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.