When in Rome

So the month of October was crazy!  As I wrote about before, we went to Amsterdam the first weekend in October and two days later our good friend Oscar arrived for a visit. Oscar stayed for a few days and then went to Spain. Then he returned to Wiesbaden just in time for our crazy road trip to Italy. We really missed celebrating Thanksgiving with the family. We made our own variation of a Thanksgiving meal, but it wasn't quite the same! Holidays, birthdays, and special occasions I have realized is when I will really miss my family and friends from home. Fall definitely hit Germany. The leaves are falling still and the beautiful colours of autumn are upon us. It is colder, but the temperatures are fairly mild which is nice. It has been around 13-16 degrees Celsius in the days, which is not too bad. We had a good week and a half of constant rain, but that seems to have subsided. I have decided; however, that the sun does not like Wiesbaden. The days are pretty dreary, cold, and occasionally foggy. I sure miss those clear, sunny Kamloops days. I think it could be a long winter with the weather like this. It has been so nice because Robb has had a two week break from school and will go back to work on Monday. He will also start classes at Heidelberg University Monday too. So, October was definitely a fun month with a lot of exciting adventures and visits. 

 

Peyton with her mini shopping cart at the grocery store close to our home.  

Always at the park playing with the sand toys...also always dirty.

Our own make shift Thanksgiving dinner. 

Took some typical fall pictures after P's ballet class.

Enjoying having a familiar face around, even though Peyton's pretending she is not enjoying it;-)

Trying to be as Deutsch as possible.

Alright, so we went on a road trip to experience Italy. Oscar likened it to the Griswold Family Vacation, so you know what that means. We started our little trek with the 3 adults and 2 children in a small vehicle. We each took one backpack, our stroller, and Micah's pack and play. I sat between the two car seats in the back, which lost it's excitement early on. We started off planning to leave at 6am, which obviously means 8am by the time we got organized and got everyone out the door. On the first day we drove from Wiesbaden to Lake Garda in Italy. My favourite part of this day was driving through Switzerland, it was so beautiful. This is one place I would love to go back to in the spring. The Alps were amazing. I honestly thought it was the most gorgeous place. We stopped just outside of Lucerne for lunch and paid just under $10 for a kids meal at Burger King. We also had to pay about 75$ CAD for a pass to drive through Switzerland. It is a country we could not afford to vacation in for long. On our way home we stopped in at a gas station/truck stop and we paid $38 for a cheeseburger and a chicken dinner with rice. I was going to buy some chocolate and the Lindt chocolate (made in Switzerland) was like 12-14$. It was crazy. However, the country is completely clean, the truck stop was immaculate, and people were incredibly friendly. I would have taken more pictures, but the rule as parents is that when one of your children falls asleep in the car, you do not and I repeat, do not stop the car for any reason, no matter how beautiful the country is ;-) We eventually got to Lake Garda around dinner time. We stayed at this place called Camping Bella Italia, we rented a little bungalow with two bedrooms and a small kitchen. Sounds nice right? The website definitely made it look really nice... however, it was not;) The bathroom smelled like an outhouse (like a serious smelly outhouse) and we had to rent the bedding once we arrived and make the beds ourselves. This is fine as I am not that high maintenance (well maybe a little). I chose not to sit on the couch in the kitchen area. I feel like this was a smart choice. Robb however did sit on it and broke the supports. Not sure if this was charged to the credit card! Also there was no wifi at this place unless we paid for it by the hour and there were three areas on the grounds that the wifi reached, definitely not in our bungalow. We used the wifi each day to get driving directions for the following day. Bungalow sounds kind of exotic and cool, but lets be clear it wasn't an ocean resort bungalow;-) I am probably making it sounds much worse than it actually was. The reason we picked this place was due to the many pools, water parks, and kids activities there; however, once we arrived we found they closed all of those down the weekend before we arrived. For us, it was still hot enough to use the pools and things, but it is their fall season and it is cooling down. We stayed in Lake Garda for three nights and did day trips from there. 

The start of the Italian road trip, everyone is still smiling!

3 adults, two children, two car seats, and limited trunk space, we made it work. Though my hip may be permanently damaged from being squished between the two seats.  

Gorgeous Switzerland, just past Lucerne

This part of the drive was so beautiful. Switzerland is the most gorgeous country! 

The start of the Swiss alps. 

More Switzerland. This lake was so gorgeous and I wanted to get out and take pics, but when a child is sleeping you DO NOT stop the car no matter what, as mentioned previously.

DAY 2: On the second day, we drove to Verona. Verona was only a half hour drive from Lake Garda. Verona was one of my favourite days on the trip. It was a beautiful city, with lots of things to see and do. We walked around the city and stumbled on different things. It was actually kind of nice, because we didn't plan anything in any of the places we wanted to go (besides Rome) and just kind of discovered as we went. We saw Juliet Capulet's (Giulietta) home, where they based that movie Letters to Juliet on. I watched that movie and it was funny because tourism always wrecks the authenticity of these places. In the movie its very beautiful and clean, but in reality there is a gift shop to the right, you have to pay to go up to the balcony, and the letters that were said to be stuck to the wall, were written right on the wall and kind of looked like a public bathroom stall. Also tourists are everywhere and you can't really move around (I am speaking as a fellow tourist of course, but all of the other ones are annoying, not us though). The city was really cool, all of these little side streets and alleyways that you wouldn't even notice. There was also an arena in the middle of the city, we didn't pay to go in because we knew we would visit the Colosseum in Rome. We had lunch out in the main city square with the arena in the background. It was hot, about 25 degrees celsius. It was so nice! Then we drove back to Lake Garda and stayed at our favourite resort;-)

Lake Garda

Our first breakfast in Italy, bruschetta and cappuccino. 

Lake Garda

Micah dining in Verona with the arena in the background, she looks impressed.

Peyton has decided she loves palm trees and got excited every time she saw one. 

Verona arena.

Giulietta's house. Letters to Juliet may have portrayed it a little nicer with maybe a few less crazy tourists!

The wall of letters. Peyton was amazed. 

The line up to take pics with her statue was crazy, I was lucky to get a pic with no one in it. 

Beautiful Verona

The girls and I at Giulietta's tomb. 

Verona

The girls were happy in the stroller, so another rule do not take them out for a picture no matter how nice it is. 

Day 3. Micah was up the night before throwing up and a little sick, so we took our time the next morning before we got in the car. We drove to Venice (well near Venice, then took a boat over). Again, we had no real plan other than to explore. Venice was beautiful of course. We enjoyed walking around and going through these crazy narrow alleyways and little maze of streets. We hung out in the Piazza San Marco for awhile as Peyton wanted to feed the pigeons because she saw other people doing it. We had some crackers, and in seconds the birds were everywhere. It was sick and then one hovered over me and landed on my arm. I feel like the scene may have been nightmare for a few people (ahem, Oscar). Peyton thought it was the best thing though. Peyton just kept talking to the pigeons and then our little parrot Micah tried to copy whatever Peyton said or did. In Micah's head she was probably saying, "Hi pigeons", but in reality she was saying "Hi blah blah" (or some sort of gibberish) using different inflections with her voice. The one thing Micah constantly says when passing bye people is tschüss, which is an informal way to say goodbye in Deutsch. Anyway, it was a fun day. We had dinner on the water and ate ice cream as the sunset on the water. It was gorgeous. Some of the difficulties we found in Venice was having a stroller with us, as there were so many bridges with steps and no ramps, not many public bathrooms, and no high chairs at restaurants. Italy in general, was more complicated with children. Peyton freaked out when she saw a cruise ship sail by while we were eating, she was so excited and was telling us about the "Massive huge boat," that drove by. That was her spectacle of the day, so there is Venice from two different points of view;-)

The girls favorite thing to do. Micah ways wants to be walking, but refuses to do it without someone's hand, then she waits for Peyton to take her other hand. 

The gondolas. 

The Piazza San Marco, Oscar was a little traumatized by the pigeons.

Micah finally fell asleep!

Peyton wanted to feed the Pigeons and then one landed on my hand:-( 

I think it's safe to say Peyton enjoyed her spaghetti.

Having some ice cream on the water, watching the sunset.

Some people are too cool for school.

Day 4. We had a sad time leaving Camping Bella Italia, but we had to move on unfortunately. We drove to Pisa, which is basically the tower. Oh I forgot to mention if you are ever in need of a portable extending arm for selfies or Louis Vuitton purses, Italian tourist attractions are the places to go. Never in my life have I seen so many for sale, or so many people taking pictures with these "selfie sticks." I am not even sure if there is a more technical name for them, but it's funny to watch people take pictures with these. So, back to Pisa. Pisa is the tower. Not much more, not much less;-) We came, we saw, and we conquered. We tried to do the typical pushing over the Leaning Tower of Pisa pictures, but they were so awful. I feel like Oscar will remember these moments in pain, as Robb tried to bribe Peyton to put her arms up to push the tower. Haha looking back it was so funny, but in the moment I was yelling ,"Robb forget the picture, it's not going to work." Oscar is calling out, "Crystal move forward, arm up higher, Robb your not even close to the tower." Meanwhile, Peyton is done and Micah is crying to be let out of the baby carrier. Good times! We then had lunch and drove to Livorno where we were spending two nights. The original plan was to drive to Florence for the one day we stayed in Livorno, but the girls were having a bit of a rough time, so we decided to spend a more relaxing day in Livorno on the beach.


ha ha this is one of the "awesome" Pisa pics. The photographer (ahem... Robb) didn't get the top of the tower in the picture.



Even though the whole tower isn't in the picture, I just love this one because its the girls just chilling under the tower, so unimpressed with where they are.

Day 5. So, as mentioned above the plan, was to hang out at the beach all day. However, 'as planned' was not the name of our trip;-) The day was so windy, we couldn't even see on the beach because of all the sand everywhere. My hair was going crazy and we all had sand in our ears and hair for being on the beach for approximately 5 minutes. It was so beautiful, I was disappointed about this. My kind of vacation would be letting the girls play in the sand and running around, while relaxing on a beautiful beach and enjoying the warm weather. We did have a good day regardless. We went into the city and had lunch on the Tyrrhenian Sea, walked along the boardwalk, and let the girls go on a few mini rides. The whole city was obviously super touristy in the summer because so many things on the beach were closed, like little ice cream shops, and kids activities, as well as an aquarium. One of the things about Italy, is that no one takes coffee to go. You go to a restaurant or espresso place and you sit or stand and drink it. Robb asked for a to go cappuccino from one place and they put it in a glass juice jar and handed him a plastic water cup and no lid (see the picture below). Awesome. We also planned to take the girls swimming here, but low and behold, the pool closed not long before we arrived. The grounds of the hotel were beautiful though, palm trees, grass, and a little kids playground, so the girls still had fun. Robb and Peyton would go find snails and run around. We were also basically the only ones there, so that was wonderful, a quick break from tourists. One night I was putting Micah down earlier, so Peyton wouldn't wake her up and Robb and Peyton went to read under the palm trees before bed. Peyton was so excited about this and had to take him past all of the palm trees on the way back to say goodnight to each one. So sweet:)


Love this pic of Robb carrying Peyton.


Finding snails.


Cousin it and the family on the windy day.

Robb's to go coffee. 

The view from our hotel room.


Lunch on the Tyrrhenian Sea.


Warm enough to wear shorts:)


Basically the same as Disneyland;-)


Micah sharing with her big sister.


Also another one of my faves.


Our usual family selfies, without the "selfie sticks."

Day 6: So we woke up ready to drive to Rome and of course no wind today. So, we decided to go to the beach for a little bit to enjoy. Micah was obsessed and could have stood in the sand forever, with the water covering her toes. She was not happy when we made her leave. She wouldn't even turn in the other direction away from the ocean and would laugh so hard when the water would come. This kid is so much more adventurous than Peyton. It is awesome, but keeps us on our toes. Peyton was a little more scared, but enjoyed the ocean if we were holding her or her hand the entire time. While in Livorno there was a black cat that was hanging around the hotel, it looked pretty rough and was obviously a stray. So, Peyton was a little worried about this cat, and we bought it a can of cat food each day. Peyton was so excited to give it food and talked about it for hours after. She would say, "Mom, the cat was really sad because it had no food, but now it is so happy because we fed it." So cute, we prayed the cat would find a loving home. So, after we packed all up, we drove to Rome, actually 40 minutes outside of Rome to a place called Campagnano, where we rented a beautiful Italian home in the country side. It was really nice and cool to be in a home in a non tourist area. The owners brought us their home made olive oil from their olive trees, and fresh produce from their garden. It was so good. We cooked most of our own meals there, which was a nice change from eating out all the time. We had a lot of pizza.


A quick visit to the beach before we drove to Rome, not so much wind on this day.


The girls were too enamoured with the ocean to look at the picture, I love it!


Loving every minute of it.


Excited about her haul of shells she found.

Peyton feeding the poor, hungry cat, some food we bought him. 

Out the front door of the home.



Day 7. We drove to a nearby train station took a train to the outskirts of Rome and then took the underground to the city centre. Our plan (again our plans never really work out) was to go to the Colloseium, as Robb had to fly back to Germany for one day the next day. However, the Colloseium was apparently closed for the day, randomly and we didn't really know why. There was a strike in Rome and city transit was really slow and certain things were not working, due to the strike. So we changed our plan and headed to the Vatican. Also it is important to note that it took us forever to get anywhere because we were using city transit, which was limited due to the strike.  Us not knowing the language added to the chaos and confusion. I think we were a little overwhelmed when nothing worked out for us for the first hour and a half. However, we eventually got the Vatican and got to go into the Basicila and tour around. One thing we did note about Rome, was we barley saw any children there (as far as tourists bringing children, I am sure people in Rome reproduce). We decided not to bring the stroller because we thought it would be too difficult in the subway and crazy over crowded transit system. That was an excellent decsion, we would have really struggled if we had it. Anyway the Vatican was amazing, so beautiful and everything was so intricate and detailed. I didn't take a ton of pictures, but took it all in. We had to wait in a fairly long line up to get it, but it was worth the wait. That day we also got lost a few times trying to find the Trevi Fountain, and in true Dolson/Rodriguez form, the fountain was under construction and not working at all, in fact it was covered in construction materials and I did not take one picture:) We also saw the Pantheon and the Piazza Venezia. We did a crazy amount of walking that day. So one the way home, hit the underground and it was absolutely crazy, maybe from the commuters home on a Friday evening. We took probably 2 hours to get home. We were so squished just to get on the subway. People were rammed right up against the doors and were pushing everyone out of their way. Luckily, children make people a little more cautious around you. Once we got in I felt just like Elaine did on Seinfeld when she gets stuck in the train and people are crammed up against her. Then she loses it and freaks out screaming inside of her head. That was me! It was that scene, but with way more people and way closer. One thing that was really nice though, was that on the bus or train or wherever we were, someone would always jump up and give me a seat because I was carrying Micah in that ergo wrap, it was super nice and showed that the Italian culutre really values children. By the time we got home, we were exhausted. Unfortunately for Robb, he had to wake up at 3 am to head to the Rome airport and fly to Cologne for the day. Robb was working with the International Education department with the Kamloops School District and participating in a marketing fair promoting the school district to high school students in Germany. Of course he would have only been 200km from this location any other time of the year, but we were 1200km because of our holiday. He really enjoyed the experience. I think he liked the quiet break on his own for a day and half. He flew out Saturday morning and he returned Sunday afternoon.



The Vatican





You can tell were a little tired here, but we finally got here:)







The girls walking around the Basilica.




Piazza Venezia


The Pantheon



Pantheon


Came home to find this little guy on our wall. We saw more outside later. Scorpions in Rome... Who knew? Apparently they don't die as easy as spiders. Robb tried to kill this with a small bandaid box. This just angered it. He then grabbed my hair brush to incapacitate it and finished it off with his shoe.

Day 8 and 9 - Oscar and I decided to hang around the house when Robb was gone, as it was a little difficult to navigate Rome without the stroller and Osc had a bad knee which would make carrying Peyton around tough!  So on Sunday,  Robb flew back to Rome and met us back at the house. We headed back into Rome. On the train to Rome, Peyton said, "So Mom, do we live in Germany? Canada? or Italy? I don't even know anymore." It was so funny. These girls have done so well to have moved to Germany, travelled around on a really big road trip and gone with the flow when things haven't gone super smooth. We're really proud of them. This day we got to go to the Colosseum. It was spectacular and a little sickening to think of what happened there so many years ago. I don't know if many of you have read the Mark of the Lion series by Francine Rivers, but all I could think about was Hadassah as we toured through. Also there were men dressed up as Roman soldiers outside asking for money if you took pictures with them, it was basically a flashback to the Passion Play, we declined their advances;-) We tried to also do the Forum, but didn't realized it closed much earlier than the Colloseium, so we literally got to the gates as they closed them. We couldn't sweet talk the workers to let us in, so we saw it from afar. It was a real beautiful evening and really cool to just walk through and see all of the historical ruins everywhere. We had a good time. We were definitely overwhelmed with the busyness of Rome with our two children, but Peyton and Micah charmed people wherever they go. On the subway home it was crowded and busy again (not as bad as Friday though) Micah and Peyton were both on my lap as there were no seats. They were kissing each other and hugging and laughing it up, a rare moment of getting along. Honestly, like 20 people were watching them, laughing, and thinking they were adorable (they know when to turn on the charm). It was kind of awkward for me, because there was obviously nothing else to look at. Anyway as we got to our stop, this woman comes over gives them hugs and puts like 10 hard candies into each of their hands. I think they are a lot smarter than we give them credit for;-)


Peyton and Sally waiting for the train.

The Colosseum.




Under the stage was a crazy intricate series of tunnels and passages to transport prisoners and have wildlife like lions stationed and they would pop up at random times.

Day 10 - We left at 7am and the plan (again not a real plan) was to drive to Switzerland where we had a hotel reserved in Lucerne. The drivers in Italy are a little crazy and we were constantly honked at for going the speed limit, or for waiting .2 secs before going on the green light. We also were surprised about all of the crazy tolls we had to pay to take the main highways. We ended up paying around $300 in tolls all together. Robb vowed to never complain about the Port Mann Bridge toll again. As always these trips always end up costing more than you bargain for. So we made it to Switzerland at about 6pm or something (really long day in the car). Then we decided that we hated having to unpack the car, set up beds, and then drive 4.5 hours the next day. So then we decided to let the kids fall asleep in the car and head home. So, we did that, probably a bad choice, but we made it. The girls did absolutely amazing. We were so tired and the drive ended up taking way longer. We stopped for a quick and crazy expensive dinner in Switzerland. When we were packing up and loading the girls in the car Robb started and stalled the car. It lurched forward just enough to drive straight on my bare foot that was wearing sandals. I yelled at Robb and he tried to start it again to drive it off. He said he started and moved it off in less than 10 seconds. I think it was more like 10 minutes. You could ask me all of the things that I would have thought might happen on our trip. This was not in the top 10 000. At one point we took some wrong turn in Switzerland just before the German border. We were all tired and cranky at this point and a wrong turn with no ability to check directions could have taken us awhile to figure out, as judging from our whole trip experience. Anyway, so this driver pulls up beside us and at first we think he is getting mad at us for something which was the entire Italian driving experience, but then he was motioning us to follow him. We did not know if he knew where were were going or setting a trap to kidnap us all. But we figured we had nothing to lose. So, he took us on a complicated 10 min drive back to the place we took the wrong turn. Then he points out the window and uses his lights to direct us to the proper route back to Germany. It was so amazing, when we were so tired and done. He must have seen our licence plate from Germany and saw we headed off in the wrong direction when he should have been going towards Germany. Amazing and an answer to prayer after a LONG day in the car. We ended up getting home at 2:30am. After being away, coming home to Germany felt like home for the first time.

So we laid low the last bit of the week before Robb went back to school. Robb and I went to the OneRepublic concert in Frankfurt on Thursday night. This was the first time we went out for a night out kid free since before we left Canada in August. It was really nice, thanks to Oscar for babysitting on his last night in Germany. Oscar headed home the next morning. Peyton was really sad that he left and I think it will be tough on her when people come from home and then leave again. She wanted to know when we would be going home and why we weren't returning to Canada as well. We are continuing to pray we can find more outlets and friends for Peyton. Micah is doing well and we continue to try and fatten her up a little, but it is a difficult task;-) We had a great visit with Oscar and we're sad to see him go. Things around here will be a little less busy for the month of November. We have been attending a church here and are looking forward to spending more weekends in Wiesbaden and time with people we have been meeting and building relationships with. The things we miss the most are our families, friends, church, home, and Samson. We have been trying to stay updated and listen to DeeperLife podcasts when we can, so we can be encouraged from home:) Also I am getting a little tired of my double chin on FaceTime calls;-)  Thanks again for everyone's comments, messages, and encouragement. Miss you all.

OneRepublic

Decked out in fashion by Bev Marcotte:)

At the Fasanerie feeding the animals.