FINALLY HERE

2:03 a.m. Friday (aka 8:30 am Friday, European Time)

Just got off the plane in Copenhagen, Denmark. I hate airplanes. I hate the ocean. I hate flying over the ocean. I hate jet lag. The people behind us on the plane talked non-stop for hours. Can’t even begin to describe the levels of non-sleeping. Luckily, the boys both slept—of course, it was only for 3 hours before the lights came on and the crew served us our bags of breakfast. Ham and cheese on hearty Scandinavian wheat bread. –One a.m. and hearty Scandinavian wheat bread are a tough combination.

I’m bleary eyed and disoriented. One hour until our flight to Rome. In the mean time, we’re hanging out in an IKEA-reminiscent airport.

George, the good dad, is playing Uno with the kids. I, the bad mom, am sitting here typing and cursing the sunlight, the horrible, bright Danish sunlight. (Ooooh, a Danish…Now that’s a breakfast I can handle. Wonder where they keep ‘em.)

Off to go through Passport Control and more airport fun. Three hours until Rome. More later.

5:45 pm Friday (aka 11:45 am American Time)

I’m slowly making the switch in my mind to the new time. We’re on a bus from Rome to Siena right now—about 45 km to go until Siena. We’ve been riding this bus for about 2+ hours so far, and George has figured out that we’ve been traveling for about 22 hours nonstop (car, plane, plane, bus) since we left my dad’s house yesterday. The boys are being amazingly good. I feel mildly delirious, but I’m enjoying the views. Everything is pure Tuscan Countryside wherever I look.

We still don’t know where exactly our apartment is, which is mildly troubling since we’re hurtling towards Siena and are hoping to finally end our non-stop day(s) of travel. We’ve made plans to meet up with the trip coordinator at a café, where I’m hoping she’ll set us up with the key, the address, etc.

Too tired to write anymore, but just know: a) it’s gorgeous here, and b) I’m out of my mind with exhaustion.

Really glad we’re here for 6 weeks because transatlantic travel is not my friend.

9:28 am, Saturday, June 27, 2009

American Time no longer exists. –I slept like the dead last night for almost 12 hours.

Our apartment is gorgeous. I got up this morning and took pictures of it from every possible angle to capture it in its full glory before the kids trash the joint. (The kids, by the way, are still asleep. I can’t begin to express what amazing little travelers they are. We had them going for almost 30 hours before finally putting them to bed last night.)

Once you see the pictures of this place, I know any and all kvetching I do about anything apartment-related will fall on deaf ears, so I’m just going to get it out of my system now:

It smells like pee.

It also smells like mold.

Pee and mold. Mold and pee. Moldy pee? Pee-soaked mold?

I’m sorry. But it does.

I’m not even fully complaining here because I wouldn’t trade this apartment for anything. (Well, except for one EXACTLY like it but minus the pee/mold smell.) But it must be said: The smell will kill me for sure.

I didn’t really notice it last night because I was so beaten down by our travel day. And I didn’t notice it while I was sleeping, or even when I first woke up. But I notice it now. And—not surprisingly—the smell seems to emanate from our bathroom, which is in the lowest, most cave-like portion of our basement apartment in this 16th century pee-soaked palace. And, let me assure you, it’s not us folks. We’ve only been here about 12 hours and we do not pee that much.

This, my friends, is the pee that has settled into the very foundation of this place since the dawn of time. This is Roman Times Pee. This is Etruscan Pee. This is Cave Man Pee.

Ok. I’ll try to change the subject now. (But before I do, I’ll tell you that we’ve already dubbed this place “The Cave,” “The Palace,” “The Pee Pit,” and “The Pee-Pee Palace.” Expect to hear these names again, depending on the mood around here.)

George left this morning at 8:55 for a mandatory “Walk around Siena” tour with his Dante class. He can tell me about it later. I’m still in my pj’s. And the kids—as I mentioned—are apparently both in a coma.

The tour started at 9:00, and the starting point for it was the town square (piazza) where the Palio—the big ferocious horse race later this week—takes place. George had no fear of being late for the tour because it is only a five-minute walk from here.

Dang! We are RIGHT in the middle of it all. Our location (minus the pee, the pee, the horrible, horrible pee) is like a dream come true. Later today, I’ll snap as many pictures as I can to demonstrate just how close we are to all the things people come to Siena to see. It’s truly incredible.

And when George walked out the door this morning while I was still groggy in the bed (the bed which is located right smack in the middle of the living room, by the way), I heard the dream-like sound of an Italian man saying “Buon Giorno!” to George as he walked past him on the stairwell. That’s a good sound, let me tell you.

And as I’m sitting here in our living room with my feet up on this cute little table that’s probably a very important antique or something, I’m hearing the sounds of Italian morning chatter out of our very-much-open windows. (I’m trying to air the place out.-- In case you hadn’t heard, it smells like pee in here).

People are chatting. Birds are chirping. Breakfast dishes are delicately clinking and clattering. And these lovely, lovely sounds are filtering into our apartment like a dream.

A dream that smells exactly like pee.

12:30-ish, Monday, June 29, 2009

Henry threw up this morning.

That’s pretty much the theme of the day right now. The boy woke up at some point in the middle of the night because he couldn’t find his stuffed animal. After that, I was up tossing and turning for the next three hours or so. I finally fell back asleep around the time the sun came up, at which point, Henry woke up again complaining that his stomach hurt. About 10 minutes later, he commenced with the barfing.

Poor little guy.

Despite all the barfing, however, we don’t think he’s sick with a virus or anything because he doesn’t have a fever. Instead, we strongly suspect it’s something he ate or drank. Shockeroo.

So right now, he and I are hanging out in the apartment. George took the first shift of Sick Henry Duty this morning while William and I went out to watch the horse selection process for the upcoming Palio race. Now we’ve switched off, and Henry and I are watching pre-Palio coverage on TV and getting a way better view than William and I got this morning.

In other, non-barf related news, yesterday (Sunday) was our first really great day in Italy. We got up early and hopped on a bus with the other Americans from George’s Dante seminar. –Although I’m normally not inclined towards tour-bus type scenarios, it really was kind of nice to just mindlessly climb aboard and go wherever they wanted to take me. Yes, I preferred ease over adventure, and I’m not even all that ashamed. –Probably just means I’m getting old.

Anyway, the place they took us was perfectly beautiful. We went to Montalcino, a gorgeous Tuscan hill town with a very old monastery that I don’t remember the name of. We also attended Mass while we were there. (William was particularly fascinated by the monk swinging the incense and has talked a lot since then about how he would not like to have that particular job.) Later, we had a picnic lunch on the grounds of a very old castle that I don’t remember the name of. (Noticing a theme here, are you? –So I’m bad at names. Nothing new here.) Anyway, it was a very pretty little picnic…and quite possibly the source of Henry’s barf-fest this morning.

A lot of other great stuff happened yesterday as well, but the grogginess of my mind and the distraction of the poor little boy on our couch with a bucket and the remote control is occupying the majority of my thoughts. –I will say that since I’ve started typing, Henry has ditched the pre-Palio TV coverage we were watching, and has discovered Euro-Nickelodeon (in German of all things) and we’ve both been rendered pretty much slack-jawed by watching Sponge Bob Schwammkopf (auf Deutsch!), especially poor ol’ Henry whose super-mean mom has never let him watch it before (in English, anyway).

Ah, the benefits of barfing in Italy…Lucky, Lucky Henry!

P.S. Our apartment still stinks.