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.