Another good bye

This morning was a tough good bye. After having Rick and Marilyn here for three weeks it was time to see them off. Kyle had a very difficult time with this as he has lost a favourite story teller (Marilyn) and a very important playmate (Rick). He will miss his morning visits upstairs in the apartment ensuring everyone's safety by tying safety tape to every possible piece of furniture and then some! Vika might not understand the fact that it will be Christmas before we see them again but she did understand that this was a big good bye: she kept waving until their car was around the corner and out of sight!

Our time with Rick and Marilyn was capped off with a wonderful four day road trip to Florence and Assisi. Both places were amazing. Having had studied art history and taught history I was particularly interested in Florence, the birth place of the Renaissance. It lived up to everything I expected! I did have somewhat skewed expectations as traveling with a 1 yr old and a 4 yr old does that to a person. I knew I'd only be able to see may be two museums and perhaps that many churches. I must know my children! In Florence we saw two museums, the Accademia and the Leonardo Da Vinci Museum and one church - and one gelato shop - twice! Oh - and two trips to McDonald's (over the whole weekend).
The Accademia was the highlight of the trip for me. To actually see Michelangelo's David is truly amazing. I just waited for him to take a breath and move! What made it even more special was the level of interest Kyle had in David. I guess I should know how much power the idea of a hammer and chisel will have with Kyle! I bought a children's book about David and we read through parts of it while looking at David. Kyle was full of questions and has decided he will not be a sculptor when he grows up.
I'm sure the highlight for the kids was the Leonardo Da Vinci museum - a hands on exhibition of many of Da Vinci's machines that he had sketched. Kyle LOVED the crane! He asked at least 15 times when we're going back there! (Personally this museum can be skipped if you don't have kids!)
Another fun moment was when we accidentally came upon a wine tasting festival! Obviously it we didn't get too involved with the kids but it was fun to have a couple of tastes of the over 60 wines there from Tuscany!
Assisi was a beautiful city - of course known for St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Clare. Our first day there did not impress me. It was a good thing we went back the next day so I could see Assisi when the temperature was more than 13 and the bitterly cold wind wasn't blowing. It's actually a very nice place! Although, you'd think after all the travelling I've done I'd know better than to show up at such a famous basilica at noon on a Sunday! We certainly saw the crowds!
In Assisi, or rather, just outside of town, we introduced Rick and Marilyn to one of our favourtie things about Italy - Agriturismos. These are like inns on farms. The one we stayed in here was a working Olive farm. Agriturismos are so peaceful and friendly and such an easy way to keep the kids happy!

The trip back home even went well! Rick and Marilyn went their own way and explored at least one hill town and we drove straight through - with two sleeping kids!

Now we have a full 18 days until our next guests arrive!

A little more info

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2008/0920/1221835126585.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/2990663/Italian-mafia-shoot-out-kills-seven.html

A little too much Italian culture

My heart has slowed down and there are no more shakes. This was a day that will not soon be forgotten. I cannot believe how things fell into place and how we all ended up safe in the end! I was supposed to pick up Kyle from school and was not supposed to have our guests Rick and Marilyn with me - just Vika. But things didn't work that way and they were with me - and thank God they were! We were driving home from Kyle's school along the Domitiana (That is one the main street along the outside of our village and only three entrances to our village from that street. Although on the other (east) side of the Domitiana there is more development it's generally not referred to as part of the main village.) It's very unusual to run into traffic at that time so I thought we must be approaching an accident. The road has a cement median and round abouts along the way. There was no traffic coming towards us and traffic was stopped in front of us. We were only a couple of blocks from the turn off for our place so I thought we'd find a way through. As we got closer I realized that traffic was slowing for garbage dumpsters that had been pulled and tipped in the middle of the street. What a prank! But really none of use were too put out so I drove around and continued on our way. Then we saw more dumpsters pulled into the middle of the street and dumped. Now we were thinking this is a little bit more than a prank but only being less than 2 km from home we continued. Then traffic stopped. That is when we all took a deeper breath and realized maybe this was something none of us expected.

We were parked in bumper to bumper traffic - with cars trying to run around on a dime and drive out going against the one way traffic. It was CHAOS and it got worse. We even had a dumpster dragged and tipped into the road in front of us. I didn't know what was going on but felt tension rising and knew it wasn't good but still thought we'd just go home. After 20 minutes or so we decided to turn off the main street and try the side streets to see if we could just get up the couple more blocks to the next roundabout where we could turn off. All the streets either dead ended or lead us back to where we started. We drove up and down the lane like streets and even cut across some vacant lots only to get more stressed and find ourselves back where we started - again. I am truly thankful that Rick was int he backseat with the kids. He and "Fireman Kyle" were drawing up the "fire map" in case we needed to find our way to the closest McDonalds. We saw many Africans walking towards the center of the activity and we stopped and talked to at least three of them. Maybe I should of been hesitant to speak to strangers in such a strange situation but I've always found the Africans in this area extremely friendly and they also all speak English. We were told several time that the roads were being blocked because the Italians (police we incorrectly assumed at the time) killed 7 Africans "with no reason". We were yelled at over and over - until I figured out that if I rolled down the windows and spoke English (then they knew we were not Italians) they were very friendly and even helpful to us. One gentleman even told us to try to get close to the barricade that completely blocked the road and let them know we were tourists and they would let us through. Bu how on earth could we even get close!

The kids had had enough. because we were pretty much parked I actually allowed them to get out of their carseats and a game of pass the baby began. (Do you know how finely ground cheerios can get?) We were running out of ways to keep everyone entertained. Kyle knew this was not a good situation and at one point just started screaming! (Have I mentioned how thankful I am that Rick was with us? He was FANTASTIC with Kyle!) Over and over we were weighing our options - do we park off the main street and wait, do we try to work our way through, do we try to go the wrong way through traffic and just get out of the area, or do we park the car and walk home (in the rain) and hope the car will be left untouched? We drove the back streets some more and made no progress. We all agreed that we would give one try to get through the blockade. A pretty impossible task to do when traffic was NOT moving - as in people had even deserted their cars. We had been watching an Italian school bus and kept commenting on that poor bus driver stuck with a load full of what looked like primary students. And their poor parents who were waiting and waiting for their children to arrive home. Eventually the Africans realized the bus needed to get through. I never realized I could glue myself in an Alfa Romeo station wagon to the bumper of a school bus. I became it's shadow. And sure enough it was lead right through the barrier. I kept the window cracked and kept yelling "do you speak English?" and it worked! We were allowed to turn around and go back on the other side of the street. I prayed - yes prayed - that we didn't get a flat tire after driving through so much debris and garbage.

Phew! We were free! What was normally a 10 minute drive had taken over and hour and a half and we still weren't home. Again, we found ourselves, with slightly less adrenolin, weighing our options; do we go to the mall, try to get in to the village from the north side or come up with something else to do? We decided to give it one shot to get through the north side of town. It was a long drive around and I knew if we could get close to the Holiday Inn I could probably get home - assuming the village center had been spared. At this point I was able to let go of some of the worry about our immediate safety and realized I may not have a home to go to? What if the village was the center of the riots and what we saw was only the perimeter. We drove on. At the north end of town, on the Domitiana, we again found dumpsters that had been dumped (but also uprighted again) and all the street signs pulled out of the ground and strewn across the road. The traffic ahead looked clear so we carried on. It was quite the slalom driving course but we made it through to the first entrance to the town. And we all held our breath as we were really not sure what we would find in town. We could breath again, the main village was untouched. In a matter of minutes we were home - after well over an hour and 45 minutes of trying. It was 5:15. We drove in and parked the car and before the gate had even closed our next door neighbour was there. "Michelle! Are you OK!" " Did you get Kyle" We quickly learned that yes indeed there had been a homicide/assassination and seven people were dead. There were parents from our village with kids in Kyle's school that could not get out to get their kids! Thank God we were home safe! Our neighbour advised us "DO NOT go out again tonight!" I just received a message from another friend (at 8:30) who had a delivery from the US military base - normally a 20 minute drive - and it took them over FOUR hours! Obviously the protests are still out there and even growing!

Now here's what we know - it was a mafia hit, actually two of them one at each end of our village- drug related. Seven people dead (rumours have it that it is 1 Italian and 6 Africans) There are many claims that the wrong people were killed, thus the protests. For those of you who have read Gomorrah: Italy's other Mafia you'll be familiar with the Casalese Clan.

And wouldn't you know tonight we have babysitters and it was to be the first date for us in eight months! I guess I can be thankful that all of us were home safe and sound and we shared a wonderful family (extended family too) dinner together.

First Day of School

The arrival of September was something I was not looking forward to! For months I've been flip-flopping about what school I should send Kyle to. Italians send 4 yr olds (and even younger) full days Monday through Friday. I was SO NOT ready to see my 4 yr old off for full days everyday! I struggled for weeks with this - OK maybe I still question my decision! How could I take Kyle away from his little sister (and me!) although I know he needs the social interaction? But how could I deny him the opportunity to attend a school where he could learn Italian (This is an international school but the language of instruction is Italian.) and be exposed to so much of the Italian culture. So I did it! I enrolled him into Kindergarten (yes that's what 4 yr olds are in here!). I was dreading the first day, so sure I'd find myself in the car in the corner of the school parking lot with tears streaming down my face! But in the end it went VERY well!

The first week was half days and that very first day I pulled into the parking lot and, with Kyle looking so adorable in his uniform, by the time I had Vika out of her carseat Kyle was already in the school! He was thrilled to be going to his new school! (And I didn't shed a tear!) The second day when I went to pick him up he told me that I should "just come back later". When I told him the school wasn't open for the afternoon he almost cried!

Our biggest challenge has come from Vika who SCREAMS everytime Kyle leaves us and goes into his classroom. After two weeks of school she still does this! Hmmm, they do have an infant section...maybe I should just leave her at school too! ;)

Playmobil Fun Park

Kyle's birthday occurred while we were on vacation, specifically while we were staying with friends in Nuremberg, Germany. It was no accident that we were able to spend Kyle's birthday with our friends, Darryn and Martina and their son Rhys, at Playmobil Fun Park. Kyle had no idea what we were doing for his birthday. All the poor boy knew is that we didn't have any presents for him and he had to wait another ten days for his party. We told him as we followed our friends to the park that we thought they were taking us somewhere fun, maybe to a big playground. You can imagine Kyle's shock when he realized that we were at Playmobil Fun Park. He was thrilled to show his passport to the ticket lady - little did any of us know that he would receive a gift - a workman no less!

Playmobil Fun Park is a great place! We enjoyed the farm section, the giant playground with all kinds of sand to dig in. We spent quite a bit of time in the Wild West. There are two castles - both Kyle loved! There is also the pirate ship - with barges to "sail". (Kyle says he went "oaring"). THere is also an adventure section with a tree house. And then there's the indoor section! It has the biggest indoor play area you can imagine as well as several of the playmobil favourites- castle, dollhouse, pirate ship etc all larger than life and surrounded by millions of pieces of Playmobil - all to play with at your will! And everything is done to look like Playmobil! It's truly designed with small kids in mind and it is all about them! They can fall off the barges, walk through rivers, all with no worries - there is a family drying room!

A great touch to the day was Martina remembering to bring a candle for Kyle's birthday and then putting it in an apple so we could all sing!

Without a doubt my favourite park was the Playmobil store! I think we all enjoyed this! We must have we all bought Playmobil - and Kyle got to pick out his own birthday present - a big red firetruck of course! But it's not like he'll feel deprived of any Playmobil any time soon!

The day was definitely a great success! Brian ended up taking Kyle and Rhys back the very next day!