The Kids

Kids aren't known for their love of museums, or for enjoying a long meandering walk through a quaint village.  Certainly not my kids - remember, they are boys almost-4 and almost-8.  Here are some of the things we have planned and packed to help maximize their enjoyment of this trip.

Packed to bring:

• A bag of Lego's - for assembling, disassembling and reassembling
• Mini hand-stampers, for their own enjoyment or to be able to give to children they meet
• Little flashlights which attach to their backpacks
• Digital cameras of their own
• A few (paper) books as well as a few more books on kindle
• Multi-colored pipe cleaners
• Activity books
• Crayons and coloring pages/books for long restaurant meals

Planned to do:

• In the first week, while I am studying Italian at Scuola Leonardo da Vinci ( http://www.scuolaleonardo.com/Italian-language-school-Rome.html ) our dear Donia Dridi will be visiting Rome and she, Alessia and the boys will try out some of the most kid-friendly stuff in Rome:
• Explora Children's museum -  http://www.mdbr.it/en.html
• The Colosseum -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum
• Search for best gelato shops
• Perhaps something silly like the pasta museum or the cat sanctuary
• In the second week, Alessia and the boys will take a bus to a nearby pool where they will go to day-camp!  9:30 - 12:30 with Italian children, swimming, playing soccer, doing relay races, making crafts http://www.juventusnuoto.net/CentriEstivi.asp
• In the third week, Alessia and the boys will go to the same place for daily free swim and play

Beyond the things to see and do, we will have a "siesta-based" schedule, meaning, we will wake, eat breakfast, do something fun, lunch then return to our apartment for a rest.  Read, nap, watch local TV.... cool down and wind down a bit.  Then, we'll have a second pass for activities and dinner, a passaggiata then call it a day.  Hopefully, the key to their enjoyment is not to pack too much in and allow them to be kids.  Hey, we don't mind sitting in a cafe at any given piazza while they run around the central fountain!  Hope it works!!

Suitcases

I must have done something wrong.  My suitcase isn't busting at the seams.  In fact, it's not near full.  Is my suitcase too big or did I pack too little...?

A Different Culture - A Different Pace

In Italy, the trains are not known to run on time.  In Italy (like many other European countries), worker strikes are extremely common.  In Italy, being "on time" has a very different meaning than it does in America, and DEFINITELY differently than it does to me.

So, I am going to need to 'adjust my attitude'.  Because we will be there for such a luxuriously long time, I can afford to adjust properly to the Italian pace of life.  Here's my ideas:

• Don't try to pack too much into a day
• If it's important to do something in a particular town, schedule it for the beginning of the time in that place, so if something goes wrong, we can try again another day
• Unless you have train tickets or museum reservations for a particular time, think in terms of general swaths of the day (morning, afternoon...) instead of specific times
• LEAVE THE WATCH AT HOME
• Remind myself daily that this is vacation
• A delay is an opportunity to take pictures and/or eat more gelato

Buona fortuna a me!  A once-in-a-lifetime trip is not to be ruined with pissy attitudes and frustration.

Technology - an international mystery

We are accustomed to being connected - to the internet and to family and friends.  We cannot do without this connection for 8 weeks.  But, Italy is not the United States - you knew that.  :-)  So, we thought and researched and thought some more about what our technology set-up would be.  We wanted to have a way to connect to the internet, a way to take, store and post photos, a way to connect to family and friends, preferably through skype and we wanted to be able to entertain ourselves and our kids with music and/or videos.  So, what to do?  I tried, initially, to only search on apartments with wifi connections, but it proved too restrictive.  We could bring our iphones with us and use them sparingly, but even that proved too costly of an option.  I also worried what would happen if one of the kids got separated from us and even the kindest person might not be willing or able to make an international call to find us.

So, here's what we're bringing:

• Mifi - I will need to buy a rechargeable sim card for this once we arrive in Italy  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002OE5N02/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00
• Unlocked quad band cell phones  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004XRJELW/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i00
• italian sim cards
• ipad - loaded with music and movies, can skype and email from here, too, connected to the above mifi or wifi when we have it
• ipod touch (Nate's)
• Camera
• These cool ipad connectors  http://www.amazon.com/Apple-iPad-Camera-Connection-MC531ZM/dp/B003K1EYM6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337693440&sr=8-1 which will allow us to download pictures from the camera to the ipad and upload to picasa

With all the necessary chargers and converters.  Fingers crossed that it all works like we hope and plan!

Leonardo Da Vinci

Nate, our 7-year-old, was tasked with preparing a biography report and he chose Leonardo Da Vinci.  What can I say, he's excited about our trip!  So here, from the perspective of a 2nd grader, are some important facts about Leonardo Da Vinci:

• Leonardo Da Vinci lived 500 years ago between 1452 and 1519

• He was born in Italy

• He is thought to be the greatest artist who ever lived

• He was a Renaissance Man, which means he was skillful in many subjects

• His most famous painting is the Mona Lisa

• He was prolific, which means he created MANY works and projects

• He had to make his own paintbrushes and paint, he couldn’t buy them at the store

• He wrote in cursive, backwards from right to left and was left-handed

Our trip philosophy

Yes, Brian and I have been to Italy before, but never with kids and certainly never for the length of this trip.  So, we are going to approach it quite differently.  First, we will be staying in apartments instead of hotels.  No room service but also no exorbitant bills for having laundry done.  All apartments have washing machines (and air conditioning!!).  We will eat at restaurants, sure, but we will also shop for ingredients and cook for ourselves some times.  We will do our very best to follow the pace and culture of life wherever we find ourselves.  So - here is what we want to try to see and do while we are there:

• Food.  We love food.  We love exploring, cooking, trying.  Not just new foods but new ways of enjoying it.  We will have our daily gelato, many picnics, breakfasts standing at the local bar and in Sicily we will try granita with brioche for breakfast like the locals  http://www.lovesicily.com/blog/food-and-drink/2004/07/28/the-perfect-sicilian-breakfast-granita-and-brioche .
• Science.  This is, after all, Galileo, Tesla, Marconi and Fibonacci's homeland.  We would like to find some of the lesser-visited places that honor these and other noteworthy Italian scientists.
• Music.  Live music - anything from a free concert in the park to Don Giovanni at the open-air arena in Verona  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verona_Arena.
• Art.  Yes, I know, everyone goes to Italy for the art.  We are no exception.  But, because of the kids we are going to take it in bite-sized pieces, avoiding a lot of the churches and dull museums, preferring to find the art in parks, piazzas and public places.  We will attempt a well-rounded view with different eras and forms.  
• Public places.  We want to enjoy Italy for Italy as much as we can.  The grown-ups can sip a cappuccino or beer at a piazza while the boys run around the fountain.  That's fine by us.  I have no problem spending a few hours at a local playground while the boys strike up friendships with local kids. I will not consider this a waste of vacation time.
• Kid fun  pools water parks factory tours amusement parks.  We WILL go into some museums, but we will also do some purely child (or child-at-heart) oriented stuff.  Amusement parks (we plan to go here for Nate's birthday:  http://www.gardaland.it/resort-en/ , water parks, factory tours are all allowed.
• Time for discoveries.  Except for a few mandatory pre-booked museum reservations and 2-day side trips, we will be unstructured and have time to explore.  Go walking in Venice until we are "lost", take a side trip to see the town of Vinci or follow our stomachs and noses to Bologna for a gastronomy day.  With cameras and journals in our backpacks, we want to be free to discover.  

And, through it all, lots of pictures, as many blog posts as I can manage and memories for a lifetime.