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