Routine? Sure...

Tuesday I'm thinking: thank GOD school starts at 0810 not 0710 because it would really suck to have to get up that early and go to bed that early, especially when sunset isn't until almost 2200 and Felix fights me on it every night. We make it to the bus stop early again, then I head on to my own bus stop to pick up more necessities on post. I make my first trip to the Thrift Store where I find the coffee maker I want to get but realize I don't have a good way to transport it back at the time, so I hide it behind some others hoping no one else sees it (just like I do at Walmart when I think they're gonna run out of something!) and I move on. Every time I'm on post, I check the mailbox just in case - can't hurt right? I haven't been disappointed yet! The other thing that happens every time I'm on post is my needing to stop at *some* random processing-type location to either get paperwork, sign paperwork, ask about paperwork, or in general complain about paperwork. Every.Single.Time. I have also never yet left post when I plan to because, of course, everything takes a little longer than expected (despite me planning for twice the time I need!) and I find myself running to be at Felix's bus stop on time so they won't take him back to school because that would be a LOT more walking that neither one of us wants to do at the moment. Felix gets off the bus all excited about his day and is just about bursting he's trying so hard to tell me everything IN ORDER without missing a single detail. God, I love this kid! He already knows he won't be in the same class, of course, but that's not stopping him from having the time of his life making new friends here. He's even excited about his homework. Yes, I'm wondering how long that will last, but I'm not complaining at the moment! All in all, it's a good day... and tomorrow will be more of the same, right?

Sure... except Felix gets a new class, which means new schedule, new teacher, new friends, new routine. Oh, and new homework. The new teacher is even better than the first one and the new class is even better and the new schedule is even better and MOM! This place ROCKS!! He's ecstatic about everything. I'm thinking maybe sensory overload and jet-lag adjustment are finally exploding his brain or something, because even in Texas when he loved his class and his teacher, he didn't come home this excited about school. Again, I'm rolling with it because I find it's always best to enjoy the bright side as long as possible! After school we have a chat with one of our new neighbors and make plans to get the AFN decoder on Thursday during school hours so that hopefully we can have a channel or two to watch on tv this weekend. All is right in my world... just gotta wait for the car and the unaccompanied baggage and the household goods shipments, which should arrive in two weeks, two weeks and two months. Here's hoping!

Thursday is an exciting day for Felix and a FABULOUS day for me. We are definitely up early and ready for the bus because today is field trip day!!! I send him with a bag lunch and 4 euro for the gift shop, then I head back to the apartment so we can go get my decoder. Alicia acts as a tour guide on the way over, telling me where things are and how to get there and offering to take me wherever I need to go. When we get to the decoder place, she casually mentions that this is also where we'll come to get our car when it gets here, so I start looking around to get the lay of the land and what do I see?? Our freaking car is sitting there, ready to go! At first, I wasn't sure because how many blue corollas are there out there? but then we pass behind it and I see the huge dent in the bumper and I know it's ours! (go ahead, laugh, I surely did!!) So I get all excited and start working on how to get it out of the gated area and into my hot little hands. We pick up the decoder, then I text Rob and let him know the car is here and he needs to find out what our next step is. Rather than taking my text for it, he calls (of course!) and asks me five or six times the same question, then gets on it. I know we have to register it here and get new licenses, because they certainly do drive differently here! and I'm sure that it's going to take more than one day, maybe two or three so I want to get it done. We don't know how long Rob's going to be able to continue living in the barracks now that Felix and I are here in housing and we certainly don't need him getting kicked out and not having transportation to work in the mornings. It's only two miles, but it's a kinda scary two miles if you're a pedestrian or biking! Anyhow, I still have to get the decoder up and running and we haven't figured out the tv here either (nothing we've tried works so far...) and of course, there's still a house to clean and laundry to do and a kid to feed, etc.

Speaking of laundry... I've been able to get away with every-other-day so far and that's awesome, but I haven't yet gone a day without going up and down the stairs at least 4 times. If nothing else, Italy is very healthy for me!

Back at the apartment, I get the decoder out and follow the moldy-smelling directions perfectly and nothing happens. Great. Rob's not gonna be happy about this. Suddenly, it's time to get Felix from the bus and hear all about his awesome field trip. Yes, suddenly!... I got wrapped up in sweeping/mopping and lost track of time. Felix, not surprisingly, gets off the bus jabbering about his day, telling me about the ruins and how hot it was in the sun and how they walked thousands of miles to get from one castle to the other (it was actually a castle and a fort and the entire walk might have amounted to two miles the whole day!) and how the ocean (Lake Garda) was amazing and he had a great time even though he had to sit in the sunny seats because someone else took the shady ones and everything was just so COOL there! I'm a happy mama and he's a happy boy. This is great! OH and he got a GIANT pencil at the gift shop. Yes, it cost 4 euro. It has pictures of other Italian cities and is pretty freaking awesome... also, makes a great sword!

Friday is an early-release day (Felix is home by 11:15) and Rob finds out -officially- that the car is here and one of us has to have a license in order to register it, then lets me know he hasn't had time to get the license and that it will be my responsibility to get the car. OK... but I'm not the sponsor so for real, there's not $h*t I can do without POA or sponsor present. Fun times! Here comes the weekend!!

The only academic assignment on Friday was to create a postcard about the field trip... scrapbook anyone?

First Day of School!!!

Monday dawned bright and cheery for both of us... for our own reasons, of course, we were both excited that Felix was going to school. Clothing had been laid out in advance and I woke up ready to cook and get on the road. Felix's bus stop is about two blocks away and takes me 3 minutes to walk to alone, but about 7 minutes with Felix. The bus is supposed to pick up at 0744 and we're supposed to be there five minutes early just in case. I truly don't see it ever happening to be early, but I'm not going to take the chance so we will continue to show up five minutes early. The high school bus stop is in the same place and picks up about five minutes before the elementary/middle school bus does. We didn't realize this, but one of the high school kids getting onto the bus let us know that ours would be by right behind theirs. After Felix got onto his super nice tour bus type school bus, I headed directly to my own bus stop so I could head onto post and get my day started as well. I had some items to exchange at the PX... Rob picked up some kitchen utensils for me before I got here but he accidentally picked up a couple doubles, so I took the extras back and traded them out for a knife block set and some other cleaning supplies. All of these items (plus a couple monsters) went into my backpack since I'd be on and off buses it made no sense to me to be carrying grocery bags around all over the place. On the bright side, there's plenty of room in my backpack and it certainly makes shopping easier for the moment although I am considering getting one of those rolling carts...

Since everything had gone so slowly for us on Friday, we had not been able to set up a lunch account for Felix which meant that I needed to not only set up the lunch account for him on Monday, but I also needed to take his lunch to him at school. Go figure, the commissary is closed on Mondays. I wind up in the 24 hour shoppette looking for something reasonable for munchkin to eat while I'm waiting for the bus, which is going to be quite awhile apparently. I found him some food and got myself another giant tea (I'm keeping the bottles for reuse until our stuff gets here so I don't have to borrow so much from the lending closet) and settled in to wait for the bus. While I waited for the bus, a group of tourists stopped to ask me if I happened to be at the bus stop that would take them to the train because they were headed to Venice for the day. I had no idea what stop they needed, but I did know where to find out because this post is about two inches big, it's hard not to know where things are and they were right across from the travel place, so I went and asked for them. It turned out to be a win-win-win because I got a detailed map of the city while I was there and they found out where they needed to go (the extra win was the using up of would-be wasted time sitting and waiting for the everlovin bus!). Finally, I made it to the school and got signed in... apparently everyone on post had the idea that Monday was a great day to have lunch with their kids because there was quite a line. Then I headed to up meet Felix and his new teacher, who made sure to take time to talk to me and by the end of our conversation had clearly decided she was not going to be Felix's teacher. In fact, I'm quite certain she had decided it before meeting me but that is neither here nor there. I did learn, however, that there was a field trip coming up on Thursday and she was apparently terrified at the thought of taking a new student she had not "bonded with" out of town with her. Tough, he's smart enough to know not to get lost from his group and we're in Italy to experience Italy, not to hide, so he's going!! We meet the class at the computer lab and head off to lunch. The cafeteria has two meal options and they're in separate lines: regular lunch line and pasta line. Still not sure what that's all about, but I think Felix will probably be able to explain it to me soon. After lunch, I head back to the bus stop to get back to post. Whoops... it's 1120 and I've missed this particular bus, that means I'll have to wait because the next bus won't be around until 1330 at the earliest. CRAP! The school nurse told me I can catch the AIM bus outside Villagio - she said I'd just have to get across the street and up a couple blocks to Emisfero and she told me how to get there - she also said she wouldn't let her kids do it because it's a busy street, but she's from the city and it doesn't bother her to do it as an adult. When she says she's from "the city" by the way, she is most definitely referring to New York - man have I missed that accent! I probably could've sat in there and talked with her for the rest of the day just to listen to it again. Anyway, I decide to walk up to the gate and give it a go, but when I get there, the gate guards effectively talk me out of it telling me it's a very dangerous street to cross and I really shouldn't try it. I decide that rather than arguing with the Italians, I will go back to the little bus stop and hang out for awhile, then on another day entirely, I will take the bus in and walk from Emisfero to the school just to be sure I can do it. When I get to the bus stop, it occurs to me that Mary lives right down the road and maybe if I'm lucky she's home and I can hang out with her until the bus comes instead of waiting at the unshaded bus stop. I call to see if she's there, but she's not - she was on post at the time, so no big deal I'll just sit and wait (not like there's much choice, right?)...

About five minutes later, I'm playing the only game my phone has on it and Mary calls me back and asks if I'm still at the bus stop. Well, yea, I am... I'll be here for about two hours. She says she's on her way, at which point I tell her it's fine and she doesn't need to stop what she's doing just because I mismanaged time (this is true, I have no problem sitting and waiting) but she insists that I'm a good excuse for her to get away from whatever she was already doing. Yay for me! I won't be at the bus stop for two hours after all!! About five minutes after that, she pulls up and I am back on track to get things accomplished today! Once I'm back on post, I go to ACS again to do one (hopefully) last bit of paperwork with them and get Felix's lunch account started up. When finished with ACS, I take that paperwork back over to the PX and as I'm walking back in, it dawns on me that I was in Felix's school with this huge kitchen knife set in my backpack and I didn't even realize it... oy vey!! So I get Felix's lunch account set up finally then check my watch and realize I gotta get moving back to the bus stop so I can get home on time to be at Felix's bus stop. Excellent. I checked the mail box since I was there (thankfully it has a window so I don't have to try the combo every time I'm there) it was empty so I moved on. I got to the bus stop about two minutes before the bus, which was exactly enough time to get the pass out and be ready to wave it down. The bus got me to my neighborhood with exactly enough time for me to drop off my backpack at the house and head back out to Felix's bus stop. I arrived at his stop and only waited for about four minutes for his bus to show up. I pulled it pretty tight, but I got the important stuff done and since it all worked out, I'm great with it!

As we're walking in the door, Felix is telling me how awesome his class is and how great his new friends are and how much he loves his new school and... my phone rings. Yup, it's his school calling me. I'm thinking "great, he's in trouble on the first day... but that makes no sense because he's raving about school" so I'm a bit nervous now. The counselor is calling to let me know that they've decided Felix is not a good fit for his current class and they will be putting him in a different class. She goes on to explain (several times, no less) that he was not misbehaved and there was nothing wrong with his day: he was well-behaved, friendly and not a problem in the least HOWEVER, because he has ADHD and several other students in that class have similar conditions, the teacher is concerned that adding him may create the tipping point at which the students become overwhelmed. Fine, fine, fine, whatever. I see the point from both sides, but I'm a little upset because he really likes the kids in this class and I don't want him to be disappointed or feel like he's being rejected on the first day in a new school. The counselor advises me that the move will most likely be made during the day on Tuesday and they'll make sure it's as smooth a transition as possible. The sarcastic side of me definitely has a few comments for that statement, but I bite my tongue (good job Piper!! you've learned something!). So now I need to positively prepare Felix to change classes again. He and I talk about it and we decide that it's a great idea because now he can meet twice as many kids and make twice as many friends before summer starts and that way he'll have plenty of people to hang out with during the break. See Rob? The Glad Game WORKS!!!

Felix also came home with the field trip permission slip (6 euro per person, please sign and return immediately since you're already past the deadline) and the classroom rules that officially no longer apply to him (we sign and return anyway, it's good practice!) and a little homework, which we settle down into right away. All in all, despite it being a hectic day, it's still a lovely day. Oh, and Rob's still irritated by the tv situation because even though we got the right cords and everything's hooked up properly, we still have no picture on our tv. I'm not worried - I don't need the tv and he doesn't live here yet, so it really doesn't matter to me at all. Maybe he can fix it next weekend when he comes over again.

Weekend

Saturday morning did not arrive as early as Friday did, but we're still getting up earlier than expected. After a quick breakfast, we headed out to the Palladio mall so we could find something to connect tv to wall and actually work. Oh yea, some food and such too.

This picture was stolen from Rob's adventures before I got here, but it's the same mall. We walked the entire mall to see what they had to offer... definitely interesting escalators - they're pretty much moving sidewalks at an angle... I've never seen something like that before and think it makes a lot of sense... no elevators for strollers or carts, just use the escalator like everyone else! Inside this mall is a casino, a gym, an Emisfero (the walmart store) and the usual listing of clothing and specialty stores. The food court is a little different: the only restaurant that was set up the way I've grown accustomed to was McDonald's (of course!) where you just stand in the line, order, get your food and find a place to eat somewhere outside the restaurant. The other food places were set up with separate dining areas. There were not waiters, but there were people to clean up after us and the food was served on regular dishes, not the disposable kind. Here's what I had for lunch and Rob's dessert:

My food was delish and I definitely plan to have it again (preferably made by me, because if I can make it, I can have it anywhere!!) and Rob didn't complain about his cake, either.

After lunch, we went to Emisfero to find the cables we needed for the tv, the Rob and Felix meandered on while I looked for things we needed. When we linked back up, Felix had carabinieri (Italian military police) toys in his hand and Rob was handing him euro to pay for them. At the checkout, Felix got to pay for his own toys and the cashier was amused. Felix got change and seemed surprised. Now he's collecting euro in his coin bank so he can do fun things and he's already coming up with new entrepreneurial ideas for our new location. I love his ideas... he's always coming up with something new and interesting with which to enrich our lives.

Once again Rob had to leave us from the mall, but this time we were able to at least accompany him to the bus stop. He headed back to post and we headed back to the apartment where I decided to get a little nosy. On the ground floor, there are two entrance doors (each has its own key, naturally) and on one side, there's a laundry room - three washers, three dryers pretty decently sized! I had no idea what was on the other side though, so I decided to find out. Turns out the other side has a storage closet full of the trash people have left in their apartments when they've moved out: several broken bikes, a couple of broken lawnmowers, a dresser with broken knobs, probably every mop ever used here. I was tired, so I didn't really register much about it other than that it was there. Off to bed for us and a lovely lazy Sunday to follow, during which pretty much nothing happened except the start of my blogging this experience and our preparation for the excitement of starting school on Monday!

Fantastic Friday

As previously stated, Thursday was a complete wash. I still have no idea what really happened Thursday except that Rob came over to stay the weekend and we had cold pizza because he wanted to take Felix to the park right after I cooked but before eating. He won't be making that mistake again! We also finally got around to putting the first of the family photos on the fridge... you like? If you want to be on my fridge, send me a picture!! :)

Friday morning we got up early, I made the boys eggs while Rob watched in terror expecting the house to explode at any moment. I'm pretty sure this was when I set off the smoke alarm... naturally, because Rob's convinced we're all going to go up in flames because of the gas stove. Breakfast was good and not  burned, then we jetted for the bus stop. For us, it takes two buses and tons of waiting to get from the apartment to the school. The city bus (AIM - great name, huh?) takes us from Torri to Ederle, then the post mass transit system takes us from Ederle to Villagio where all of the primary schools are. Today Felix gets registered for school!!!!! Not that I'm excited or anything... First, let it be known that as far as the greater Vicenza area is concerned, Americans are in a hurry and Italians are not. We all have somewhere to be, of course, just some of us are much more interested in getting there quickly than others. I already tend to fall a little more into that Italian category and Rob definitely falls into the American category. Felix... well, he's in a world of his own as most 9 year old boys are. Bus #1 arrives only about five minutes late, which seems to be the standard so far. Once on post, we learn that the next shuttle bus won't be around for about 30 minutes, so we meander into the 24 hour shoppette to spend a little time, get a coffee, giant tea... things of that nature. Then we sit and wait for bus #2, which is 10 minutes late. At the school, we are ushered into the office of the registrar who sorts through our paperwork pretty quickly, then hands us off to Felix's new guidance counselor who will be our tour guide for the next 45 minutes. Yes, it took us 45 minutes to do everything with her... the tour itself was only about 15 of it, but it certainly felt like forever to me and I'm sure Rob wasn't too thrilled either. Felix, on the other hand, was a wealth of general and personal information. It was awesome how he put our personal lives out there for absolutely everyone to enjoy. I have to admit, despite my general discomfort with his overshare, he didn't actually give away anything that wasn't either obvious or already on paperwork we'd turned in. All that remains now is for him to learn and apply the filter. No big deal, we all go through it at some point, right? We did learn that the school (like many in the states) is designed to imitate local traffic patterns... there are roundabouts in the hallway intersections. Yes, we all found that interesting. It is otherwise a very "normal" small-town school: it is attached to the middle school by way of cafeteria downstairs and library upstairs. It's brand new and nice and Felix is ecstatic about it. At one point during the trip, he looked at me and said, "mom, I think I'm gonna LOVE it here" then continued on. I felt like crying... that's about the best thing I could've heard. He's been very unhappy with school since we got to NC and none of us were sad to say goodbye to the place, but I was a little worried that he might carry over the negatives to this new school. Apparently not, thank God!

Upon leaving the school (finally!) we learned that it would be just over an hour until the next bus came because the mass transit bus takes a 90 minute break in the middle of the day (along with two 30 minute breaks, one mid-morning and one mid-afternoon... lovely thing to drive a 10 mile circle 5 times a day). I wracked my brain to come up with something that could possibly keep my boys from losing their minds while we waited for transportation. AHA!!! Mary lives here... maybe we can go meet up with her and hang out for awhile until the bus comes back around. I gave her a call and she said definitely come over - her husband was going through a bunch of TA-50 and that meant Rob would have someone to chat with and not be bored. Felix is pretty easily entertained and since Mary's no stranger to hanging out with kids, it was great. It turned out even better for us because Mary volunteered to take us back to post and took us to one of the main places we needed to go for housing on the way. We got some much needed stuff for the apartment, then got to post without having to wait forever for the guaranteed-to-be-late bus. On post we did a little more shopping... you really can't ever have enough food in the house when there are boys involved! Then back to the AIM stop and back to the apartment. We have thus far been unable to make the tv work. Luckily, Felix is still trying to catch up with the time change and is tired relatively early, so bedtime is pretty easy right now.

At least there is still the laptop for watching movies. This, of course, makes Rob even more determined to fix the tv problem tomorrow, so I guess we'll give it a shot!

Wednesday? Really?

This is the bathroom I was locked in. Can't wait to get my stuff in July... the leafy theme I had before will go perfectly with this!

Wednesday greeted me at 0600... and it was good. I realized my main problem on Tuesday was that I had my blinds all the way down so it made the house pitch black inside. This time, I made sure they were open a bit at the bottom so the sunrise would wake me up (along with the alarms, of course!) and it worked. Here is part of the view from my window... I couldn't get a good shot of the mountains in the distance, but they're clear from here as well.

So in order to remain in the country, Felix and I have to have visas which requires a lot of paperwork, some pictures (4 each) and fingerprints (we're still waiting for *that* appointment). Today we head out to get our pictures taken and make sure they get into the hands of the people who need them. That was not particularly scary or difficult because I found the button on the bus and the directions to the photo place were super easy with Rob leading the way after lunch at the DFAC which is apparently one of the most popular places for families to meet for food here (according to Rob) and I can see its potential: the food's good and reasonably priced and everyone speaks English. It's a win-win-win! Anyhow, we move along to get the paperwork for Felix to go to school, which should be straightforward right? HA! Fooled you... I "preregistered" Felix online with DoDDs to try to expedite the registration process once we got here. That was one million percent pointless. As it turns out, we needed to do all of the paperwork in person and turn it into someone who is only available from 0830 - 1100 on school days. This is fine, we'll make it happen. Felix and I go from the picture place to the ACS building... not a tremendous walk - thankfully this base is tiny - but when we arrive, the school liaison is unavailable. Fine, she's supposed to be back after some luncheon, no big deal we'll just go to the CYSS people and get Felix registered. Good thing CYSS is in the same building, just one hall away. That process is quickish and only mildly painful when we get to the point of emergency contacts who are not the parents and wonder who exactly we can put down. Oh wait - they have to be local as well? Fine. My frg leader and her husband are our emergency contacts. Good thing we like them! Finish up with CYSS and move back over to the school liaison who is now back from lunch. She's also a very, very nice lady and takes the time to make sure we have everything we could possibly need... including the packet of forms we have to fill out. The packet has to be scanned and emailed to her so that she can print it out and give it to us. Should take only 5 minutes. Riiiiiiigght. While we wait, we go over the school info I hand carried and it turns out that Felix will need a shot before he can start school. Did you know that NC doesn't require the Hep A vaccines? Me either... so we leave the ACS building after our lovely liaison promises to have everything ready for us and leave it with the front desk if she has to step out for any reason and head over to the clinic to get Felix his shot (he is completely unaware of this, by the way) and of course, we have to register with Tricare first. That took less than five minutes because Rob has been here awhile and is already in the system. Best move EVER was going over separately, even if it was unintentional, because he got everything important taken care of during in-processing so we didn't have to wait for a physical address, phone number, box number, or any of the multitude other things we've been asked for - it was all basically issued to him. The clinic is a little bit nicer than the hospital at Bragg, which is awesome because Womack is pretty nice. We got there two minutes after the cutoff for immunization walk-ins. The receptionist found someone who was willing to stay and poke one more kid with one more needle. Awfully nice of her! It was at this point that Felix realized he was about to get a shot. Let's just say his reaction was much younger than I expected... I'm giving to him that he was exhausted and jet-lagged and hungry, but WOW did he overreact. I think the best part of the whole situation was how freaked out he got and while he was sitting on the table arguing with the guy about why he shouldn't get a shot, he got the shot and had the band-aid on his arm without the slightest inkling that it had happened already. Once he realized it was over, he thanked the man profusely for not sawing his arm off and he managed to get a tootsie pop out of it as well. Then I took him to Subway where he got to pick the sub with bacon on it and we walked over to the post office so I could get in the looooooooooooooonnngg line for our packages while he ate his sub. The package line was an uneventful 15 minutes of my day quickly disappearing, then we headed back over to the ACS building to pick up the school packet. The packages I sent were flat rate boxes that I made the most of, so they were a touch on the heavy side and filled mostly with items for Rob. I called him from the ACS building which is very close to where he works and asked him to come get the boxes because I couldn't really see myself on the rush hour bus with two heavy boxes, three folders and my wallet - oh yea, and my kid! - and not losing everything in the process. It would figure that I'd take my backpack with me and not need it Monday/Tuesday but certainly needed it Wednesday and didn't take it with me! ACS closed for the day, so Felix and I went outside to wait for Rob - the weather is spectacular here... I'm loving every moment of it! Rob stops by, grabs the boxes and heads back out, then we're on our merry way back to the bus stop. But I've never taken the bus back from Ederle before... I presume the bus stop must be on the other side of the street from the one I got off at here because that's generally the way it works with buses. Excellent, it is. Crap. There are several bus lines that pick up at this stop and I have to know which one I need. Ok, well I do actually know which one I need. What I don't know is that I have to step out into traffic to wave it down because it won't just stop for people congregated at the bus stop. Here's another time God watches out for kids and fools... there's an American contractor taking the same bus I need and he explains the system in much greater detail to me. Thanks dude!!

So we conclude Wednesday, not realizing that Thursday will also be a complete wash - knowing that we live in one of the most beautiful places on earth and we are quite fortunate to be where we are even though it's half a world away from everything we are currently familiar with. We get to this corner and turn to go home... this field can be seen from our balcony, but this picture is from the road the bus line travels. This hectic week is almost over... I can feel the calm coming!

shall I proceed?

This is our building. We're in the middle on the right... yes, the balcony goes all the way to the back wall.

I woke up at 1pm on Tuesday, May 3. CRAP! I wanted to get so much accomplished and now it's basically blown. At least I can still go to the mall (the one with the grocery store, casino and gym in it) and buy our bus passes. Provided, of course, that I can figure out how to ask for them. This is the point where I get out the phone and call Rob and ask him how to say it and where to go and get confused and then wind up having him text me the question I am supposed to ask. I went to the wrong stand first... he said it was a stand outside the grocery store (Emisfero, more like Walmart, really) and I went to one outside Emisfero and found that it was a card/flower/knick knack stand, but not the one selling bus passes. The lady (who spoke zero English) was very nice to me though and pointed me in the right direction. So I go to the lotto counter and say "vondrei due boletos di multiviaggio per favore" and naturally, the guy answers me in English. Go figure, right? He helped me with my pronunciation, I thanked him and we moved on. There was some indecision on whether or not we should just grab the bus and go up to Ederle or not, we start walking away from the bus stop, then we wind up getting on after all. I did not do the bus passes right the first time we rode the bus, but I didn't get in trouble for it, so I'm chalking it up to one of my mom's favorite statements that God watches out for small children and fools... since we had both options covered on this trip, apparently He was watching out for us. The other thing I didn't do right (both because I didn't know how) was hit the button to stop the bus. Thankfully, we shared the bus with a couple of soldiers who needed the same stop. We made it through the gate and caught up with Rob, who showed us a couple more places we needed to know about - unfortunately, I'm still tired and not really absorbing all this information. Then we headed to the post office to check our mailbox which he has so far not been able to open. I have to use the ladder because the silly thing is right up against the ceiling, but after two tries with the combination I manage to get it open and find that we have packages waiting for us. Not surprisingly, they're the ones I sent from Ponte Vedra - it apparently takes about 6 days for us to receive packages, so SEND AWAY!! Peanut butter is definitely welcome (Meghan, laugh it up... I know I would!). I get the notices from the box and look to see what time it is... no luck for today - the actual post office is closed. So we move on to the Ederle Inn where our luggage awaits us. It took about 90 seconds for us to get the luggage... this is a very common problem apparently. I was thoroughly amused by the size of the designated luggage room (easily the size of the master in Texas) and by how full it was (kinda hard to navigate the paths between bags) but happy that this is common enough for it to not be a complete hassle to get our stuff back. The bags were just a bit heavier than I remembered. We were absolutely gonna walk them all the way out to the front gate where we had already determined I was taking a cab home. Luckily, there was a bus available for us to take. Super-fast-paced Rob was agitated by the driver's relaxed way of doing things... I hope he gets used to it because if not, it will be a long three years for him here! We head out and snag the cab back to the house and luckily, I only have to carry the bags up the stairs. I gave the lightest one to Felix and it took him 20 minutes to bring up. I had the other two up and mostly unpacked by the time he got to the door. Poor kid!

The good (?) news here is that we were very tired at this point, so getting home was excellent and getting showered was even better and going to bed was the BEST. Especially knowing that the alarm was set for ridiculously early and the new day promised to be just as busy as the last few.

Day 1...ish

It is only fair to begin this experience at its actual beginning point. Unfortunately, there are a million mundane details involved in beginning at the beginning, so I will not. The important things to know are 1) it sucks to know you're going somewhere for five months before it is officially recognized that you're going there... nothing can be accomplished without official recognition, so knowledge (in this case) is USELESS... 2) it's a little bit worse getting only partial official recognition because a lot of legwork can be done but the *most important* things cannot be accomplished without that last single sheet of paper... 3) last minute documentation will get the job done, but will be very frustrating, time consuming and all around agonizing to deal with. THEN you get to sit and wait for your flight(s) out.

Rob is the fortunate one in this part of the story: he gets to travel alone, live in the barracks with guys who have all the same (PARTY) interests and in general enjoy the life of one who has only the responsibility of going to work every day. This is an excellent break for him and he definitely takes full advantage of it.

Felix and I are left with the packing up and transporting of household goods, selling of items unwanted or unshippable, storage of secondary vehicle, release of rental and finally, all the lovely details involved in getting from one side of the pond to the other. Naturally, this means *I* am left with these responsibilities, plus those associated with a trying-to-be-helpful-but-still-severely-egocentric 9 year old. Fun times, for sure!! Needless to say, all of these things are accomplished with a limited amount of stress on my part, thanks to the gym membership I chose to take FULL advantage of during my last few weeks in NC. The final part of this tasking found me in one of the happiest places (for me) on earth: Ponte Vedra, FL. Felix and I spent a lovely couple of weeks there leading up to our departing flight from Charleston, SC (yes, this is Army logic for you) on Sunday, May 1st, 2011 at roughly 1pm. We made it onto and through our first flight (1 hour) with no troubles. It was smooth sailing and fairly fun and at the end of it was a 2 hour layover in (of all places) Charlotte, NC. Our second flight (the long one, of course) arrived late and departed even later, turning our layover into 3 hours. I admit to feeling absolute panic once in the air because in a perfect world, the 45 minute layover I was supposed to have in Germany would have been plenty of time for me to go through customs - for the first time ever - and get to my flight to Venice with no trouble at all. I still consider it fortunate that we do not live in a perfect world (how boring would that be!?!?!) but I knew that we were not going to have time to do what we needed to do. I underestimated German efficiency - hopefully for the last time - because they were very particular about finding us and getting us where we needed to go. We arrived 15 minutes before our flight was due to depart and the lovely young man who led us in and out and up and down got us there with about 5 minutes to spare. He sped us through employee entrances/exits, jumped us onto and off of vans saying "we get off here, you follow me" as the van slammed to a stop where ever it was we were supposed to be going. It was quite an experience. Once seated on the plane, I allowed my brain to catch up to my body and was able to breathe again. The pilot announced first in German, then in Italian and finally in English that we might be starting our flight a few minutes late, but he'd be damned if he was going to get us to our destination late. During his announcement, he was peeling out onto the tarmac (the safety brief happened the second we were on board!) and we were in the air in just about no time flat to start our 1 hour flight. He was right, by the way, we arrived exactly on time (9:35 am) despite taking off about 15 minutes late. Our luggage, however, did not quite make our flight.

In Marco Polo airport, after registering our lost luggage, we linked up with Rob and had a nice little lunch while we waited for the shuttle to Ederle at noon. This is the point at which I learned that Osama Bin Laden was dead. I still haven't processed that bit of information. The ride took about 45 minutes and I tried really hard to pay attention to Rob, but after 12 hours of actual flight and the craziness in between I was not mentally functioning the way I'd hoped to be. Perhaps if I had been able to sleep on any of the flights, I would have been a little better but the sleep thing just didn't work out for me. Arrival in Ederle meant immediate in-processing. We had to go to three offices within the same building (THANK GOD) and do some paperwork to keep us in the country and get us into the system on post. This was followed up with a trip to the px for clothing for me and Felix then we had to get to Rob's room to pick up what he had purchased for the apartment (a side note for Ana: he made me use his roommate's bathroom because he didn't want me to see his own... he said he hadn't cleaned it since he got there! hahahaha) and finally we were on the road to our apartment.

The apartment of a thousand keys... holy CRAP are there a lot of keys to this place! According to the paper attached to the key ring, they do each actually go to something but I haven't verified that as fact yet. I've found the important ones: entry gate, entry door, laundry room storage, garage and front door. There should be one to the little green common area and probably one to the mailbox we're not supposed to use... I think possibly two others. Anyhow, we arrived, brought stuff up then left again to go buy food at the local market. While shopping, we realized that Rob would not be able to accompany us home as he had to catch the bus back to Ederle, so he left me with some cash for food and took off. Felix and I wandered around trying to find bread, pb&j (we were unsuccessful at that) and cereal for quick nourishment before passing out. Better shopping would have to be done after getting some rest. So we got to the apartment and I asked Felix what he wanted for dinner. Not surprisingly, he asked for the cereal that we bought (some kind of puffy wheat flakes and chocolate shavings) so I let him have cereal for dinner. Then he showered in his brand new elevator shower (oh yeah, let the imagination be FREE!!) while I made myself a lovely bath in the huge tub, locking the bathroom door with the adorable old-fashioned keys provided. After the bath (did I mention how lovely it was?) I found myself most assuredly locked in the bathroom without hope of escape. My guess is that the wood expanded just enough because of my bath steam that the key no longer fit properly to turn the lock back. Felix and I both tried, passing the key underneath the door to one another. Then I tried on my own again for awhile. About half an hour into it, I decided to have Felix go look for a knife in the kitchen and maybe if it would fit under the door I would be able to unscrew the knob and get myself out that way. While looking for the knife, he found two more keys (much more recently made) and brought them to me. The first one I tried let me out. I decided at that point that all three keys would be put together in a drawer in the kitchen and never used again while I live here. Finally, I went to bed... at roughly 9pm on Monday, May 2nd, 2011.

How many days was that?

oh... here are the keys I won't be using anymore!