I am hoping that I might get see our apartment tomorrow or the next day. I will take pictures if I get to see it. Getting late now, almost eleven and one person in this family has work tomorrow and it is me. Buona sera.

Yesterday's tourist stuff:

Yesterday was a relatively short trip. We hopped on the Metro at the Barberini station right around the corner from our hotel and after one confusing transfer, we got off at the stop for the Colosseum. Walking out of the Metro, you're right across the street from this massive structure, it's almost so big that you can't immediately comprehend it.

This thing is huge, and huge doesn't even begin to describe it. It's not "tall" - it's only about 10-15 traditional stories high. It's more the scope of the whole building. Once you approach the base of the building to get out of the scorching heat, you can't see the top of the building, and as you look to each side, the building curves away from your sight, so you don't see any corners. With a square building, you can look down one of the sides and see an end to the building. With the Colosseum, it probably appears more massive than it really is, since you can't get any perspective from any corners. We'd have to talk to an expert in architecture from 2000 years ago, since construction on this monster was started around 75 AD.

For me (at least), the scale and history of the building hit me with a guttural reaction that took my breath away for a moment. I know that the kids didn't have that reaction, and I think Becca appreciated different parts of it, but I haven't had that reaction to anything else I've seen while here. Quite sobering.

We've found that if Cori is the one responsible for taking pictures, she's more into doing the touristy stuff. She took most of the pictures from around the Colosseum... she's gotten much better at framing the subject, and she's working on teaching herself more about composition as well. You can see for yourself by clicking on the picture link from the last post. I'll figure out how to make that link static, and leave it on the right side of the blog.

We wandered a bit, then stopped in a cafe and had lunch... lasagna for me, a salad for Bec, and grilled chicken with french fries for the kids. The chicken wasn't trimmed before grilling, and the kids didn't eat much of it. We took the Metro back, and spent most of the rest of the day hanging around the hotel.

That's all for now, I'll post more pics shortly. Check the same link from last post.

Pics from last night...

Let's try this again (   <-- That text is a link.....    I deleted the last one... sorry about the multiple updates!)

Yesterday's travels:

Yesterday morning, we left the hotel around noon and found a place to get lunch. We got four slices of pizza. For future reference, you're not necessarily supposed to get one slice per person at the smaller places like that; it was entirely too much food, and each piece was cut in half, so we could have done with one piece for the boys, and one for the girls. Also, I think you're supposed to have your biggest meal for dinner. Lunch was our biggest yesterday. No biggie... we're still learning.

We did some walking around (including buying some groceries, so we don't have to eat out every meal), then came back to the hotel for a break. We ate sandwiches for dinner at the room, and took off exploring afterward.

We walked to the Pantheon... by the time we got there, it was closed - so we'll have to go back - but even just from the outside, it's quite impressive. It's been repaired a few times over the years, but the original building was completed around 126 AD.

After that, we wandered back towards our hotel, stopping briefly to commune with the masses packed around Trevi Fountain. It's a much more recent edition to the Roman guidebooks, with its completion date in 1762.

Rome is an interesting mix of old and new, with both receiving almost equal attention. The crowds around the Pantheon were not as thick as the crowds around Trevi... about as thick as the crowds around the Spanish Steps. That may have something to do with the time that we were there; I'll share my additional findings on that as I get more information. It's just a theory I'm working on.

In addition, a lot of the more famous landmarks seem to have been placed in the most unlikely places, and I believe it was done intentionally. Of the three major tourist spots that we've visited thus far, only the Spanish Steps was really out in the open; Trevi and the Pantheon are both in the middle of seemingly inconsequential plazas created by the mere presence of the landmark, surrounded by unrelated buildings which were built in those specific locations almost to keep the boundaries of the landmarks restrained. For instance, you have no indication that you're even approaching the Pantheon until you come around a corner and BOOM, it's fifty yards in front of you. You can't even back up enough from it to take a picture of the full building, because of all of the buildings surrounding it.

Two final items of note:

1. Whomever's in charge of enforcing the ADA would run out of ink in this city. I'm not certain I've seen a single "accessible" city block yet.
2. I don't expect any hydration problems here. The entire family has been drinking water constantly. We carry a water bottle with us, and refill it at the water fountains present on about every third street corner. Then we sweat all the water out, and repeat the process.

Arrival in Rome:

Well, we're here. We left Austin on Wednesday at Noon, and flew for 2 1/2 hours to get to Chicago. We had about 2 hours there to eat and visit the duty free store, then the trip across the big water started.

The flight wasn't bad... Cori and I sat together for most of the flight, and we had the whole center of the row (3 seats) to ourselves. For most of it, she was crashed out, and I ended up sleeping for about half the flight too. They served 2 meals... dinner was actually not bad (some sort of beef-ish meat in sauce with mashed potatoes, a salad, and a roll... breakfast was a croissant, yogurt and orange juice), and a couple of movies... I think there were 2 movies, I went to sleep at some point after Alvin and the Chipmunks went off.

Customs and Immigration were fine... nothing to share there.

We were met by 3 people from Becca's work, and we went to her office, after a brief stop at our eventual apartment complex. Looks like a nice area; it's right off of one of the main roads, and the guy I was riding with gave me some tips about getting around the neighborhood.

While we were getting checked in at her office, we had a quick bite to eat in the cafeteria... decent food, reasonable prices. A box had already arrived from a family member back in the states (who will remain nameless, but Thank you!).

We walked down to our hotel and checked in... the hotel is fairly nice, and is conveniently located right around the corner from the Barberini plaza. We're on the fourth floor, and there's an elevator in the hotel... literally the size of the phone booth. The elevator is kinda weird, with separate inside and outside doors. The workings of the elevator open and close the inner doors, but the outer door is manual, and there's an interlock that if you try to open the outer door too soon, the elevator has to go to another floor and return before the outer door will open.

While we were ferrying our luggage up in the elevator, I rode down once with our next door neighbor (in the hotel), Alex Kingston (you'll remember her from the show E.R.... her character was married to Anthony Edwards' character). There are only two rooms per floor (us and her)... I'm thinking of being neighborly and inviting her over for a cappuccino tomorrow morning. Do you think my wife would mind?

Yesterday afternoon we walked to the Spanish Steps, sat down and had gelato. We wandered back and stopped for pizza. Cori didn't want anything to eat, and she put her head down on the table and promptly went to sleep. Palmer, Becca, and I enjoyed the pizza with a bottle of wine (well, no wine for Palmer), then we walked back to the hotel and went to bed.

Hope this is enough for now... undoubtedly, I will remember something that I forgot to include.

Last night in Texas:

Tonite is our last night in Texas. the whole family is staying in Georgetown with my folks tonite, and we'll be going to the airport tomorrow morning for the long journey to our new home.

The last few days have been incredibly hectic, but they're finally over. The day has arrived.

We had some good strong nibbles on a renter for our house today; our leasing agent told me this afternoon that she believes that we've got it rented - we just don't know to whom yet. We've got one person who was given 24 hours to talk with his wife, and another couple (with a son Palmer's age) who wants it if the first guy doesn't jump on it. There's a funny story there, but as you can see by the time, I need to go to bed. I'll post it another time.

Good night everyone. 11 hours and counting till wheels up.

Final push - Rick's perspective...

We all went to a family reunion in Florida last week. We drove down after Becca got off of work on Thursday, and spent the night in Beaumont, TX. The next morning, we got up and drove to Pensacola to have dinner with Becca's great aunt Mitch and great uncle Tinker. After dinner, we continued driving to Tallahassee for the night. The next day was Tallahassee to Naples (Florida, not Italy).

We spent some good quality time with the family over the next few days, and left there Monday to drive to Venice (again.... Florida, not Italy). We stayed the night in a hotel there, and the next day 8 of the family members (my Grandfather, dad, mother, wife, 2 uncles, 2 cousins) went skydiving - she'll have to tell you all about that in a post of her own. We stayed the next night in Venice, the Becca flew back with my mom and dad, and I took off driving with the kids.

We stopped in Tallahassee, then drove all the next day to Lake Charles (Louisiana). We got up yesterday and drove from there to Austin. We're home now (wherever home happens to be today).

Now, we're in the final push to get all of the checks in all of the right boxes so we can leave on Wednesday.

Rick and I have completed the required State Dept. seminar. I guess Rick summed it all up by saying "It is a good thing this is not a recruiting seminar, because nobody would do this if they heard all of this first." The topics are worst case scenarios and just exposing you to the risks of living and working abroad. I think it was very good information to have.

My favorite part of the seminar was when one of the subject experts suggested everybody read the book "The Gift of Fear". I read this book about two years ago and Rick said it was psyco-babble. The book discusses: 1. how people react in crises; 2. who is most likely to survive and why; 3. that your gut feeling is not to be ignored.

On a more positive note, we are checking things off our bucket list. We ate dinner at Anita's (best cream cheese enchiladas) last night and tonight we ate at Hard Times Cafe (yummy Cincinnati chili, you can't get that in Texas).

The kids loved seeing Minnie at her new home. On this trip, the kids are getting a sleep over at my mom's house and my aunt's house. After seeing Minnie play with my aunt's dog, a labradoodle, I think when we get her back we will have to get a second dog. Oh well.

The days are ticking by faster and faster, it won't be long now.

Rick's last day at work:

Well, yesterday was my last day at work here; the closing of one chapter, and the opening of the next. It was a challenging company to work for, and I learned more than I thought my little brain would hold.

We had a couple of happy hours in honor of my departure... I daresay that they probably have quite a going-away party planned for sometime next week to celebrate that I'm really gone. There are some people at that company with whom I will genuinely miss interacting on a daily basis.

Now would be the most opportune time for Becca to tell me that this is all an elaborate prank, and that we're not moving to Rome after all.

(Just for the record, if this has all been an elaborate prank perpetrated by my better half, I will be most upset about selling our CX-9. And... I will be impressed as hell at her commitment to the prank!)

Ms. Garmin needs a name

Today was my first day in Rome without having to wake up to an alarm clock. I am embarrassed to say I slept until NOON! I think I really needed to catch up on the sleep I didn’t have earlier in the week. I woke up feeling rested and was ready to be a tourist.

Before leaving home, Rick and I search high and low for the perfect GPS unit. One that had a pedestrian mode and had Europe preloaded. It turns out that they were not as easy to find as one might expect, fortunately we found Ms. Garmin at Frys, they have everything.

I went out exploring with a too small to read map and Ms. Garmin. Ms. Garmin took forever to find the satellite. I turned her on and she was searching, I carried her in my hand for about 30 minutes and she was still searching. Finally I just put her in my bag and after I ate a panino and had a “Coke Light” I remembered her. I had already found the Trevi Fountain by myself (with the posted signs around town). I checked her again and she had finally realized I wasn’t in Kansas anymore (well Round Rock). I decided to try to program a destination and stumbled my way through the menus and found the Spanish Steps in the landmark section.

She was finally useful but she wanted me to back track from the direction I had already been and I wanted to go a block over and backtrack on that street to be able to see more. ‘Ms. Garmin’ didn’t appreciate my sense of adventure. I finally met up with where she wanted me to go and lo and behold I was walking by my hotel. I thought that must be the way of the Garmin Gods to tell me to get off my feet for a few minutes and enjoy some AC. I took the Garmin Gods’ advice and am relaxing for a few minutes in the room before continuing on to the Spanish Steps to have my first gelato.

I know people name their Garmins. Help us think of a name for ours, Ms. Garmin just won't do.

Hello from Roma, bella Roma.

My first post about our big move, how exciting!


I survived the flight without my carry on. I wasn't able to sleep on the plane more than a couple of minutes, I think I was too excited about coming to Rome for the first time. When I got here I had a driver waiting with a sign saying "SHORES". I am 37 years old and with all my years of flying this was a first of having a sign for me. I have seen those guys standing there waiting, but never for me. A special moment in a silly way - I love those moments.

While driving me to the hotel, the driver received a call from my new boss, Lou. Lou instructed the driver to stay with me at the hotel until he was able to come greet me. My hotel is just across a little street from the Embassy. I didn't have a chance to freshen up before this. Oh well, I tuck in my shirt and hope for the best. Lou shows up with the SAIC (big boss) and Christine, the administrative person of the office. Mind you, I have been traveling since 9:00am (Austin time) the morning before and it was 9:00am in Rome now. I felt like such a bum, but they said they were just happy to have me here.

My room wasn't ready, no surprise since it is hours before check-in. I left my luggage at the hotel and went to the office for the first time with them. I pushed myself through the day so I would overcome the jet lag. I registered the kids for school and got to walk around the complex where we will live. I think choosing to live farther out of the city was a very good choice. I think we will have a pretty big place, by Roman standards at least. My commute won't be so fun, but that is ok, I will be living in Rome.

Can't wait to move here and start our new life. We really need to hit the Rosetta Stone before we get here to help make the transition easier.

Lots o' stuff:

Minnie is happily frolicking in Northern Virginia. She was a day late, but 'Becca was able to be there when she was delivered. Hal & Sheila have 2 dogs already (a Labradoodle and a Boston Terrier... I think), and Minnie is trying to figure out where she fits into their pack.

'Becca left today for Rome. Her plane lands at 12:45am tonight here, 7:45am tomorrow morning local.

The plane didn't have space for her carry-on (on the flight from here to Newark), so they gate checked it... but "gate checking" evidently means something different now than it did a few months ago; she didn't get it back when she got off the plane in Newark. It was considered "checked" at that point, and she has to claim it as regular luggage tomorrow in Rome. She was a little peeved when I talked to her, to put it nicely.

It's bedtime for the kiddos, so I'll leave you for now.

Latest developments:

Minnie leaves this weekend for Sheila's house in Northern Virginia. Becca is going up there for training anyway next week, and was going to try to drive up there, but it would be cost prohibitive.

We found a place here in town that delivers pets worldwide, and they're going to take her from door to door for $450. She leaves Sunday, and will arrive on Wednesday.

All that's left is the house, so if anyone knows anyone who wants to buy a house, please let me know.

Welcome to our blog:

We will try to keep this updated as we get ready to move to Rome.