When our family agreed to our 2 year adventure in Switzerland, we knew it would have it's ups and downs, and that after it was all over, we would look back and appreciate the fact that we were able to live abroad for a brief fraction of our lives. That doesn't change the fact that about once a week, Bryan or I text each other something along the lines of....."I really hate this $@&# country today! Who the hell do these people think they are?!?!" But in general, we love the craziness of living in a foreign country and I often look at Bryan and say, "We are so freakin' lucky, aren't we!?!" Yes, perhaps I am bipolar, but living in Switzerland is often a love/hate relationship.
But apparently we love it more than hate it, because as we saw our 2 year mark rapidly approaching, we both began to panic a bit. How did 2 years here go so fast? There is so much more we want to do and see in Europe before we move back to our supersized, super convenient, reasonably priced land of America. And although we knew there was a chance Bryan's contract would be extended for a third (and final) year, we decided it was time for our obsessive compulsive family travel agent to get busy booking some whirlwind trips. And one place I decided I couldn't possibly miss experiencing is Rome. So after spending about 17 straight hours in front of the computer over-analyzing every aspect of the trip, I booked us a flight, found us an apartment, and started to imagine our fabulous 4 days in one of the worlds most romantic cities. Not surprisingly, taking 3 young kids to Rome left zero time for romance, and lots of time for, "What the hell were we thinking?" moments.
Before I get into the details about our trip from hell, I need to preface this by telling you that, as a family, we have become pretty good travelers. We've learned a lot in the time we've been here. We know that the 3 most important items to pack for any trip are Legos, sanitizing wipes, and a corkscrew. We know that sometimes it makes sense to pay a little more for an apartment because you know there won't be prostitutes hanging out in front of it. Really, we've come a long way since our early days of ghetto apartments and 9 hour rides in a car that smells like urine. But sometimes, we get a little over confident and we need a trip like our 4 days in Rome to remind us that we're still bumbling idiots.
In order to maximize our time in Rome, I booked an early morning flight out of Zurich which required us to be on a train to the airport at 5:30. I was on top of things making sure the kids were in bed early, their clothes were laid out, and toothbrushes were prepared for brushing before being crammed in our suitcase as we ran out the door for the train. What I wasn't on top of was double checking that my husband had set his alarm correctly so we would wake up in time for the above mentioned early morning flight. By some miracle, I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back asleep. I layed there for about 45 minutes wondering how much longer until the alarm would go off. We don't have a clock in the bedroom so Bryan uses his blackberry as an alarm clock. I finally let curiousity get the best of me and I staggered out into the kitchen to see what time it was. I stared at the 5:15 for about 10 seconds before I switched into lunatic wife and mother mode and started frantically hollering, "EVERYBODY UP!!!!! YOU DIDN'T SET THE DAMN ALARM, BRYAN!!!! WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO DO!!!!!". All while simultaneously brushing my teeth and inserting my contacts. Fortunately, the voice of reason in the family (who apparently doesn't know how to set an alarm), decided we would drive to the airport unshowered, and still make the flight in plenty of time. The little voice in the back of my head that kept whispering, "This isn't a good sign of things to come", was drowned out by my annoying real voice that kept asking Bryan, "What ungodly amount of money are they going to charge us to park at the airport for 4 days? We're going to have to sell one of our kids to pay our parking fee!" And with the whiney voice in the back seat complaining about not getting breakfast, it was going to be easy to pick which one would be sold to the highest bidder.
We arrived at the airport in plenty of time, and eventually I relaxed when we had gotten through security and the kids were eating their 8 franc croissants. "We're going to Rome, you guys! Isn't this exciting? We're going to see the colosseum where the Gladiators fought!" I gushed as I tried to increase the kids enthusiasm. We'd been reading some children's books about Rome and Gladiators in an attempt to get the kids excited about going to a city with almost nothing to interest children other than pizza and gelato. Z took the bait and had been asking questions about gladiators and the Roman Empire for the past few days. The other 2 looked at me blankly before asking if I'd remembered to pack the Legos.
After an uneventful flight, we arrived in Rome, where a van had been hired to take us to our apartment that was located right near the Colosseum. Marmi, the lovely woman who rented the apartment to us, was waiting for us at the front door and kindly took us up to our apartment, which was perfect. The kids had their own room and there was an outdoor patio where Bryan could enjoy a bottle of wine after the kids went to bed. Marmi insisted that she walk us around the neighborhood so she could show us the market, the bus stop, and the restaurants she recommends. While on our nieghborhood tour, we stopped at a nearby bank to withdraw enough Euros to pay for the apartment, but the machine wouldn't dispense cash. Marmi assured us it would be no problem to pay her the remaining amount when we checked out so we added "find ATM" to our list of things to do that day. She spent a few minutes warning us to be alert when using the ATMs because pick pocketing is a real problem in Rome. Gotta love foreshadowing......
When Marmi finally left us to our own devices, we quickly bought some groceries, fed the kids lunch, and planned our afternoon of sightseeing. On our list was Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. The kids were showing signs of their early morning wake up call and at this point, a nap would have been a stellar idea. But with only 3 full days in Rome, I decided to take my chances and drag our crabby kids out into the general population. Yes, after 20 months of traveling with the kids, I should know better. But in my defense, so should my loving husband and he didn't stop the madness. Somehow being an unrealistic parent seems much more acceptable when you have someone equally as unrealistic following your lead.
So we hopped on a city bus and headed towards our sightseeing destinations with map in hand. When we hopped off at our stop, we checked the map and headed towards Trevi fountain. Trekking around Rome with kids is similar to playing a real live game of the the old school arcade game "Frogger". Crosswalks? Optional for most Italian drivers. And coming from Switzerland where 5 year olds literally walk to school by themselves and drivers would NEVER consider making a pedestrian wait for them at a crosswalk, Italy was an adjustment. So we put our death grips on the kids and and began darting through Rome. We made it to Trevi fountain to find that somewhere between a jillion and a zillion other tourists had beaten us there. My vision of getting some well posed pictures of the kids standing in front off the fountain, tossing in their coins, was clearly unrealistic. We managed to elbow our way to a spot way to the left of the fountain and took a couple pictures with the kids perched precariously on a railing. I then decided we were not going to come to Rome and not get up close to the fountain so we began our battle towards the water. There is a wide set of stairs leading down to the fountain and in my estimation, half the population of Japan was taking pictures of each other in front of it. As we started down the stairs, I made the kids stop each time someone was trying to take a picture. After about 3 minutes, our big American heads were probably smack in the middle of a number of photos because to be honest, people take too damn long to snap a picture. Particularly the ones who found it fun to try and jump up and get a picture of them in mid air. Really. You'd be surprised at how popular many camera toting tourists find this ridiculous pose.
When we finally found our way down to the water, each of us got a coin to throw in. Apparently, the Romans say that if you throw a coin over your shoulder into Trevi fountain, you will return to Rome some day. I threw a couple extra over my shoulder and asked the Gods at Trevi fountain to make sure my next visit would be sans kids. And soon after the coins were tossed, the melt downs began. The kids wanted to push through the crowds and make there way over to the side of the fountain where you could climb up and sit next to the fountain. It never ceases to amaze me how much my kids like to climb things. Rocks, statues, Roman ruins. They are pretty eager to climb anything. That is, until we expect them to climb up a flight of stairs. Then they are searching for the nearest elevator.
This is when the family smackdown began. I don't remember who was climbing what, or whose foot happened to kick whose head, but as C sat happily perched next to the fountain, E began her "I'm 3 and you've had me up for 12 hours" tantrum because apparently, she desired to be perched where her brother was. Things went from bad to worse and at one point there was an actual wrestling match atop a portion of the fountain that nearly ended in C taking a swim. I gasped as I grabbed him by the shirt to prevent him from tumbling into one of Rome's biggest tourist attraction, and then proceeded to whisper scream at E and drag her kicking and screaming back through the camera happy crowd. Good times.
After snapping a few pictures, and oohing and aahing, we decided it was time to head home. The kids were fighting over a bottle of water like they'd been dragged through the Sahara, and I was pretty sure all hell was going to break loose at any moment. So we began our descent, back to the bus stop. On the way there, we passed a bank and Bryan quickly withdrew enough money to pay our apartment rental woman and our tour guide that we would be using the following day. And then we were on our way. We pushed our way onto a ridiculously crowded bus and Z and E scrambled to grab a seat in the luggage rack. Not the safest option, but rather than argue with 2 overtired kids, Bryan kept one hand on them to keep from catapulting into the crowd each time the driver hit the breaks. C and I stood by the window and I clung to my purse like a paranoid bag lady. We'd been warned about the professional pick pocketers and I knew we looked like tourists with our 3 loud American kids and our camera bag. But I'm no sucker. If someone was going to try to grab my purse, they were going to have to drag me down the street with it. I was on high alert, so when a suspicious looking man leaned up against me carrying a suspicious folded up paper bag, I gave him my best "woman teetering on the brink of insanity" look and clutched my purse to my chest.
When we arrived back to our neighborhood, we sat down in one of the restaurants that Marmi had recommended and immediately flagged down the waiter to order a well deserved glass of red wine. It was going to take more than one glass to make my kids incessant fighting more tolerable, but it was a start. As I began chugging......I mean, sipping my wine, for some reason Bryan reached into his front pocket to find something. When he pulled out the contents of his pocket, I heard him mumble, "No $@%ing way......". I stared at him with my wine glass to my lips and waited nervously. "You've got to be kidding me......." Hmmm....this didn't sound good. Perhaps we should have just ordered a full bottle right off the bat. He then frantically started going through all his pockets before he uttered the words no one ever wants to hear. "The money is gone." As you may know, I can be somewhat frugal, so the unexpected loss of money doesn't sit well with me. So I immediately found my happy place called denial. "No. You must have put it someplace else. Check again, honey." This was followed by him repeatedly going through every pocket at least 15 times before we both faced the reality. We (read: he) was the victim of a front pocket pick pocket. Seriously? I tried to remain calm and compassionate and not at all accusatory. In my head I was screaming, "HOW THE HELL DO YOU NOT FEEL SOMEONE'S HAND GOING IN YOUR FRONT POCKET!!!!" But clearly the dirtball who did it was a smooth operator. Not only did Bryan not feel him put his hand in his FRONT pocket, but the guy was so slick that he took all the cash, and left all his credit cards and I.D. I'll spare you the details of how much the scumbag lowlife took us for, but we'll just say he was probably able to take a brief sabbatical from violating tourists to live off his loot.
In the midst of my non confrontational husband discussing the pleasure he would get from kicking Mr. Pickpocketer's back side, my charming little angels began bickering about God knows what. "Seriously? Mommy and Daddy are VERY upset because someone stole something from Daddy's pocket. Now is NOT the time to misbehave!" I then reached across the table to remove Z's glass from the edge of the table so it wouldn't get knocked over. In the process, I knocked my own 1/2 full glass of red wine all over the tablecloth, Bryan, and the only long sleeved shirt he had packed for our trip. Ahhh..... just as I had imagined our first magical day in Rome.
Check please....
That night, Bryan and I went to bed early, leaving an unopened bottle of red sitting on the kitchen counter. There aren't many days that a couple glasses of wine and a good laugh can't improve on, but this was one of them. Thank tomorrow was a new day.
Day 2 was an improvement and we started the day by meeting up with our tour guide to see the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. Giuseppe arrived with a lovely European Carryall and the inability to look either Bryan or me in the eye. With a name like Giuseppe, I had pictured him walking up the street tossing pizza dough and singing "That's Amore!". He had come recommended for being "child friendly" and I knew we were about put him to the ultimate test. Child friendly is one thing, but if this guy was going to be able to handle keeping a 3, 5 and 7 year old interested in what they affectionately referred to as "a bunch of old broken buildings", he'd better bring his A game.
Giueseppe was friendly and certainly knew his stuff. He had 3 hours to give us a basic tour of ancient Rome and we hit the ground running. The first few minutes were a little uncomfortable while we got used to the fact that he rarely looked at Bryan at all, and when speaking to me, kept his eyes focused on my chin. I initially thought perhaps I had developed a heinous zit on my chin. Or maybe remnants of my breakfast remained on my chin and my husband had decided not to mention it. But after multiple, casual attempts to remove whatever distraction might be hanging from my chin, I decided eye contact just wasn't Giuseppe's thing.
Our first mishap occurred about 90 seconds after beginning our walk to the Roman forum. We realized during our first spectacular day in Rome, that while walking on the sidewalk, you needed to keep your eyes open for piles of dog crap. They're everywhere. The kids took this job VERY seriously and announced it to everyone within a 50 foot radius when they discovered these lovely landmines along our route. Well, apparently E was a little too focused on dog poop duty, because she walked smack into a light post and began wailing. For most mother's, I think maternal instinct would cause them to spring into action and rush to her side. But for me, it immediately put into action my inability to suppress laughter when people fall or bump into things. I'm not proud of this horrible flaw in my personality, and I usually manage to sputter an, "Are you okay?" before erupting into fits of hysteria. Fortunately, my husband was able to tend to E, and I'm relieved to tell you I only found it humorous after I was sure she was unharmed. What can I say, unintentional physical humor hits me in the funny bone. And more often than not, I'm the dumbass doing the falling and running into things.
Eventually, we made it to the entrance of the Forum and Giuseppe stopped to give us a brief history of what we would be seeing. The kids listened to about the first 3 words out of his mouth before they scattered and found some old rocks to climb on. Giuseppe seemed a little taken aback by their lack of interest and then continued to share his vast knowledge while staring at my chin. He had a very thick Italian accent so I had to really concentrate on his every word. Not any easy task when you are also trying to make sure your 3 kids aren't causing an international incident by climbing on 2000 year old ruins.
But apparently we love it more than hate it, because as we saw our 2 year mark rapidly approaching, we both began to panic a bit. How did 2 years here go so fast? There is so much more we want to do and see in Europe before we move back to our supersized, super convenient, reasonably priced land of America. And although we knew there was a chance Bryan's contract would be extended for a third (and final) year, we decided it was time for our obsessive compulsive family travel agent to get busy booking some whirlwind trips. And one place I decided I couldn't possibly miss experiencing is Rome. So after spending about 17 straight hours in front of the computer over-analyzing every aspect of the trip, I booked us a flight, found us an apartment, and started to imagine our fabulous 4 days in one of the worlds most romantic cities. Not surprisingly, taking 3 young kids to Rome left zero time for romance, and lots of time for, "What the hell were we thinking?" moments.
Before I get into the details about our trip from hell, I need to preface this by telling you that, as a family, we have become pretty good travelers. We've learned a lot in the time we've been here. We know that the 3 most important items to pack for any trip are Legos, sanitizing wipes, and a corkscrew. We know that sometimes it makes sense to pay a little more for an apartment because you know there won't be prostitutes hanging out in front of it. Really, we've come a long way since our early days of ghetto apartments and 9 hour rides in a car that smells like urine. But sometimes, we get a little over confident and we need a trip like our 4 days in Rome to remind us that we're still bumbling idiots.
In order to maximize our time in Rome, I booked an early morning flight out of Zurich which required us to be on a train to the airport at 5:30. I was on top of things making sure the kids were in bed early, their clothes were laid out, and toothbrushes were prepared for brushing before being crammed in our suitcase as we ran out the door for the train. What I wasn't on top of was double checking that my husband had set his alarm correctly so we would wake up in time for the above mentioned early morning flight. By some miracle, I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back asleep. I layed there for about 45 minutes wondering how much longer until the alarm would go off. We don't have a clock in the bedroom so Bryan uses his blackberry as an alarm clock. I finally let curiousity get the best of me and I staggered out into the kitchen to see what time it was. I stared at the 5:15 for about 10 seconds before I switched into lunatic wife and mother mode and started frantically hollering, "EVERYBODY UP!!!!! YOU DIDN'T SET THE DAMN ALARM, BRYAN!!!! WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO DO!!!!!". All while simultaneously brushing my teeth and inserting my contacts. Fortunately, the voice of reason in the family (who apparently doesn't know how to set an alarm), decided we would drive to the airport unshowered, and still make the flight in plenty of time. The little voice in the back of my head that kept whispering, "This isn't a good sign of things to come", was drowned out by my annoying real voice that kept asking Bryan, "What ungodly amount of money are they going to charge us to park at the airport for 4 days? We're going to have to sell one of our kids to pay our parking fee!" And with the whiney voice in the back seat complaining about not getting breakfast, it was going to be easy to pick which one would be sold to the highest bidder.
We arrived at the airport in plenty of time, and eventually I relaxed when we had gotten through security and the kids were eating their 8 franc croissants. "We're going to Rome, you guys! Isn't this exciting? We're going to see the colosseum where the Gladiators fought!" I gushed as I tried to increase the kids enthusiasm. We'd been reading some children's books about Rome and Gladiators in an attempt to get the kids excited about going to a city with almost nothing to interest children other than pizza and gelato. Z took the bait and had been asking questions about gladiators and the Roman Empire for the past few days. The other 2 looked at me blankly before asking if I'd remembered to pack the Legos.
After an uneventful flight, we arrived in Rome, where a van had been hired to take us to our apartment that was located right near the Colosseum. Marmi, the lovely woman who rented the apartment to us, was waiting for us at the front door and kindly took us up to our apartment, which was perfect. The kids had their own room and there was an outdoor patio where Bryan could enjoy a bottle of wine after the kids went to bed. Marmi insisted that she walk us around the neighborhood so she could show us the market, the bus stop, and the restaurants she recommends. While on our nieghborhood tour, we stopped at a nearby bank to withdraw enough Euros to pay for the apartment, but the machine wouldn't dispense cash. Marmi assured us it would be no problem to pay her the remaining amount when we checked out so we added "find ATM" to our list of things to do that day. She spent a few minutes warning us to be alert when using the ATMs because pick pocketing is a real problem in Rome. Gotta love foreshadowing......
When Marmi finally left us to our own devices, we quickly bought some groceries, fed the kids lunch, and planned our afternoon of sightseeing. On our list was Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. The kids were showing signs of their early morning wake up call and at this point, a nap would have been a stellar idea. But with only 3 full days in Rome, I decided to take my chances and drag our crabby kids out into the general population. Yes, after 20 months of traveling with the kids, I should know better. But in my defense, so should my loving husband and he didn't stop the madness. Somehow being an unrealistic parent seems much more acceptable when you have someone equally as unrealistic following your lead.
So we hopped on a city bus and headed towards our sightseeing destinations with map in hand. When we hopped off at our stop, we checked the map and headed towards Trevi fountain. Trekking around Rome with kids is similar to playing a real live game of the the old school arcade game "Frogger". Crosswalks? Optional for most Italian drivers. And coming from Switzerland where 5 year olds literally walk to school by themselves and drivers would NEVER consider making a pedestrian wait for them at a crosswalk, Italy was an adjustment. So we put our death grips on the kids and and began darting through Rome. We made it to Trevi fountain to find that somewhere between a jillion and a zillion other tourists had beaten us there. My vision of getting some well posed pictures of the kids standing in front off the fountain, tossing in their coins, was clearly unrealistic. We managed to elbow our way to a spot way to the left of the fountain and took a couple pictures with the kids perched precariously on a railing. I then decided we were not going to come to Rome and not get up close to the fountain so we began our battle towards the water. There is a wide set of stairs leading down to the fountain and in my estimation, half the population of Japan was taking pictures of each other in front of it. As we started down the stairs, I made the kids stop each time someone was trying to take a picture. After about 3 minutes, our big American heads were probably smack in the middle of a number of photos because to be honest, people take too damn long to snap a picture. Particularly the ones who found it fun to try and jump up and get a picture of them in mid air. Really. You'd be surprised at how popular many camera toting tourists find this ridiculous pose.
When we finally found our way down to the water, each of us got a coin to throw in. Apparently, the Romans say that if you throw a coin over your shoulder into Trevi fountain, you will return to Rome some day. I threw a couple extra over my shoulder and asked the Gods at Trevi fountain to make sure my next visit would be sans kids. And soon after the coins were tossed, the melt downs began. The kids wanted to push through the crowds and make there way over to the side of the fountain where you could climb up and sit next to the fountain. It never ceases to amaze me how much my kids like to climb things. Rocks, statues, Roman ruins. They are pretty eager to climb anything. That is, until we expect them to climb up a flight of stairs. Then they are searching for the nearest elevator.
This is when the family smackdown began. I don't remember who was climbing what, or whose foot happened to kick whose head, but as C sat happily perched next to the fountain, E began her "I'm 3 and you've had me up for 12 hours" tantrum because apparently, she desired to be perched where her brother was. Things went from bad to worse and at one point there was an actual wrestling match atop a portion of the fountain that nearly ended in C taking a swim. I gasped as I grabbed him by the shirt to prevent him from tumbling into one of Rome's biggest tourist attraction, and then proceeded to whisper scream at E and drag her kicking and screaming back through the camera happy crowd. Good times.
Clearly, this was a sign that we should head back to the apartment and put an end to all of our misery. But damn it, we hadn't checked "The Spanish Steps" off of our to do list for the day, so off we went, with ill behaved children in tow, towards the Spanish steps. After winding our way through streets and traffic, we arrived at the Spanish Steps to find it overflowing with tourists waiting for the sun to set. Yes, the Spanish steps at Sunset is beautiful, except for the fact that my kids don't give a rats ass about sunsets or Spanish Steps. And when informed that they were going to climb the Spanish Steps, they didn't hesitate to express their lack of enthusiasm. So of course, we dragged them up the Spanish Steps anyway. Yes, in hindsight, probably not our best parenting moment.
After snapping a few pictures, and oohing and aahing, we decided it was time to head home. The kids were fighting over a bottle of water like they'd been dragged through the Sahara, and I was pretty sure all hell was going to break loose at any moment. So we began our descent, back to the bus stop. On the way there, we passed a bank and Bryan quickly withdrew enough money to pay our apartment rental woman and our tour guide that we would be using the following day. And then we were on our way. We pushed our way onto a ridiculously crowded bus and Z and E scrambled to grab a seat in the luggage rack. Not the safest option, but rather than argue with 2 overtired kids, Bryan kept one hand on them to keep from catapulting into the crowd each time the driver hit the breaks. C and I stood by the window and I clung to my purse like a paranoid bag lady. We'd been warned about the professional pick pocketers and I knew we looked like tourists with our 3 loud American kids and our camera bag. But I'm no sucker. If someone was going to try to grab my purse, they were going to have to drag me down the street with it. I was on high alert, so when a suspicious looking man leaned up against me carrying a suspicious folded up paper bag, I gave him my best "woman teetering on the brink of insanity" look and clutched my purse to my chest.
When we arrived back to our neighborhood, we sat down in one of the restaurants that Marmi had recommended and immediately flagged down the waiter to order a well deserved glass of red wine. It was going to take more than one glass to make my kids incessant fighting more tolerable, but it was a start. As I began chugging......I mean, sipping my wine, for some reason Bryan reached into his front pocket to find something. When he pulled out the contents of his pocket, I heard him mumble, "No $@%ing way......". I stared at him with my wine glass to my lips and waited nervously. "You've got to be kidding me......." Hmmm....this didn't sound good. Perhaps we should have just ordered a full bottle right off the bat. He then frantically started going through all his pockets before he uttered the words no one ever wants to hear. "The money is gone." As you may know, I can be somewhat frugal, so the unexpected loss of money doesn't sit well with me. So I immediately found my happy place called denial. "No. You must have put it someplace else. Check again, honey." This was followed by him repeatedly going through every pocket at least 15 times before we both faced the reality. We (read: he) was the victim of a front pocket pick pocket. Seriously? I tried to remain calm and compassionate and not at all accusatory. In my head I was screaming, "HOW THE HELL DO YOU NOT FEEL SOMEONE'S HAND GOING IN YOUR FRONT POCKET!!!!" But clearly the dirtball who did it was a smooth operator. Not only did Bryan not feel him put his hand in his FRONT pocket, but the guy was so slick that he took all the cash, and left all his credit cards and I.D. I'll spare you the details of how much the scumbag lowlife took us for, but we'll just say he was probably able to take a brief sabbatical from violating tourists to live off his loot.
In the midst of my non confrontational husband discussing the pleasure he would get from kicking Mr. Pickpocketer's back side, my charming little angels began bickering about God knows what. "Seriously? Mommy and Daddy are VERY upset because someone stole something from Daddy's pocket. Now is NOT the time to misbehave!" I then reached across the table to remove Z's glass from the edge of the table so it wouldn't get knocked over. In the process, I knocked my own 1/2 full glass of red wine all over the tablecloth, Bryan, and the only long sleeved shirt he had packed for our trip. Ahhh..... just as I had imagined our first magical day in Rome.
Check please....
That night, Bryan and I went to bed early, leaving an unopened bottle of red sitting on the kitchen counter. There aren't many days that a couple glasses of wine and a good laugh can't improve on, but this was one of them. Thank tomorrow was a new day.
Day 2 was an improvement and we started the day by meeting up with our tour guide to see the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. Giuseppe arrived with a lovely European Carryall and the inability to look either Bryan or me in the eye. With a name like Giuseppe, I had pictured him walking up the street tossing pizza dough and singing "That's Amore!". He had come recommended for being "child friendly" and I knew we were about put him to the ultimate test. Child friendly is one thing, but if this guy was going to be able to handle keeping a 3, 5 and 7 year old interested in what they affectionately referred to as "a bunch of old broken buildings", he'd better bring his A game.
Giueseppe was friendly and certainly knew his stuff. He had 3 hours to give us a basic tour of ancient Rome and we hit the ground running. The first few minutes were a little uncomfortable while we got used to the fact that he rarely looked at Bryan at all, and when speaking to me, kept his eyes focused on my chin. I initially thought perhaps I had developed a heinous zit on my chin. Or maybe remnants of my breakfast remained on my chin and my husband had decided not to mention it. But after multiple, casual attempts to remove whatever distraction might be hanging from my chin, I decided eye contact just wasn't Giuseppe's thing.
Our first mishap occurred about 90 seconds after beginning our walk to the Roman forum. We realized during our first spectacular day in Rome, that while walking on the sidewalk, you needed to keep your eyes open for piles of dog crap. They're everywhere. The kids took this job VERY seriously and announced it to everyone within a 50 foot radius when they discovered these lovely landmines along our route. Well, apparently E was a little too focused on dog poop duty, because she walked smack into a light post and began wailing. For most mother's, I think maternal instinct would cause them to spring into action and rush to her side. But for me, it immediately put into action my inability to suppress laughter when people fall or bump into things. I'm not proud of this horrible flaw in my personality, and I usually manage to sputter an, "Are you okay?" before erupting into fits of hysteria. Fortunately, my husband was able to tend to E, and I'm relieved to tell you I only found it humorous after I was sure she was unharmed. What can I say, unintentional physical humor hits me in the funny bone. And more often than not, I'm the dumbass doing the falling and running into things.
Eventually, we made it to the entrance of the Forum and Giuseppe stopped to give us a brief history of what we would be seeing. The kids listened to about the first 3 words out of his mouth before they scattered and found some old rocks to climb on. Giuseppe seemed a little taken aback by their lack of interest and then continued to share his vast knowledge while staring at my chin. He had a very thick Italian accent so I had to really concentrate on his every word. Not any easy task when you are also trying to make sure your 3 kids aren't causing an international incident by climbing on 2000 year old ruins.
Throughout the morning, the kids would gather around Giuseppe and really try to be attentive in small spurts. Because of his thick accent, I was worried that they weren't understanding what he was saying. So I found myself repeating key point right after Giuseppe said them. He would say something like, "zees eez vair zee Emporer leeved"(okay, thats more a French accent, but you get the point) and I would feel compelled to say, "Did you hear that guys? This is where the emperor lived!". I can only imagine how insanely irritating this was to poor Giuseppe. But in my defense, Giuseppe had a few annoying habits of his own. Throughout the day, in an attempt to keep the kids engaged, I would ask them about things we had learned about Rome, like, "Do your remember who the 2 brothers were who founded the city of Rome?". E and C would stare at me like uninterested deer in headlights. But Z, my people pleasing smarty pants, would be about to answer when Giuseppe would quickly chime in, "Romulus and Remus founded Rome!". Yes, Giuseppe. Seeing as how we're paying you 50 euro an hour to share your wealth of knowledge about Rome, you ought to be able to answer my silly questions.
But for the most part, Giuseppe was a great tour guide. I gotta say, the guy was enthusiastic about "old broken buildings". I really tried to stay interested in the history of ancient Rome, but my attention span is only marginally better than my kids. I hung in there for about an hour before I realized I needed to let Bryan concentrate on what Giuseppe was saying, while I kept an eye on our bored stiff children. Bryan and I are very different people. He's more the "I'm gonna kick your ass at trivial pursuit" kind of guy. And I'm more the, "Aware of my surrounding and never let anybody pick pocket me" type. (Yes, a low blow. I know.) Needless to say, he was much more into the history of the sites than I was. I kept counting the minutes until could relax at an outdoor cafe with a glass of wine. We complement each other well.
The remainder of our stay in Rome consisted of a very child unfriendly visit to the Vatican, a RIDICULOUSLY long and argument filled walk to Villa Borghese, a brief and exhausting ride in a bicycle built for 5, and lots of stops for gelato. Each of these outtings were full of pitfalls, but I'm not sure my post traumatic stress disorder can handle reliving the details of these events for your entertainment. But as I look back at the pictures, there were a few successes thrown in during our trip. I'll never forget seeing the Sistine Chapel and in hindsight, my kids were perfectly quiet and well behaved for that 10 minutes of our trip! The whole family enjoyed visiting the Colosseum, and the boys managed not to kill each other with their wooden souvenir gladiator swords. Sometimes it's the little successes that we have to see in the midst of a generally challenging adventure. Occassionally, family travel comes down to sheer survival, and survive we did. I don't suspect Rome will rate in our top moments of family togetherness, but we managed to laugh at ourselves most of the time.
