Venice: The Agony and the Ecstasy / Rome

I had high hopes for our one full day in Venice, which should have been tempered by the fact that the weather prediction was 100% chance of rain for the entire day.  I’ll break the suspense of how the day went right away by giving you the subtitle of our day: On How Chloe’s Underwear Gets Left in Venice.  And if you’re in a judgmental mood, please read this on another day.  Because there are some less-than-pretty details.

 We caught the ferry over to Venice in the morning, and were greeted with really long lines at both the Doge’s Palace and the San Marcos cathedral--so they got skipped.  We had been told that “getting lost in Venice” was a great way to see it.  That mission was accomplished within about 2 minutes, so we had plenty of time to kill.  While we were wondering what to do, Chloe gave us a clear direction of where to go:

 No, this wasn’t a puddle she sat in.  Our sweet 3-year-old has only had a handful of accidents since she got potty trained, and she saved one of them for Venice.  So, our first order of business was to find a children’s clothing store.  If I wanted a mask or pizza, I would have fifty choices--but not so much on kid’s clothes.  

I have a husband who is fantastic at asking where things are.  I, on the other hand, tend to just start walking faster if I think I’m lost (that way I can find out sooner if I know where I’m going or if I’m lost).  Luckily, Ryan’s way won out and he asked the owner of one of the mask stores where we could find what we needed and she pointed out the way (“take a left after the bridge”).  It took us a couple of tries, but we found said bridge, crossed it, and turned left.

Our first store that had potential was a Disney store.  Our options were Tinkerbell pajamas or a princess dress.  So we passed on that, and were grateful to see this:

I haven’t shopped in Benetton since I was in high school, but I will forever be in their debt for a new pair of gray stretch pants.  I changed Chloe’s clothes in the store and put her wet clothes into the shopping bag and on we went.

We had some other adventures riding boats and looking for a lost umbrella.  Mostly we were trying to stay dry (a futile attempt) and making the best of things.  We got our first Italian pizza in a restaurant that allowed us to warm up, and then decided that we had done the best we could and headed back to the boat to go home.  

And during the ride home, I suddenly realized that the bag I had put Chloe’s wet underwear, pants, and socks in had been left behind somewhere.  I’m guessing it was in the restaurant, but it could have been on one of the many boats we rode.  Either way, it was a mortifying feeling.  Please join me in a moment of silence for the poor person who had the great misfortune of finding that bag.  I don’t know what they anticipated finding in a Benetton bag lying forgotten, but I’m sure it wasn’t what they found when they opened it up.  Oh, the joys of traveling with children.

Doing our best to make the most of a rainy day, on the Rialto Bridge

Mason and Katie in their masks

So, let us put that behind us and move on past the agony to the ecstasy.  We opted to spend Tuesday morning in Venice to make up for the cold, rainy day we had spent on Monday.  It was three hours of bliss, and all we did was wander around taking it all in.  There might have been some more pizza and gelato involved in that wandering.  Thank you Venice!

Day 2 in Venice--much better!

It was about a six-hour drive from Venice to Rome, with most of the route going through the Tuscany area.  So as far as drives go, it was a great one.  We got to the campground we’re staying in outside Rome, and within the first hour Ryan had almost electrocuted himself when he plugged in his power converter with more than one of the sets of prongs sticking out.  It blew out the power to our house, and Megan had the great satisfaction of whipping out the 3 tea-light candles she had brought along with her.  Luckily they got the power on quickly and it hadn’t destroyed the tablet he was plugging in.

This morning, we opted to tackle the Coloseum.  It involved a lot of walking to get through the Coloseum, Palantine Hill, and the Roman Forum.  I am sure we missed more than we saw, but there is only so much you can hope for when touring with four kids.  And then we made sure to finish with gelato.  I’ll just let the photos do the talking for this one.

Andrew getting a lift back to the metro

Every time Chloe said "I'm thirsty" there seemed to be a fountain nearby.  Not always an easily accessible fountain, though.

Riding the metro home.

And finishing off with gelato.

I am once again back to blogging in the dark while sitting in outdoor restaurants.  This one is outside a gelateria and instead of karaoke like there was in Paris, this one has a “baby disco” going on.  It’s kind of like the Wii dance games, but there are real people doing the actions and the kids are standing on the stage trying to follow the adult’s lead.  And there’s a very enthusiastic emcee on a microphone keeping everything lively. Fun times! My one consolation is that the weather is beautiful and Ryan is here with me.  A pretty pathetic date--but we’ll take it.

Auf Wiedersehen and Buon Giorno

Our last week in Switzerland was deliberately low-key.  Not only had I kind of used up most of my ideas within an hour drive and a reasonable budget, but I also knew our last two weeks would be pretty intense and it would be good have fully charged batteries.  There were a couple of days where we just stayed home and the kids played out in the yard, one day where we took a hike, and one day of driving to the LDS temple in Bern.

We did the hike with the congregation that we’ve gone to church with here.  We were told it was a very family-friendly hike, which I think was pretty true.  But it was a little longer than we had planned for, and it had snowed the day before--which made for some slushy/muddy trails in places.  

We had been going for a while and were becoming less confident about whether or not our kids were really up for an outdoor picnic since it was cold and they were getting kind of tired.  And Ryan’s shoes had gotten soaking wet, so he was highly promoting the idea of turning back and just eating in the car.  But there was a mutiny among our kids about the idea of turning back before reaching the end, so onward and upward we went.  I had to laugh about the fact that our kids finally got 100% on board with hiking once the parents were happy to turn around and go home.

One of the highlights of the hike was the “snake bread” that one of the other people there shared with us.  You wrap the dough around a thick stick and roast it until it’s done.  Everyone’s turned out doughy on the inside and crispy on the outside, so our technique was lacking.  But it was still eaten with enthusiasm.  

The views were incredible.  We loved, loved, loved our time in Switzerland.  It’s different than a lot of the other things we’ve done in Europe.  Less historic buildings and less famous monuments, with more natural beauty and outdoor adventure.  We loved having a house out in the woods that was by a river with a cow that was always there to great us each time we went to our car.  I don’t miss hauling my groceries in, but I miss the walk to and from the house and don’t think I’ll ever have anything like that again.

We left after church this morning for a 6 1/2 hour drive to Venice.  I filled up the car the night before we left, and we didn’t have to stop once on our way down.  Yea for diesel!  And for limiting the fluid intake of my children!  We’re back to Eurocamp, which the kids were complaining about until we pulled in and saw the playground, swimming pools, etc.  That always seems to make things better for everyone.  It’s also right across from Venice, so we’ll take a ferry there in the morning. 

But for tonight, we took advantage of the fact that it’s right on the beach of the Adriatic Sea and hunted for seashells.  It was a pretty easy hunt, since they were everywhere. And now I’m off to sit in my car as close as I can to a hotspot in an attempt to use my 1-hour of internet to send this blog update.  Seriously. Missing. Good. Wifi.

Our hike on Thursday

Swiss trail markers.  They're all over the place,

On our hike.  The picture of the dog below is of an Appenazell dog, which is a breed native to the area.  The other picture below is a breed not native to the area, or to any other area.  Just a cold little 3-year-old. 

Snake Bread

A note I found under my covers last week after Katie and I had parted on less than happy terms one night.  She cracks me up.

At the temple in Bern

Mason thought it was funny that the sign was warning you that there are children around.  Rabid children.

One last evening in our river.

The night before we left, we looked out our windows and saw this.

Hunting seashells in Venice.

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Weekend Update

I'm going to wrap up the last few days in one nice, long entry.  Otherwise it just isn't going to get done.

Saturday I took the morning to shop for my Mother's Day gift.  Yes, I could have sent Ryan for it, but half the fun was picking it out.  Who wouldn't want to choose their very own cowbell for Mother's Day?  No, I won't personally be sporting it anytime soon.  Although with as much as I've been enjoying the Swiss chocolate, I might be headed that way...

Nothing says "Happy Mother's Day" better than a cowbell.

In the evening, we went to dinner at the house of one of Ryan's colleagues.  She's a very brave colleague to have us all over.  The plan had been to have a barbecue, but since it rained, that didn't work out and we had fruit and breakfast cakes instead.  Katie's only contribution to the conversation over dinner was when she (out of the blue) blurted out, "Do you have this for dinner EVERY night?"  The idea of having cake for dinner was quite intriguing to her, and she might have wanted to change citizenship had she discovered that Swiss people ate cake for dinner every night.

Mother's Day was awesome.  We had gone to the mall on Saturday and Mason and Katie had found some things to buy for me.  I must thank H & M for this, since it was probably the only store they could have afforded in the mall and Ryan serendipitously ended up stopping in there.  Katie got me the scarf and Mason got me the sunglasses.

When Andrew realized he hadn't gotten me anything, he disappeared into his room and came out with a bag full of gifts: the box from his Eiffel Tower (he didn't need it anymore, and he thought I would want to be able to look at the pictures), a few of his remaining chocolates from the chocolate factory, and a bracelet he had made using the embroidery floss my sister brought when she came.  And to top it all off, this very sweet note:

 And along with the gift of a cowbell, Ryan gave me the gift of having the day off.  He played with the kids:

 ...and learned how to make tortillas when I realized that I hadn't bought them for my Mother's Day taco dinner.  I had decided I wasn't going to buy anymore $6 bags of them, but then forgot to tell the other half of my brain about it when I got the rest of the stuff for tacos thinking that Ryan and the kids could make that for dinner.  Everything turned out great.  Plus, we both got to talk to our awesome moms (thank you Google chat), and we went on a hike.  A perfect day.


On Monday, we headed to one last zoo.  We've been to a couple of Alpine zoos, so my kids were ready for some not-so-native animals.  There's a city about an hour south that had a nice small zoo with elephants, camels, sea lions, giraffes, etc. 


First off, we headed to the camels.  They got to feed them carrots, and then ride them.  Pretty cool.  They are very hairy, and very hungry (the camels, not my children).

These little green birds got a lot of our popcorn.

And we were able to get up close and personal with an elephant.  We rode the elephant later on, but I was clearly told that I needed to HOLD ON and not take pictures.  The four kids and I all fit on at the same time, and I have to admit it was kind of fun to ride.

Breaking the first rule by stepping over the rope barrier.

Breaking the second rule by feeding the elephant popcorn

After the elephants, we saw a little bit of the sea lion show, and then headed to the goats and the porcupine.

 I don't know how well you can see it, but the look on Mason's face between the first and second photos is pretty funny.  The porcupine fluffed up his/her quills all of a sudden, and it gave them a good scare.

 I was looking for a cheap outing today, so we headed to IKEA.  Andrew and Chloe were as happy as the rest of us were about having them go into the childcare area. IKEA may not be everyone's style, but who can argue with a store that babysits your kids.

 Megan hadn't ever been in an IKEA, and it had been a while since Mason and Katie had.  We made a game out of trying to spot all of our furniture, dishes, bedding, etc. while walking through the store.

 And we finished it off with an ice cream.  When I paid for it, they handed me the empty cones and pointed to a machine.  So off we went, and did our best to follow the instructions.  You stick the cone in, push a button, and it dispenses the ice cream and chocolate syrup into a perfectly shaped mound.  

Clearly we have tapped out our entertainment options when the ice cream dispenser at IKEA warrants taking a picture.  I guess it's a good thing we're heading to Italy on Sunday.


But before we go, I need to add in a few funny things about our stay in Switzerland.  


It took me a week before I got our washer and dryer figured out.  The washer was tricky, but we finally got that one, and then the dryer stopped working after a few loads.  We air dried a couple of loads before I figured out that you have to pull out a tub that collects the water that comes out of the clothes (see exhibit A below).  I guess they don't vent their dryers to the outside, so you have to manually dump it out every few loads.

 And I spent a solid 10 or 15 minutes trying to figure out where baking soda and baking powder were.  I knew it should be by the flour and sugar, but no matter how hard I tried to will my eyes to see them, it didn't work.  So I went home to look it up on the internet and see where I was going wrong, and found out that you have to buy baking powder, baking soda, and vanilla ("vanilla sugar") in little packages like these:

 I splurged a little on this purchase, but how could I not.  I call it "flushing my way to fluency".  It's like the Rosetta Stone of toilet paper, with English, German, French and Spanish.

 I've made a few mistakes with food while I've been here.  Spaghettios instead of spaghetti sauce.  Lasagna instead of mozzarella cheese.  Spicy chicken wings instead of chicken breasts.  I'm sure there have been more.  One of my favorite mistakes was buying this:

 I thought it was yogurt, but as a friend I met here informed me, it's actually a dessert called "quark"--which is pronounced like "kwok".  I pretended I didn't hear that.  It's going to be hard to go back to Go-gurt after stuff like this.