A walk in the park...

Just to reiterate about the best-laid plans going awry, my original plan was as follows: December 19th Ana arrives in the late afternoon and is home in time for dinner and bed. December 20th, we explore Vicenza. December 21st, Venice in the morning until Meghan arrives. December 22nd, pick up CJ and Kamryn, then hang out in Torri. December 23rd, Marostica and Nove. December 24th, Verona and Christmas festivities. December 25th, rest up before our trip to Rome. December 26th - 27th Rome. December 28th recovery from Rome and prep for Ana's return trip. Seems pretty put together, doesn't it? Oh never, never plan like that!

Since I miscalculated day one of the vacation, we scrapped Vicenza and otherwise continued with the plan. Meghan and I went to pick up CJ and Kamryn while Rob, Felix and Ana spent some quality bonding time at home. On our way there, true to form, there was horrendous traffic on the autostrada. Normally when that happens to me, I don't see the cause, I just sit in stop and go traffic for half an hour or so and it suddenly clears up. This time, we got to see it... pretty ugly wreck. High speeds are great, but it was a good reminder to pay attention! 

There's a restaurant in Torri called La Vecchia Fattoria that we had been wanting to try out (actually the Americans call it the wagon wheel restaurant, even though it has a water wheel outside, not a wagon wheel). Our friends all gave it great reviews for food, service and English, so we thought we'd try it out for the first time while our family was visiting. Before dinner, we did a little exploring around Torri, walking down just past La Vecchia to one of the discount stores I like and we did some browsing. Felix is never happy about walking around, but (after a pretty serious pep talk on the bridge) he survived. The girls and I decided to walk to the restaurant while Rob drove Felix and Ana and secured us a table. Our waiter was awesome in the most amusing way possible. His English sounded like an SNL stereotype of a snooty French accent and Rob's reaction to it made it so much harder for me to keep from laughing. Dinner was a struggle until the food arrived - thankfully we had wine to explain the giggles - then everyone dug in. We had giant salads that were easily at least two-person meals and pizzas, of course. We all did a little sharing and had a memorable experience. After a chilly walk home, it was off to bed so we could be sure to have enough time for two cities the next day!

In the morning, we got up a little later than expected (again) but not much and got moving in time to still see both places. Rob drove Ana and Felix in a friend's car and followed me (since I had the gps). We headed toward Marostica first with the idea that we'd build up an appetite hiking the trail then have lunch in Nove and visit the ceramic shops after lunch. Rob was directly behind me until we turned onto the first main road, then there was one car between us. I kept eyes on until the first roundabout then there were three cars between us and I had traffic to navigate. I drove slow and signaled well in advance but somehow he lost us. When I turned left at the second roundabout, he went straight... but I thought he was still behind me because another car like the one he was driving turned left behind me so I continued on. Then he called me to ask where I was. Freaking GREAT. I couldn't navigate him back to me because I didn't know where he was and he couldn't figure out where I had turned so he couldn't even get back to a meeting point where we could link back up and continue on. He decided to take Ana and Felix through Vicenza instead of trying to find us, so they went there and we continued on to Marostica.

As always when driving up to Marostica, the view of the castle and wall is pretty awesome and this trip was no different. Once we parked and walked inside, I was disappointed to see that the chess board was covered up. It's ice skating season and where better to build a little ice rink than the town square? Naturally! So we walked up the back streets towards the chapels and the trail. This was my first time walking the entire trail and I knew it was steep but I had forgotten how rough it was in some places and I was really glad that Rob had gone into Vicenza instead because I know Felix would not have been good with the hike. At the top of the trail is the upper castle and a restaurant. We stopped to enjoy the view for a minute, then climbed to the highest point of the upper castle to check out the best view available of Marostica. We returned the way we came... I was pretty sure I was gonna be sliding down on the leaves at a couple points, but I stayed on my feet the whole way down. Then we headed on to Nove for a long lunch at Cafe Roma (more giant salads!!) and some general wandering around town while waiting for stores to reopen after riposo. 

Since Nove is known for ceramics, there are ceramic decorations absolutely everywhere. The sides of buildings have all kinds of masterpieces attached to them, bridges have ceramic tiles painted with stories across them, each streetlamp has a different ceramic design on it. Every time I visit, I find something I haven't seen before and every time I visit, there's something new to be found. We did a little investigating around the church while killing a little more time... the church was not open - we checked! Then we headed on to see if any of the stores were open. Being so close to Christmas (and riposo was not quite technically over yet) it began to look hopeless, then I found a place and we finally got to see some ceramics. We only went to two places, but it was fun to see just how small a world it really is because in one of the stores, there's a newspaper article from the Aiken Standard (Aiken, SC) magnified and on display for customers to see that the store's reach actually does extend beyond Italy. What are the odds that tiny little Aiken and tiny little Nove would cross paths in this way? Slim, but obviously not impossible. We made a couple small purchases and headed back home to link up with the rest of the family and see how we wanted to wind up the day. I called Rob to find out how soon they were coming back and they had decided to stay for a light show and have dinner downtown, so we decided to get pizzas from the local spot. CJ and I enjoyed watching the pizzas being made while we waited (not something you get to really experience at Domino's!) and it turned out well for everyone, despite our rocky start. Tomorrow it's off to Verona!!

Buon Natale!

Since arriving here, I have been consistently reminded of how fortunate my family is to have what we have - not just things (though we do have more than our fair share, in my opinion) but opportunities both afforded to us and created by us. The fact that we're in Italy is testament enough, but then to have family visit us somewhat regularly and experience these amazing destinations with us is above and beyond what most of the other service members stationed here are able to enjoy.

Nativity in San Marco Square

For Christmas this year, not only did we have the opportunity to host CJ and Kamryn again, but Meghan was able to join them AND we were able to bring Rob's mom, Ana over for a short but awesome vacation. When we picked the flights for her, we picked the same ones we would have used if we were going home, so we anticipated her being here from the 19th through the 29th of December. I'm not always the brightest bulb in the pack, so it truly did not register in my mind that she would not arrive until the 20th because of the length of the flight and the whole traveling forward in time thing. Even though it was stated on the reservations that I made! So I lost us one day of travel plans and had to move everything right one day, but it all worked out in the end. The evening she arrived, Rob went to pick her up while I made as authentic Italian a dinner as I am able being an American with German and Irish roots. In spite of myself, dinner was a pretty good Tuscan chicken stew. The perfect red wine from my current favorite wine store (Le Rive) helped! The following day Meghan was scheduled to arrive and I had planned to use her afternoon arrival to our advantage by visiting Venice that morning, then picking her up in time to head back for dinner and reasonable bed times. I spent several weeks attempting to plan this particular adventure because I knew Ana would be jet-lagged but she also needed to see as much as possible while still coordinating the airport arrivals and departures to flow smoothly with the sightseeing. Since CJ, Meghan & Kamryn have been here a few times, Venice was not high on the list of attractions for them and I thought this was a perfect way to kick off the vacation for everyone. Yup.

Rule #1 when vacationing across several time zones: DO NOT underestimate jet lag. I'll grant you, there was never a point when I thought, "oh great, we'll get up at 5am so we can be out the door by 6 and at our destination by 7" or anything even close to that. I'm not stupid. I did plan to be up by 8 so we could be in Venice before lunch because it really does only take a couple hours to see the major attractions everyone wants to see. Two major miscalculations happened here: first, I attempted to use a different parcheggio than what I had used before but did so without making a practice run ahead of schedule; second, I underestimated jet lag. We got out the door around 1030 which is when I had hoped to be arriving in Venice (or at least almost there) and when we got to the car park I had researched it turned out to be an open-air lot along one of the rivers in a not-so-friendly looking area, so we asked Garmin for a better idea and followed it. I like the garage it took us to, but we naturally got separated coming down the stairs... Felix and I were outside the garage waiting on the sidewalk while Rob and Ana were still finding their way out. Also naturally, Rob's phone was out of euro again. Luckily, it costs him nothing to call me. Silly person that I am, I wanted to walk from the garage to the main bridge into the city. It was a longer walk than I realized (just under a mile) and with traffic and bridges it was going to be complicated. We took the people mover from Tronchetto to Piazzale Roma where we picked up a map of Venice and began our misguided journey.

Upon entering the city, we immediately found photogenic views and took advantage of them. We stopped almost immediately for lunch because it was about that time and all were hungry. While ordering our food, Ana made a friend. Such a small world we live in: one of the other customers happened to share very similar roots (they grew up in neighboring hometowns, I believe). We enjoyed our lunch and moved on towards the important sites knowing that our time was limited. Then we turned right. I knew where I was going until Rob started second-guessing me because I didn't keep faith in my knowledge and allowed his doubts to become my own. We found all kinds of things in the back alleys of Venice... like an Italian Army post, several schools, some trash and a lovely gentleman who was feeding pigeons and willing to give us good directions. From that point forward, Rob decided he was going to take point. He got us back on the right track just in time to come across a gondolier, prompting Ana to insist on taking a gondola ride...

While she negotiated a price with the gondolier, Rob investigated a super creepy looking beggar who was conveniently located on the street directly in front of the ATM that the gondoliers were sending customers to. He took several pictures of the person, but I think this is the best one because it almost looks like a black and white photo and it truly captures how you see them when you're walking through the city. Finally, the haggling and ogling were completed and we climbed into the gondola for our ride around the city. At this point, to be fair to my child (who is reading this over my shoulder), I need to state for the record that Felix was not at all excited about the gondola ride. In fact, he protested it quite loudly and profusely and was considerably upset when his protests were disregarded and he found himself in the boat with the rest of us. The not-so-gentle rocking did not at all help the situation. The first canal we headed into was wide and had a fair amount of traffic. Big motorized boats, even moving slowly, create a wake that is not pleasant to people in small, pole-guided boats. Poor Felix. Our gondolier was supposed to sing to us as part of the negotiated price, so he did for awhile... until Ana sang over him! He noted points of interest for us (I don't remember any of them) and showed us a place where the gondolas were being built. It was a nice little ride... COLD but nice.

Once the gondola ride was finished, we crossed the bridge, wound our way through a few more streets and headed into San Marco Square. There is a lot to see in the square and it's huge, so when you first step into it you really just want to stop and take it all in. So we did. As we headed toward the church, we noticed that it was pigeon feeding time. It looked to me like a grayish mist was hovering in one part of the piazza until we got a little closer, then everyone got excited. Ana and the boys got in the middle of things while I tried to get pictures of everyone without getting pooped on. I'm happy to report that my mission was a success! Felix especially enjoyed the whole experience and wanted to stay indefinitely. Once the birds were adequately fed, we moved further in so we could see the rest of the square and then get over to Rialto before we ran out of time to pick up Meghan. We were walking like maniacs trying to get to all the main points, but still actually see things on our way through (because what's the point of visiting if you don't actually see anything?!) knowing that we were on a deadline. We were on Rialto Bridge when my phone rang. Luckily, that was the last stop on our way back to the car. Unluckily, Venice is not an easy city to navigate quickly when you're in a group of more than two (in my opinion, anyway). There were still plenty of turns to make and bridges to cross to get back to the people mover, so we took the traditional pictures and Rob assured Meghan that we were on our way, then I began leading us out. This time, I did not second-guess myself even though Rob did several times. I was clear on the way out and I got us out. We got back to the car in record time and hauled it over to the airport, retrieved Meghan and headed home to eat and crash for the night. CJ and Kamryn were arriving the next day, then we were off on more adventures!