This is the door into our apartment building

Thursday, August 18

Transportation experiment #1:

We walked (some ran and hopped) down the 46 stairs (we're on the third floor), opened and shut this door behind us at 8:50 AM. We bought tickets for the blue bus and stood on the sidewalk waiting for the bus at 9:30 to take us to the beach. The bus was on time, but unfortunately zoomed right past us. Correct information about where the stop was? Not sure. Neil had sorted out enough to know the next one arrived at 11:30. No good. Way too hot to stand around.

We walked a ways and then stopped for coffee. Smart move. Fully caffeinated, Neil developed our next plan. This involved an orange bus stop.

By 10:30 AM we were in a San Martino, a village 10 minutes east of Viterbo, in the pool at the local hotel.

Kids could not have been happier. Eleni went down the slide for two hours and Alex pretended to throw grenades (and use other various weapons of war) at an Italian boy who responded in kind. The two never exchanged names or even spoke a word to each other (except making the sound of machine gun fire) for the hour they played like this. Neil swam and read. I read and swam.

Perfect.

This is a map of where we live

August 17, 2011

We spent the day getting sorted and exploring our new home within these medieval walls. Our apartment is in the bottom left area.

Today:

Expresso

Neil retrieved our boxes from the school

Started unpacking boxes

Hung laundry #1 on balcony

We walked to the supermarket (just outside the bottom middle left gate, Porta Romana) and bought food

Pasta for lunch at home

Unpacked boxes some more

Hung laundry #2

Siesta

Wandered around. Ten-minute walk to Papal Palace (top left)

Gelato

Shopping for washing up liquid and clothespins

Pizza for dinner at local restaurant

Finished unpacking

We're all set.

This is our street

August 16, 2011

Two hour flight.

One hour taxi ride from Rome.

We're here.

It's hot.

We're exhausted.

Our apartment is on this street.

Italy Eve

August 15, 2011

It's 10:30 PM and we're about packed. Our plane leaves in the early afternoon. We should be in Italy and in our new home tomorrow evening.

But first, we had/have some hurdles.

One child couldn't get to sleep tonight because tomorrow is the most exciting adventure ever. One child couldn't get to sleep tonight because tomorrow is the scariest jump into the unknown ever.

Wow. This is harder than I thought.

Some last photos of our whereabouts in the past four days. Here's a slug we found in Kathleen's garden before leaving Cumbria (note Alex's woolen scarf that Kathleen knit him the morning we left (Alex actually knit a few rows, too!) and that he has had wrapped around his neck since August 11).

Moving southwards, we passed around thirty (I counted) police vans heading towards Nottingham. Whether they were returning from being called out to London due to last week's events or they were heading towards Nottingham on a Friday night...we do not know. It was a bit daunting to see so many police vans in convoy with lights spinning and all.

All is calm though. We've been in Bozeat with Neil's Dad and Pam. We took a walk with their walking group on Saturday.

And met the cousins for a rope course and picnic on Sunday.

Ok, we convinced him that he could not wear his scarf on the zipline.

Or, when playing cricket.

Or, when thistle harvesting.

But, other than that, the scarf is around his neck. We will be in Italy tomorrow, and now you know that at least one of us will be looking rather sophisticated!

Last bits and bobs

August 9, 2011 (Happy anniversary Michael and Sarah!)

It's hard to get online here and I'm not sure I'll be that successful in the coming week. We head south to see Neil's Dad on Friday and then we're off to Italy on the 16th. Once I get set up with wifi there (fingers crossed), I'll update further.

In the meantime, it's packing time again. We'll be reunited with our boxes in Italy soon, too. A time capsule of decision making. I've copied this from my notebook: here is the official packing list for year in Italy and thereabouts.

Each person has the following:

1 winter coat, 1 fleece, 1 raincoat, 1 sweatshirt, 1 sweater, 1 sun hat, 1 winter hat, 1 set of gloves, 1 bathing suit, 1 pair of sneakers, 1 pair of sandles, 1 pair of boots, 2 pairs of sunglasses

3 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 5 long sleeve shirts, 5 short sleeved shirts, 10 pairs of underwear, 6 pairs of socks, 2 sets of pajamas

We have toothbrushes and other medicine bag items, computers, kindles, power cords, a book on Rome, 4 children’s books, colored pencils, lunchboxes, Eleni’s blankie, a camera, Alex and Eleni have ziplock bags with their toys for the year and that is about it.

*Exceptions: Eleni and I have two skirts each, I have a few scarves, and Neil has 6 shirts for school and 1 tie. Alex is the only one without a pair of boots because I didn’t have any hand-me-downs for him and they were out of season to buy and his shoe size seems to change every other month so what is the point. Sigh.

Some last photos from England then...

The view from Alex's bedroom around 10 PM.

Molehills in the garden!

A walk in the Lake District. Ullswater lake behind Alex (eating his cheese sandwich).

Alex and Eleni have dreams of making clothes with nettles and sachets with lavender. They harvested the nettles with full gear on...I love this one with cow looking on.

When the harvesting of nettles and lavender was over, Eleni showed me how to hold nettles without getting stung.

Some last photos from Kathleen's garden.

See you in Italy!