I finished my classes yesterday, Ale has gone to Puglia for the weekend to visit her parents, Brian doesn't arrive until tomorrow and it was going to be a 97 degree day. AND, I discovered that a water park called Hydromania was only a single bus ride away. That's all we needed! http://www.hydromania.it/ here we come!
So, after stops to our local pasticceria and grocery store, we hopped bus 088 to Hydromania. There were so many foreign aspects to this place that they are hard to name, but I'll say that the whole experience, while SUPER fun, was so completely different for the three of us! The most significant issue for us is that we seemed to be, not only the only Americans there, but possibly the only native-English speakers. Unless the words were uttered from our mouths or the mouths of employees who were valiantly trying to communicate with us, we never heard English once. When we arrived, we bought tickets (the prices for kids, like most places in Italy, was not based on their age, but their height) and entered. Immidiately we were confronted by a group of lockers with a change machine and a strange looking keypad and screen thingie. I suspected we would need a locker, so I put the 4 euro required and valiantly tried to figure it out. After a few mistakes and watching others, I realized that the system assigned us a locker based on availability and I was prompted to choose a 6-digit pin code. Each time I wanted to re-open this locker, I'd re-enter that pin code. Ok, valuables stowed in locker.
Next, we found an empty lounge chair in the shade to put our towels and my phone and we climbed the stairs to the nearest water slide we could find. We noticed that some of the others ahead of us had 2-person inflatable "boats" but some did not so we didn't worry too much. When we got to the top, a slighly-annoyed young man explained to me that we could only go down in twos. What about me and Sam together and Nate separately?, I tried to ask (in Italian)? Nope. What about without the inflatable boat? Nope. Are there other water slides at the park where we can go as three? Nope. (This, thankfully, turned out to not be true - I must have asked it wrong or he must have been tired of my questions and just trying to get rid of me).
So, a bit dejectedly but not completely deterred, we went back down the stairs to find another slide. There was a 6-wide slide I had seen on the website with pictures of happy families holding hands on their way down and we made our way to find said slide. First, we found a pool structured a bit like a beach with a very gradual slope from dry to deep and we cooled our bodies and moods there before moving on. Next to it was the 6-wide slide and we climbed up to give it a try. It was awesome and super fun. We went down it several times before it was closed for lunch (1pm - 2pm). This gave us time to retrieve the boys goggles from the locker (why did I leave them there?) and get some lunch of our own.
Like most other places in Italy, you pay first then get your food. It was a bit strange because we didn't really yet know what we wanted, but we managed to secure Nate a chicken cutlet sandwich (panino), two thin triangular sandwiches (tramezzini) for Sam and me, three bottles of water and three gelatos. We shared our one lounge chair in the shade and ate our lunch.
There were a set of pools near the base of the 6-wide slide that we swam and jumped and splashed and played in. We rode the slide several more times and had lots of cool-down fun in spite of rules which we broke and were required to remedy (I was not allowed to have sunglasses on in the pools, boys were not allowed to have goggles on nor was I allowed to have a plastic clip in my hair on the slide). We could see other slides but after observing people splashing out of them at the bottom, I never saw kids coming out - not to mention little kids with their moms or dads, so I imagine if my Italian (or their English) were better, I could understand the rules better.
At one point, Sam dutifully told me he needed to go to the bathroom - we found a bit of a surprise - individual clean stalls with no toilets, just holes in the floor with formed ceramic around them where one was clearly supposed to put their feet when standing or squatting over said hole. No problem, I thought! Sam will pee standing up, it will be an amusing thing to share with Nate and all will be fine. Then, Sam says, "I think I have to go poop". Well, I'll spare you the details. It did all work out, but not without a little bit of messiness and chuckling.
Finally, the bathing suits were just like we had seen in Terracina. Prepubescent girls without bathing suit tops, boys in speedo-like trunks... Most amazing to me was that ALMOST NO women wore one-piecs bathing suits. Of the hundreds of women we saw, of all ages and all shape and sizes, I think I only saw two one-piece suits. Word to the wise, then, for anyone wanting to travel to Italy in the summer and who prefers to wear one-piece suits: don't plan on being able to buy them here. I suspect they are a specialty item!
But, with all the differences we found, we had a really fun time and I think Nate and Sam came away from the experience thinking Italy was really cool (both literally and figuratively).
So, after stops to our local pasticceria and grocery store, we hopped bus 088 to Hydromania. There were so many foreign aspects to this place that they are hard to name, but I'll say that the whole experience, while SUPER fun, was so completely different for the three of us! The most significant issue for us is that we seemed to be, not only the only Americans there, but possibly the only native-English speakers. Unless the words were uttered from our mouths or the mouths of employees who were valiantly trying to communicate with us, we never heard English once. When we arrived, we bought tickets (the prices for kids, like most places in Italy, was not based on their age, but their height) and entered. Immidiately we were confronted by a group of lockers with a change machine and a strange looking keypad and screen thingie. I suspected we would need a locker, so I put the 4 euro required and valiantly tried to figure it out. After a few mistakes and watching others, I realized that the system assigned us a locker based on availability and I was prompted to choose a 6-digit pin code. Each time I wanted to re-open this locker, I'd re-enter that pin code. Ok, valuables stowed in locker.
So, a bit dejectedly but not completely deterred, we went back down the stairs to find another slide. There was a 6-wide slide I had seen on the website with pictures of happy families holding hands on their way down and we made our way to find said slide. First, we found a pool structured a bit like a beach with a very gradual slope from dry to deep and we cooled our bodies and moods there before moving on. Next to it was the 6-wide slide and we climbed up to give it a try. It was awesome and super fun. We went down it several times before it was closed for lunch (1pm - 2pm). This gave us time to retrieve the boys goggles from the locker (why did I leave them there?) and get some lunch of our own.
Like most other places in Italy, you pay first then get your food. It was a bit strange because we didn't really yet know what we wanted, but we managed to secure Nate a chicken cutlet sandwich (panino), two thin triangular sandwiches (tramezzini) for Sam and me, three bottles of water and three gelatos. We shared our one lounge chair in the shade and ate our lunch.
There were a set of pools near the base of the 6-wide slide that we swam and jumped and splashed and played in. We rode the slide several more times and had lots of cool-down fun in spite of rules which we broke and were required to remedy (I was not allowed to have sunglasses on in the pools, boys were not allowed to have goggles on nor was I allowed to have a plastic clip in my hair on the slide). We could see other slides but after observing people splashing out of them at the bottom, I never saw kids coming out - not to mention little kids with their moms or dads, so I imagine if my Italian (or their English) were better, I could understand the rules better.
At one point, Sam dutifully told me he needed to go to the bathroom - we found a bit of a surprise - individual clean stalls with no toilets, just holes in the floor with formed ceramic around them where one was clearly supposed to put their feet when standing or squatting over said hole. No problem, I thought! Sam will pee standing up, it will be an amusing thing to share with Nate and all will be fine. Then, Sam says, "I think I have to go poop". Well, I'll spare you the details. It did all work out, but not without a little bit of messiness and chuckling.
Finally, the bathing suits were just like we had seen in Terracina. Prepubescent girls without bathing suit tops, boys in speedo-like trunks... Most amazing to me was that ALMOST NO women wore one-piecs bathing suits. Of the hundreds of women we saw, of all ages and all shape and sizes, I think I only saw two one-piece suits. Word to the wise, then, for anyone wanting to travel to Italy in the summer and who prefers to wear one-piece suits: don't plan on being able to buy them here. I suspect they are a specialty item!
But, with all the differences we found, we had a really fun time and I think Nate and Sam came away from the experience thinking Italy was really cool (both literally and figuratively).
Sounds like an awesome adventure!!
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