Dear Italy

I love you and I miss you. You might be my BBF.

But, no offense - your waffles suck and you have no idea how to cook eggs. In fact, you might want to give breakfast another look altogether. Also, we have a little secret in the US called unscented soap. Also, don't brag about your wild boar so much - nobody likes a bragger.

However, you have us totally beat in many other places, including but not limited to design, transportation, recycling and energy use - especially your lack of dryers and to-go packaging, beauty of the language, coffee, wine, polenta cooking methods, independent hotels, wrapping paper and alot more, so good for you.

Thank you for all the coffee and everything else.

xo

Dear Florence, If You Love Me Check This Box. PS, I ___ You

I could live here forever or go home and never come back. I don't care at all right now.

We are all pretty done traveling and ready to come home and get back to what we do, how we eat, who our friends are, etc. The kids are spent and Ezra has declared his mouth so tired of Italian food to the point that it will really only accept gelato. Itzel has taken to pooping like 16 times a day and is ready for some vegetables and fiber already.

We've been in Florence the last day and a half and in a sweet location right next to the Duomo which is incredibly central and you can walk to everything. Despite the hotel's mild scruffiness, due mostly to a need of renovation and its charming nod to the old days by having ashtrays in all the rooms, and maybe because the night staff is always feasting on greasy takeout. But whatev. Its nice and we are sitting in the lounge chatting with a mother and daughter visiting from Argentina.

We are trying to figure of just where in this city the statue of David is hiding (I'll be looking that little piece of info up when I get done here) and we are so deep-tired and out of sorts now that we left the huge deal Uffizi until tomorrow and have just now read that, Duh! Its closed on Mondays. However, we have seen the statue of the wild boar, and we rubbed his nose, which ensures our return to Florence, so... thank goodness for that.

Tomorrow, we are tying up loose ends, returning to Pontessieve to give the borrowed GPS back to our lovely friends Agnese and Samuele, shopping (I hope) and changing hotels one last time in Florence. We are moving to a sweet hotel a block and a half from here and right across from a shoe store that looks super great, so I still have high boot hopes.

OK. Kids are down finally and I have a few minutes to catch up with Josh and have a few sips of Nastro Azzurro, which is known as the Budweiser of Italy - the name actually means "Nasty Donkey Balls," but despite that it's pretty good.

Don't Be Such Assisi

This is our second and final night in Assisi, the home of San Francesco AKA Saint Frances and also lesser but quite lovely Saint Clara.

Our Hotel La Fortezza is worth talking about for hours. Run by very polite and non-jokey Stefano, who spends his time in the information booth office in Piazza San Rufino until 6pm and then is the evening on call from his home nearby. He is only here when you need to check in, out, or have some issue that needs resolving, like if the wifi goes out, which is often so we are getting know each other pretty well.

The hotel has only 7 rooms, 3 on the first floor and 4 on the second. The third floor is accessed by a windy staircase full art books, art and vases and comrpises the breakfast and teatime room, and a terrace which are self serve, free with your reservation and open all the time. When we arrived we were shown how to make espresso, and where the tea, milk, juice, yogurt, cereals, jam tarts, ceramic dishes made in Assisi are. There are 6 little cafe tables and chairs inside, and a terrace that overlooks the tile rooftops of the town.

I learned from Stefano that Assisi, inside the walls, has 1000 residents and outside the walls about 35,000. This is not unlike other walled city in some ways, but the whole place has such religious overtones and is so quiet and old that it makes all all the bars, pizza and gift shops everywhere seem out of context. Assisi is comprised of the Basilica of San Francesco, alot of old, old stone buildings, and is just monks, nuns, tourists, the residents who are mostly all monks or people serving the tourists, and more tourists - and yet somehow it remains beautiful and serene. The whole story of Saint Frances is inspiring and it makes people come here from all over the world. And the town, which inside the walls remains much as it looked when he was alive, is one of the prettiest in the world.

Needless to say, we are feeling a little hemmed in by it all and are missing the action and non-austerity of the world outside. We will leave in the morning and head back through Umbria and Tuscany towards Florence via Lucca, where we must return the rental car by noon, as we are winding up our big tour of middle Italy.

It might interest the people who are always losing things to know that there is a big shrine to Saint Anthony of Padoua here and I might have seen his tomb today, or at least a beautiful room dedicated to him inside the Basilica.

In other news, we should be home in only 5 days! Itzel started talking in Italy and now we cannot get her to stop. Ezra is still the same, only more cocky while longer hair. And the new one is kicking around like crazy, probably pounding its little fist saying "another cappuchino! And step on it lady!" And I hope to post some pitcures soon but am not on my own computer and can't seem to get it online. Oh well, "va bene," as they say here.

Fano via Rustico

We are on the road again, leaving Rustico after three days of magic. We have been in Marche, (Mar'-kay) a region of Italy from somewhere in the middle to the East Coast across from Tuscany. We had driven here on the superstrada, stayed 2 strange days with Maddelina in Ostra and then drove an hour to our final hosts Giacomo and Marguerita. They put us up in the country house of her parents, as they live in a small apartment in Osimo. We were their first Servas vistors and maybe they were showing off a little bit, but they gave us a beautiful newly renovated house, complete with hot water on demand, a washing machine, 2 goats and a yard full of chickens, and a park next door with an amazing zipline–swing combination where Ezra rediscovered himself as a champion zipper every morning and afternoon.

Our hosts have Emma, who is Itzel's age and has just figured out how fun it is to bop other kids on the head with objects, and Leo who is just 12 weeks old and has begun smiling. On our first night we arrived to a parking lot in Osimo, where our hosts spied through their apartment window and met us. We then followed them from the city (here anything that is not countryside is so densely packed that even a town of 12,000 feels like a city for the minute it takes to pass through, though I think Osimo is bigger) for a 10-minute drive out to the country. They left us at the house to relax and unpack with plans to meet for dinner. They brought pizza and gelato, which was the first time we'd had either to-go and both were delicious.

The following day, they took us to see an inspiring Adriatic coastline abutting a mountain with white rocky beaches and blue-green water almost Caribbean-looking. In the evening, Marguerita made a several course dinner and invited an old schoolmate, his Polish wife and their 8-week-old baby for dinner – garlic and tomato crostinis, tortellini with peas and bacon, whole zucchinis stuffed with meaty filling, and a giant homemade tiramisu. We had local wine and talked about how the visiting couple live in a village of 12 in the Italian Alps, and how when their baby was born it was the first in the village for 55 years.

Our next day was a very exciting and important trip to Fano, a town of 62,000 where my best friend's family on her Dad's side is originally from. Fano is on the coast an hour North of where we were staying and doesn't even get a mention in our Italy guidebook. We expected it to be semi-industrial and maybe a little roughneck, since no one talks about visiting there. We found instead a busy and thriving little city which inside the old walls was charming, full of cool shops and a big weekly outdoor market in the middle of the main square. More chic than most American towns of its size, Fano offers great shopping, boasts a Benetton, Max Mara and lots of other hipster shops, some international and some independent, alongside cheese shops, Internet cafes and pasticcerias, and a refreshing lack of tourists. We took a million pictures and collected some special treasures to give to Olivia.

We drove next to Urbino, a much smaller and heavily-touristed walled city high on a mountain, with some important sites that we did not see. The whole town is a Unesco World Heritage Site, and so you have to pay to park. We had macchiatos, pastry and gelato, bought some little things and headed back to meet our hosts for dinner at a restaurant, which was big, brightly-lit and full of locals and a waiter who seemed to be in charge of serving the entire place. We slept well, except me since I am now dreaming in Italian of invaders trying to break into my walled castle, said goodbye to the goats, chickens, zipline and our hosts and left Rustico.

Today we are driving back towards Tuscany, through the countryside of Umbria to Assisi where we have a hotel in the center of the old town. In fact we are driving now and I should be looking out at the views, which are the most amazing yet, instead of making myself carsick, typing this on hairpin turns.

From Sea to Shining Diaper

We went via downtown Florence back to Pontassieve to borrow a much-needed GPS from our lovely new friends Agnes and Samuele, stayed for coffee and then got directly on the autostrada to drive across Italy to the east coast. This means Josh can now claim country, city and highway driving it n Italy.




The autostrada is as fascinating as a highway can be. Its totally straight and with very few exits, alot of tunnels and strange lights and glittery signs that make you feel a little like you are disco-driving. The speed limit is not that high (110 k) but in our tiny Spanish-made Siat Ibiza, it feels like we are rocketing through space. We chose to drive on the highway only because we were due in Marche at 6pm and would never have made it taking the very scenic, very curvy through around the mountains. Its nice though to have the choice of either very direct or very scenic. Even the view from the big highway was pretty, even though I didn't see to much of it because together with Ezra and Itzel, I fell asleep for the majority of the trip.

Maddelina is our host until tomorrow morning and she is a family psychologist living alone in a nice 3rd floor apartment with alot of nice things including a really well built Berloni kitchen, the formula for which is like Ikea x aweome x 1000, and a huge American movie collection that includes Shrek 1-4. Ezra and Itzel have been having a Shrek-athon as there are no other kids movies here. Ezra has been exhibiting surprising and wonderful table manners while here ("Mom or Dad, may I please have a bit more water? Its delicious.") and tells me if I want it to continue, I am going to have to buy all 4 movies.

We had a kitchen table dinner of pasta with pesto, pasta with porcini mushroom sauce, salami, bread, salad, local oil and vinegar. We finished with coffee (I love that! No matter how late, its always coffee after dinner) and a lavender boxed sweet bread cake, popular at Christmas time, of the type that until now I've only seen on a good week at TJMaxx.

Today we went on a diaper quest, to see the Adriatic Sea, and a for little tour of town of Senegalia. We spent far more time on the diapers than the rest because its Sunday and here all the markets and every damned thing it shut on Sundays and only a dumb American would run themselves out of diapers to coincide with the lord's day. We finally did find some Pampers at a farmacia in the old town which is a big relief, as its been a day of many poops, maybe due in part to the new diet of sugar for first and second breakfast. Ir was lovely to see the Sea and I hope tomorrow we get to stick a foot in it and maybe collect a shell or rock or two.

We had a take-away lunch from a lovely restaurant where I'd have liked to eat as it was full of local families but the wait was over an hour and I was not in charge. There were a handful of dishes accented with meats from an uncomfortably unfamiliar variety of animal species, including the regionally popular wild boar ravioli. Happily, we were given spinach gnocchi instead of the house specialty of duck gnocchi that Maddelina ordered for us, and there was some delicious deep-fried zucchini to go with it.

After lunch Itzel and I retreated to the bedroom for a long, dark nap and the others went out and had some big adventure that I have heard nothing about. Tomorrow we are supposed to spend the morning sight-seeing with Maddelina and then head an hour from here to Osimo where we are excited to meet our next and possibly final Servas hosts - Giacomo, his wife and two little children.

My Other Car is a Stranger With a Mean Dog

This morning we were treated to a rare house concert by our main clown, Pascuale- stage name Paco Paquito, who I've just realized looks alot like a dyed-red-headed Danny Devito. If you haven't been following, he is a music teacher and with his wife Guilia, stage name Celestina, is the creator of a beloved Tuscan children's stage show called Circusbandando. Today, our last day together, he pulled out his guitar and performed some originals accompanied by Ezra and Itzel on the recorder. We then got to have a look at the lively hand-painted backdrop murals that Guilia made for the show, each 12 feet wide and 8 feet tall childlike scenes painted in acrylic.

Pisa did not work out, and no matter because everyone here says you go to Pisa to see one thing only, and so what? So we were to spend the day in the local's favorite town of San Gimignano and we arrived after a long breakfast and performance hour, and a stunning 40-minute drive through a part of the Tuscan countryside, which is beyond lovely. Most of the hills are cleared, grassy and pastural. Small curving roads and tiny villages dot the landscape and the hills look like you could roll down or go bounding across any of them. I am so glad to be here now and I especially like that we are in the less touristy places in the least touristy season, however, I hope we come back one day because all the paintings and postcards I see of the summertime Tuscan countryside are so colorful and flowerful it is simply not believable.

San Gimignano is near Volterra and close to Sienna, but smaller than both and completely walled. There are several tall towers which were built forever ago and create a skyline unike most in Tuscany. I heard it was called the Manhattan of the Middle Ages or something, which I didn't understand at first, but now think refers to the height of the towers- which are more like three or four stories than a hundred, but I guess that's something for time when they were built. Its small and charming with nice gifty-type shops everywhere and the best views we've seen yet, marred only by the occasional parking lot or gas station. For the most part, everything for as far as you can see is a picture.

We had a nice walk-about, as usual feeling like the tiny streets are sidewalks until a car comes zooming through. We stopped in the main square at a cafe for an eggplant, mozzarella and tomato bruschetta, some cappuchino, and gelato, of which my kids and I are becoming fairly serious connoisseurs. (The best we've had was at a roadside cafe in Lucca and found the famous gelato in Rome to be not so va bene.)

About 5:30, just as dark was approaching, we made the short hike to our little car - which must be parked outside the walls (so far San Gimignano is the first town where we've paid alot -10 euros- to park.) We were expected at 6pm to meet Pasquale and Guila at Chianni's local pizza restaurant, where we called ahead to make sure they'd be open. We expected the drive home to take about 40 minutes, accounting for the inevitable stops to pee, look at a vista, change seats with Mom to tend to Itzel in the back or navigate in the preferred, more roomy front.

About two hours later, when we were still driving and again saw the signs for San Gimignano and Volterra, we thought maybe we'd gotten trapped in some weird twilight loop.

As chief navigator, the only one who can see well enough and is old enough to read a map besides Josh, who is the driver, I would like it known that we have only a map of all of Italy to guide us through the Tuscan countryside, and no phone. In any case, we eventually found highway 439 and took it in the right direction to find the town of Terricola, and then another, and another, which finally had a sign that pointed us to Chianni. The signs are something. You turn a hair-splitting bend and there are a list of 8 signs of names of tiny towns with arrows pointing in every direction. In a split second decision, you have to decide where to turn or you are off into the night, or back to San Gimignano as it were. And this while using a pen light to look at a map of the entirety of Italy and trying to find the names of towns like Empoli, Castelfiorentino, and San Donato del Lucato.

During the drive, Itzel mercifully fell asleep and Ezra was content to have the IPod all to himself - even though I had to make him stop with the Lady Gaga already- wierdly out of context in Tuscany. He did start to worry a bit about our situation as all the adults in the car where getting loopy and laughing when he thought maybe we should have been crying. I asked him, "But Ez, who would you rather be stuck in a car with than your Mom, Dad, Sister and Babcia?" His precious answer: "I'd much rather be stuck with a stranger with a mean dog."

When we did finally arrive in Chianni, we got right near Pasquale's house but despite Mom's warning, drove down a steep road that we thought was the driveway but got very skinny very quickly and turn out to be the path to the olive fields. With no way to turn around, we had to back up the steep, skinny, curvy hill which caused alot of bad smell due to squealing tires and a small accident when the mirror scrapped the stone wall and popped off its hinges. Ezra was beside himself and has declared that we are all crazy for wishing for a bigger car. "A much smaller car is what we need," he pointed out.

We did make it to dinner- three hours late is not so late in Tuscany.

Say Cheese!

Its midnight in Italy and Josh and I are the only ones awake in the house for the moment, except college student Francesco who is 20 and has the perfect basement setup - insulated orange shag carpet walls and a futon in the studio just finished for him where he makes techno beats with squinty eyes and a giant grin.

We just got back from another ping pong match between Josh and Pasquale, a comic duo of very tall and very short, at the little pub up the hill.

This morning we were taken to a cheese making operation that was so beautiful it seemed like it was put on just for tourists, only it isn't and wasn't because we are the only tourists around for months and miles. The cheese and bread and oil olive and vinegar and warm grape juice were all brought to us in Tuscan ceramic dishes served on an old wooden table in a house built a million years ago, by an old woman so sweet and lovely that again, she might have been hired by the board of tourism. We bought huge hunks of cheese for Pasquales house and paid not enough.





We were invited to school today with Pasquale, who is the middle school music teacher. All of us spent three hours in class with him and his students. We were offered up as visiting Americans and got to talk all about ourselves- where we live, where we've traveled, whether we have facebook accounts, and if we know of the NBA. The girls were enhanted with Itzel and Ezra who played their parts well and were just goofy enough to add levity to the discussion without totally disrupting the flow of the class. The kids were very open and not jaded and the only technology they seemed to have was one cell phone and one digital camera between them all. They were not posturing or feigning boredom like I think American kids their age would have been.



We were treated to a performance by each of the classes, one group of 13 and 14-year-olds and then a class of a grade below. The children were broken up into sections, 5 guitars, 4 singers, 3 drummers, etc. They performed several songs in 3 languages including When the Saints Go Marching In, Stand By Me and Imagine. It was very touching.

I am told that American visitors to Chianni are not unheard of but also not usual. There is not a Tuscany magnet or postcard for buying anywhere in the village.

We also were invited to meet the family upstairs, a young couple with two small children who have lived their whole life in Chianni. Almost everyone we meet has always been here.

Tomorrow we are to go to Pisa in the morning and look at the leaning tower and then to do some GPS borrowing in Pontessieve and maybe exchange the rental car for something more reasonably-sized in Lucca, before a last night with the clowns.

Tuscan Specialty: Polenta with Mice

PHOTOS:
1 the driveway
2 the front yard
3 the backyard

We are at the house of the Clowns. We drove here from Lucca in the hiariously small Spanish car we have rented. Even after ditching the big suitcase and alot of stuff it turns out we can live without, we can barely fit ourselves and our things in the car. The only thing big about the car is the carseat we rented for 60 euros that takes up 2/3 of the back seat and makes Ezra have an absolute shit fit over lack of presonal space just about every time we get in the car. Getting the carseat latched requires a small miracle due to the Italian design and every time I manage it I can't figure out how for next time.

We have crossed a couple of hurdles - for one, food shopping in an Italian grocery, which is not so hard but you have to weigh your produce and tag it yourself and aslo, it is really hard to buy cookies because the ones that look good are not always so good. We have dicovered malt yogurt which is delicious, brown and looks and tastes a bit like coffee yogurt might. I realize that sounds disgusting but it is really pretty yum.

The other big hurdle - driving in Italy. Josh has done all of it so far, but being his passenger is also a big deal as he seems to be enjoying the thrill of almost dying on every bend.

We arrived in Chianni later than expected but found the town and the house with only a map of Italy, some brilliant navigating (me) and by asking someone to point us to the door of the house of the clowns. Chianni is a town of 1000 and everybody know the Circusbandando people, as they really are pretty famous in the region.

This house is outrageous. The most amazing place I have ever seen, and while I feel like I have been throwing this phrase around a bit, I really mean it this time. The front of the house opens to the village which was built in the 12oos and still looks it completely except for the cars which are few but fast. You walk to everything in two minutes or less - the post, pharmacy, butcher, grocery, bar (Oh the bar! We are headed there in a bit, once the kids fall asleep. Last night after a dinner of bread, salad, and sausage cooked on the open fire, we went with our eccentic host Pasquale at 10pm and first coffee, then limoncello, with 20 or more village elders - seemed like all the town's old men, watching a futbol game on a tiny TV with maybe 6 young people, all face-pierced.

Anyhow, the house. The back of the house opens to the Tuscan countryside. Because Chianni is up on a hill, the house has astounding views. There are several terraces and the inside is warm and cozy, bookshlves and lamps everywhere, one in particular that sits atop a bingo drum and changes colors with a remote control. It is pointed at a beautiful archway built forever ago and uncovered recently. Pasquale is really into setting the mood and right now has soft music from Istanbul (Cafe Anatolia: New Spring) and about 20 tiny lamps lit.

We spent the day in Volterra (of New Moon fame for all the vampire fans.) Very lovely, old, old and Tuscan views indescribable. As a family, we had many coffees, an astonishingly tasty wild blueberry tart, and some awful tea that tasted like it has baking soda in it. Wierd, because the shopowner tasted it an said it was normal. We drove back to Chianni without a map and in the dark which was another feat, but we made it and just in time for our polenta with mice.

Lovingly prepared by Guilia, the polenta is stirred for a long time and made with maize, she told us, but pronounced it "mice" which has us all still chuckling. We had another beautiful dinner and now that Josh is back from putting the kids to sleep, we are off to the bar.

Here Come the Clowns

We are in Lucca, a picturesque Tuscan town of 83,000. The cool part of Lucca is really cool, and it is completely enclosed by old high walls. Inside the walls, you could be in Europe a century ago if it weren't for 50% saldi off all the clothes and handbags ranging from cheapy-trendy to ultra-sophisticate. I have found a toy store that is so full of beautiful things that I couldn't pick something to buy under duress and ended up with nothing, which is the theme of shopping on this trip. To date, the only thing I've bought is a 5 euro replica of the Mouth of Truth for Ezra.

We are at a bed and breakfast just outside the old walls that should really just be called a bed, since there is no breakfast for you if you book on Expedia. We have successfully done our laundry while having a beer and our clothes smell only slightly douched with perfume- Josh says, “it's really not that bad if you don't put it next to your skin.” We were ushered from the laundry mat at 10:35 by a uniformed man that look more like Politzia than laundry mat lock-up, and might have been. We understand its common to have more than one job here. After locking up he jumped in his car and sped away as if he were off to some emergency so maybe he actually was.

So, the Politzia are the investigative serious police business guys, while the ones who write traffic tickets and handle the minutia of Italian bureaucracy are called, and I love saying this word, the Carabinieri. Its said that if you want to see something mishandled or blundered, call the Carabinieri right away. I love their sirens which are cartoony and a little too loud. The cars here are so small its hard to take them seriously- it seems like if one were to hit you, it would bounce right off you. Maybe that's why they have the loud siren.

We had another big restaurant meal tonight and it was more of the same perfect pasta, good cheap wine, weird French fries without ketchup, and a house specialty of blended bean soup with spelt.

Tonight we are listening to snoring kids and trying to figure out our impending car rental for tomorrow. And tomorrow we are off to Pisa for the car and maybe the Leaning Tower, and then to Chianni to see the clowns...

Oops, we just rented the car from Lucca, so the heck with Pisa, which we hear is for tourists, anyway. Which we are, but so what. That's how fast things can change in Italy.

And, for those of you asking for pictures, its a lot harder than it would seem to get them on here. Especially when we are paying 4 euro per hour for the privilege of using the Tuscan internet. But don't worry, Mom has taken literally thousands of photos.

Pontassieve.

We arrived by train to Pontassieve which we thought was going to be like a suburb of Florence and maybe it is in a way, but its more like its own little town on the edges of the hills where our hosts have a cask of freshly pressed olive oil in their entrance way. Coming in on the train the town is just 6 stops from the center of Florence and is bustling with its own life. The large supermarket called Coop is right outside the station, a Benetton, a cafe, pharmacy and whatever else you might need are next to some pretty old apartments houses stacked together against the roads. Samuel came in his little yellow car and brought us in two trips home.

Agnes and Samuel are only 28 and 31, beautiful in a Italian J Crew sort of way, and living an enviable life dressed with Italian architecture and accented with the best of Ikea.. Samuel is a mechanical engineer and Agnes is a Pilates instructor on a year-long leave from teaching part-time and nursing and cloth diapering new baby Vera (meaning 'truth') and baking cheese cake for our arrival, and cooking dinner (Eggplant and mozzarella and mortadella quiche made with Buitoni Pasta Sfoglia crust (can I get that brand of puff pastry at home, somebody?)

Agnes and Josh are putting children to bed while Samuel is being deep and thoughtful and is right now making yogurt for our breakfast tomorrow and discussing what goes into his garden compost, slow food, global warming, tipping points and nature verses nurture, and now something important called the Triz theory with my Mom in the heavily accented and melodic English that Italians speak.

I guess its the Tuscan way of life but something makes these people so lovely and cheerful and their house reflects everything about that, down to the felt flowers on the painted clothes pins that hold the grainy photos of their love unfolding over the past years.

God, I may never leave.

Resting One Foot on the Bidet

The bathroom in our Firenze hotel is nice. Which is good, because Josh, Mom and I are spending the evening in here with a Peroni and a Moretti, both Italian beers, one of which lists winning championship years by Italy's national futbol team. We found ourselves all meeting in the bathroom once the kids dropped off to sleep and are too tired to change our location and so have been skyping, chatting, and now blogging from the comfy confines of the roughly 8 square meter bathroom. You'd think after today's train ride, I would not want to hang out in a bathroom, but this one is way nicer.

We had a real dinner in an actual ristorante tonight. We were sent there by Jerry in the leather shop who recommended we go there, eat like the Italians do and ask for Gigi. When we told the waiter that we'd been told to ask for Gigi, he said, "well, he's the owner, and he's right over there but he doesn;t speak any English." Right. Of course. Well, tell him we asked for him. We ordered some blessed french fries for the kids, and spaghetti, penne with truffles, mixed salad, the ever-present bruchetta, and a 1/2 liter of the house white. Mom, in a clear effort to make sure no one shared her dinner, ordered the tripe. The food was fantastic and Gigi, a gregarious sort of man, burst into song over and over again while we ate.

Firenze

We took a train to Florence today. All day. We left the seaside at 10 am and finally arrived at Hotel California at 6pm.

The highlight of the day include Ezra and I getting locked into a train restroom, which was a very scary few minutes. We tried not to panic, Erza panicked, I acted calm while calculating how with no water running from the tap, and no help/ panic button and about 15 train cars away from where Josh, Mom and Itzel were sitting, and how no one knew where we were or could hear us over the loud noise of the running train, we were totally screwed and tried to clam Ezra down and felt panic rising and then kicked the door and it opened.

Now we are going to try and get some dinner.

The Sea

Our big day of looking at Michelangelo et al artwork ended with the kids getting to watch a movie in the hotel while Josh and I brought them and Mom some pizza and suppli (soop-lee) which are deep-fried rice rolls with cheeses inside. We gave them an actual bath and a hair-washing and put them to bed. Mom was tired and agreed to hang out with them while Josh and I went across the street and had a great time in the bar across the street. The two comedic and loud men who run the bar were cavorting with an old friend who is also driver for the much reviled playboy President of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, and an architect couple vacationing for 3 weeks from Panama City. We have many movies of the group shouting about the crap policies of the President, dancing to great Italian MTV dance music, and drinking blue shots.

We spent yesterday walking in Rome as it was a transit strike day, meaning the subways were not running at all (except between 5 and 8pm, which seemed pretty friendly of the strikers.) Only a few buses were running, those that had drivers that were not in agreement with the strike. So we walked from our hotel passed the Colosseum through Old Rome and to the Church of Santa Maria de Cosmedin where the Mouth of Truth (La Boca de la Verita') statue will reputedly bite the fingers off your hand if you tell a lie. We had read a lot about this sight and Ezra was particularly excited to see it, as are such a continual number of Japanese tourists that locally it is referred to as a Japanese landmark. I didn't know that the church also houses the remains of Saint Valentine, but somehow missed seeing it when I was having a pee in a very old and cold toilet.

and the number 64 bus, which we later learned is infamous for the same, was so packed that both mom and Josh found hands in their pockets during the ride that they weren't able to match to an owner. Mom slapped her pocket and the mystery has was withdrawn and Josh looked around him and the hand was removed while all the people stared straight ahead. Luckily, we know better than to leave money or important things in our pockets.

So the pickpockets aren't having any luck with us, but the shop owners are having a ball taking our money. Yesterday we went for coffee and were charged 3 times the price of the day before at the same shop. I asked why and was told that it had to do with the fact that we chose to sit at a table instead of standing at the bar. I've read about this but the funny thing is we sat at the table the day before as well. Josh will no longer allow any of us to sit down in any cafe.

We had to figure out to how to get out here from the center of Rome and when asking the hotel staff about the trains to get here, they only wanted to know why in the world we had to come here. We got on the completely stuffed first running trains at 5pm and rode 2 trains a total of 12 stops, and then a bus to get out here. We are like a clown act shoving our way with all our backpacks, a too big suitcase and stroller and two kids on to the subway.

We are enjoying our second Servas visit and are staying with a nice family that lives in the outskirts of Rome one block from the Tyrrhenian Sea, part of the larger Mediterranean Sea area and only named something else to make us seem ignorant when we call it the Mediterranean (actually, what makes me look ignorant is ignorance- I thought it was the Adriatic Sea but that is on the other side of the country.)

Both archeologists and very good cooks, Monica and Paula have two children, Livia (11) and Fulvio (9) and live in a long and skinny apartment at the end of the train line in Rome.

Despite a feeling that they need many more, Rome has only 2 underground subway lines because every time they dig, they run into something too old to mess with - an ancient Roman wall or some piece of a buried bit of city, or some spoon of piece of pottery. A daily frustration for the modern people, they are split over just how many artifacts need to be saved. Paulo goes to work each day sorting through dirt that may or may not allow for an extended Subway line one day.

We have eaten two beautiful meals of polenta, stirred for 45 minutes in a kitchen the size of a ½ bath. The first meal, last night's dinner, was topped with mushrooms, tomato sauce and sausage, bread and finished with salad and a beautiful lemon filled cake. Today a full family lunch was leftover polenta, baked with cheese and an olive spread. We are all crowded arounda little table in a multi-purpose room that is for dining, living and at night becomes a bedroom for Josh and Ezra. Baby and I are sleeping in little Fulvio's room- or I should say Fulvio's little room, as it is the size of a smaller than normal twin bed, a wardrobe and a shelf.

Today we went out walking around and found an organic grocer where we decided at the last minute not to buy 2 ears of already cooked corn for $5 euros, and a nice cafe where we stood for coffee and one giant shared donut. Then we had a walk to the beach which was well-populated by parked cars of people eating lunch. It was very warm and the kids took their shoes off and collected some smooth circular rocks. I found my favorite treasures from this trip, sea-smoothed pieces of china and Italian roof tile Its very nice around here, apartment building after building, city blocks and the sea, but the parks deteriorating, dirty and in need of some serious attention, as is the beach. Damned Berlusconi.

Tonight we are spending time with our host family, eating, making a mess of legos and toys, talking and looking forward to another homemade dinner while we worry about the rest of our trip, since we've just learned that rental cars are many times the price we had thought.

Saint Peter and Everyone Else

In the days since we last wrote, we have become exhausted and weary travelers. but also filled up the magic of big, important Roman things. Mom arrived yesterday, and despite a good deal of confusion and communication issues, met us at our hotel near the Vatican, well-rested from the sleep aided plane ride and ready to take in some sights. We made or way to Piazza San Pietro and had a nice long walk through the Basilica while Itzel took the opportunity to sleep in the Ergo. Later after the hike back to our cute and quirky Hotel Alesandrino, we again headed out to Piazza de Spagna, The Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain, where we were soundly jacked for a nice chunk of change because we let our hunger get the best of us and sat down at of those sidewalk cafes where hawkers push menus into your hand. We knew better than to order wine or beer, which costs 5 times the price of the same beverage in a less touristy spot, and were sure to ask about the price of the pizza we ordered (8 euros), but at the last second decided to order 2 slices of potato pizza, which we were charged an outrageous 12 euros for.

We got back to the hotel and Josh worked his bedtime magic on the kids while mom and I took a little chilly walk around the winding, hilly neighborhood. We slept pretty well for 5 in one room and today went for it and headed to the Vatican Museum. Itzel was kind enough to time her nap so that she slept on Josh's back while we pushed Ezra around in her stroller. He listened to stories and music on our little Nano IPod, while we listened to an audio guide tell us about the frescoes we were looking at. The Sistine Chapel was as amazing as one could hope and the museums around it brimming with awe-inspiring art. The guards in the chapel hush the crowd about every 2 minutes and remind you that God will strike you down if you try to take any pictures, but the rest of the museums are fair game.

I should note that with the arrival of my Mother, our daily photograph quota has increased exponentially, much to our delight.

We said goodbye to the holiest parts of the city and collected our collective luggage and hiked across town to a new hotel from where we are about to go scare up some dinner and finally get the kids some well-deserved and long promised gelato.

How I Was Nearly Killed on My Way to Vatican City by Alot of Boots, or Daniella Fashions Here I Come.

We moved with all of our things from central Rome to Vatican City today, and it almost killed me.

San Pietro is a pretty popular name here and apparently the San Pietro stop on the train line is in a totally different place than the San Pietro stop on the tram line in Vatican City. We discovered this during the course of our hours long walk to our hotel, which while not as centrally located as where we have been previously, can't actaully be hours walking from a train. At the end of the walk, when we all could go no further, we took a taxi up the hill and around the corner. It was really only a minute-long ride, but he charged us 10 euros for the pleasure- which I knew was a jack even as we were paying it. I asked him if he really meant 10 euros, and he replied that yes, because of the luggage. I almost just gave him our bags instead as I am tired of carrying them anyway and I'd like to have saved the euros for my upcoming boot purchase.

What almost killed me was not the length of the walk, or the fact that I had Itzel in the Ergo on my front the whole time, and our mid-size backpack (stuffed with bedding so not as heavy as Josh's which is stuffed with everything else) at intervals in the Maclaren, or on my back with Ezra in the stroller. It wasn't the bumpiness of the cobblestone streets either. That WAS hard, but harder was the fact that with every meter we walked towards Vatican City, we walked further away from the store near the San Pietro subway stop that had tens, maybe dozens of pairs of beautifully made boots on fantastic sale. To everyone who said boots in Italy are unaffordable, OMG you were so wrong! Though I may never find that store again, I am sure I am going to try. Maybe most people make a point to visit St Peter's Basilica or whatever when they come to Vatican city, but I know where I am headed.

Fabio-lous and Simona

We are at Fabio and Simona's place which is incredibly lovely and huge with dramatically high ceilings and Gustav Klimt posters behind glass and floors and a kitchen sink made of stone. It is situated in a very wealthy neighborhood of Rome with easy access by bus and train and only a short walk to everything you could need in a day. We are confused by the size of their apartment given its location and they tell us it is abnormal to have such great space, but that it is a family apartment of Fabio's passed to him from his Dad. They seem to be living the A Rich and Beautiful Life to be sure.

They are the parents of little Arianna who looks more like Ezra's sister than Itzel does, with straight dark brown very soft hair and big dark eyes. Fabio is a psychologist while stylish and sweet Simona writes about food and wine for a magazine, and they both work from home and seem to have pretty much the perfect life. Simona is pregnant with her second child and due just when I am but the only difference is that even though she is my age, she is considered very young to have a child. We've learned that here in Italy, children are usually born only to women close to or over 40. The birth rate is less than 1 child per woman and the number of Italians are shrinking dramatically. This is the problem of an economy that doesn't allow for people getting out of college to find work that will support them to live on their own so most people stay in their parents homes into their 30s and save money until they can have enough to get their own place and get married and maybe have a baby.

We have now spent several mealtimes gathered around a large, solid rectangular wooden dining table and eaten various forms of rice and pasta and almost no vegetables at all. There is bread served with every meal, and it is always ended with a giant bowl of whole pieces of fruit. My kids think this is heaven. The food is prepared with a little more care than at home perhaps, but not exactly the version of Italian cooking we had from all the movies and Olive Garden commercials we have seen. The rice and pasta come from a box, the fruit is Chiquita and pear number 4426,and the juice from a juice box. But the tomato sauce that the rice was served in was made from tomatoes that Fabio and Simona canned themselves and the fagioli sauce made from fresh beans righto out of the pod. Besides olive oil here is total lack of condiments and I find myself wishing for some pepper and some butter.

Josh and I took the kids out walking earlier right down the street to a gelato place both highly recommended and definitely closed. We stopped instead in a typical bar, very family friendly, and had coffee and cookies instead of beer and potato chips, or little salmon sandwiches, or a whole host of other things also on offer. On the way home we decided to see what kind of flower arrangement we could buy from a street vendor for 5 euros and were surprised by the sheer absurdity of what we received. It looks like Sideshow Bob's head in a flamenco dress and here is where a picture really is worth a thousand words, so as soon as my Mom arrives with a camera cable we will post one here.

A Little is Good, A Latte is Better

Un cafe latte is good, and not strong but not weak either, pretty just right, whereas un cafe con latte is mostly milk with just a touch of coffee- in other words, lame and not worth a cent of your 2.5 euro. It has taken me all day and nearly 15 euros to learn that.

I've started to like the people here, which is a relief after the well-dressed stone-cold killer faces on the people flying back to Rome from New York via Philly. A surprising number of men in Adidas track suits were on board, most of who tidily changed into something more skinny-jeaned and dark before deplaning.

The people I have talked to speak plenty of English we have found them quite tolerant of our sadly Spanglish attempts at ordering food. It seems our month of Pimmsler language tapes did little except confuse us and take the little Spanish that we knew and ruin it. It did teach me how to ask to have both a beer and some wine and, "Dove Via Veneto?" which should come in very handy if we try to go there.

We have had only some small amount of adventure so far but enough to feel we have arrived.

The subway is fantastic, easy to navigate, and packed to the gills. The trains are beautiful if you are a graffiti fan like me and they get packed enough that you actually could get pickpocketed without noticing. Personally, I am waiting to meet the guy on the moped I keep hearing about to drive by and snatch our bag. We heard some beautiful music from a lovely man moving through the train and paid him .5 euros for the pleasure.

Ezra is happy to have had the opportunity to take several trains and tonight we get to try bus number 60, as we are heading to Fabio and Simona's house for dinner.

Mom, This is the Longest Night EVER

We got to the hotel after taking a 40-minute shuttle van from the airport, in which one exhausted Josh left our laptop and, only through some miracle was it returned to us, which is the only reason I can write this now.

We got to our adorable and well-situated Hotel Des Artistes, checked in and spent the next 20 hours sleeping fitfully. We'd have slept less but the first time we felt awake and well enough to get out of the hotel, it was 11pm Rome time and while the bar across the street was in full swing, it felt like it would be funny to bring the kids out drinking so late.

Itzel spent the whole morning with a sick tummy but still somehow every time she throws up it remains a great surprise to us and her. We've decided to tuck in here for one more night while we attempt to get our bearings. For now we will continue to struggle to explain to the hotel staff things like how our son doesn't usually pee in the bed, only when he sleeps for 20 hours straight, and how no, its the sheets that have pee and the towels that have throw-up.

Getting Here

After one 24-hour in Wilmington and then one 3-hour delay in Philly, our flight to Rome finally boarded. Apparently the 2nd delay was because something malodorous and seeping on the plane, so the aircraft change was probably worth the wait. The movies system was on the blink, and in-flight entertainment was largely provided by an elderly gritty Italian man who seemd on the brink of insanity and looked to have been pulled straight off a small village's fishing dock and plopped onto the international flight scene. He started an argument with the flight crew right off, because he thought it total bullshit that the first-class passengers were receiving water while the 200 or so of us in coach had to wait. It didn't help when the flight attendant argued that he couldn't have water now, as we were about to take off and the water was all the way in the back of the plane, and then decided to give him some after all from front of the plane. There was a solid amount of egging on by several other of the passengers and our fisherman decided to keep barreling into first class, right through that little mesh curtain meant separate coach from first class. It was business as usual for the flight crew who could be heard from our fantastic bulkhead seats saying things like, "I got a myself real crazy back there."

I didn't get to sleep at all, at all, at all on the plane but did get the movies system to work for me and watched two feature length movies RIGHT IN A ROW. Baby started a throw-up bug in-flight and Ezra slept in on the floor by our feet between coughing fits. It seemed both sad and funny that we were the only people on the plane with young children. For as much as we've heard about how much Italians like children, I think they like them more when they don't have to take long, long red-eye flights with them. However, despite the health challenges, the kids were quite well-behaved and easy passengers, made to look even better by the wiley old guy with the water issue.

I'm Gonna Go Ahead and Ask for a Redo

Well they've been troopers, my kids- the ones who ate all the snacks and did all the activities I had planned for the entire trip - on the tarmac in Wilmington, where we spent three hours belting and unbelting ourselves, preparing for takeoff, making small figure-skating patterns on the tarmac, begging for water and checking to make sure our cushions would float in the event of a water landing, before finally a deflated de-boarding only to learn that our flight was not just delayed but cancelled.

At least we're not the guy who had 2 cups of water...precious water...spilled on him by our nervy but nice male flight attendant. Picture it spilling from above- on his head, shoulders, lap. It took him like a whole hour of tight-lipped anger to get over it. Musta been cold.

You know, I kind of think of male flight attendants like I think of male cheerleaders, when I think of them, which is more often than I would like to admit - strange but fascinating. But I digress.

So here we are in still Wilmington, and maybe we'll just go ahead and go to Taste of Italy for dinner. I wonder, can we all just wear the same clothes tomorrow?

You've Sure Read About Our Family

Hello and welcome to our month-long trip to Italy. We are the motley crew of Ania, Josh, Ezra, Itzel, baby-to-be and Eva, my mom. This is a gangly group to be sure, which is exactly I think, how everyone should backpack through Italy.

So, many of you probably don't know anything about Servas, but you should, because it is cool and because it is allowing us to stay with lots of different families on this journey.

Our favorite so far- a family of clowns that live in a castle in Tuscany.

See an endearing e-mail below...

3-minute youtube of Circusbandando, worth at least 1 minute of your time.

Hi Ania,
ok! you'll write us...
You've sure read about our family..
We, parents, are actors for Children making show everywhere in Toscany and center north Italy..
We produced too two CDs with our songs for childen, parents and teachers..songs very very beatiful, with a lot education, rithm and energy..
You'll listen them here..
The name of our family grup of theatre (Me and Giuliais CIRCUSBANDANDO and our artistic name are PACO PAQUITO and CELESTINA.
After there living with us our two sons Francesco (20) amd Michelangelo (15)..
We live from one year in a very very beautiful and big house
in a small medieval village..
Bellissimo!!
I send you some phothos from the terrace to the valley, the church and our special living room..
You are the first servas people coming here..Other people just visited the house when we made works but they were hosting in the old our house in Volterra, not far from here..
Are you coming from California?
Never we've been there but, of course we like to come very much, we have many friends living and sure ..we'll come!!
Ok. I stop here.
Have a good time to plan the trip and ...write us.

Pasquale