Tim and Ethan in Italy

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It's been a while since I was able to post an entry, so I'll update everyone on what has happened.

Last Saturday, Tim and Ethan arrived in Italy. So I left Iseo and rode with Laura and Matt to Brescia were we picked up the keys to the apartment in Sirmione and a rental car. Matt decided to stay in Sirimone for a couple of days and drove the rental car while I navigated(Matt was in the ISEO school and is affililated with the World Trade Center in Montana.) It turned out to be a huge blessing that Matt was there and willing to drive, since the mapquest directions I had printed were totally useless. Streets are rarely clearly labeled, so when mapquest says "at the second round-about take via xxxxxxxx" you are immediately helpless. Fortunately, I had a map and I had been to the apartment building in Sirmione before, so we were able to figure out how to get there. But we were running behind schedule since everything was taking longer than I had expected, so I did not have time to buy any groceries before I went to pick up the guys.

We were staying in a studio apartment owned by the VP of the WTC in Brescia. It is in Sirmione, which is a vacation community on a penninsula on Garda Lake. The area is very popular with German tourists so all of the bi-lingual signs are in Italian and German, but very little English.

Matt explored Sirmione while I took the car to the train station at Desenzano. I took the train from Desenzano to Milan so I could meet Tim and Ethan as they got off the shuttle bus from the airport. That part of the plan went well and we were all happy to see each other. Their timing was lucky, as soon as they arrived we were able to buy tickets and immediately board the next train to Desenzano. We had a 6 passenger cabin to ourselves, so Ethan was able to move around a bit and Tim was able to stretch out and relax. When we made it back to Desenzano, Tim was a little hesitant to get in the car when he saw that I was planning to drive a manual transmission in Italy, but I insisted I could handle it and he was too exhausted to argue.

I got us back to the apartment without incident and sent Tim to the shower while Ethan and I walked to the nearby market for a few groceries. We let Matt take the rental car so he could move his suitcases to the hotel he had found down the road. I told Ethan he could choose what he had for dinner. He wanted pasta with peanut butter, so we were renegotiating the terms of the offer all the way to the shop. We made it to the shop with less than 10 minutes to closing time, so we had to rush through and grab a few ingredients to fix dinner and breakfast (I didn't want to have to rely on eating out until they had some time to rest first.)

When we made it back to the apartment, I discovered that the gas stove did not light itself, and we could not find any matches or a lighter in the apartment, so the chicken and spaghetti stayed in the fridge while we ate cereal and salad for dinner. Tim had fallen soundly asleep and we could not wake him up, so we ate in shifts and relaxed Saturday evening.

I had told Tim and Ethan to pack light after my experience on the train, since I assumed we would have a washer in the apartment. Well, there was no washer and I had not seen a launderia anywhere, but there was a drying rack on the balcony, so I decided to wash some clothes by hand the next morning while the boys were sleeping late. (The boys were still in the bed when Matt arrived at 11:00 to return the car. ) I will never, ever take my wonderful Maytag for granted again. Ethan really enjoyed helping me do laundry by hand a couple of mornings last week, but the clothes are clearly not that clean. My white T-shirts and sweater may not make it back to the US.

We went down to the castle at the end of the penninsula and explored. Ethan had gelatto for the first time and loved it (of course). We had lunch at the cafe below our apartment (literally, below our apartment) and Ethan had his first Italian pizza. At this point he has eaten cereal, gelatto, and pizza in Italy and declared each of them to be his new "number 1 food."

Matt joined us in the afternoon, we went swimming in the pool at the apartment and then decided to drive into Brescia, so we could figure out how to get to the WTC in lighter weekend traffic since Matt and I had to go in for a meeting on Monday. We found it fairly easily--(fortunately, the WTC office is near a distinctive triplet of skyscrapers that can been seen from the autostrada) and then went to the center city since Matt was considering getting a hotel there for the evening. We walked by the hotel where I stayed the first week, and I realized Gary was staying there. We checked with the front desk and Gary was in his room, so he took us on a walking tour of some of the center city and we all ate together in a pizzeria for dinner. Ethan could not wait to have authentic Italian pizza again. It was a very nice evening and Gary was able to point out features I had completely missed in some of the squares I had been exploring the first week and he showed us other nearby squares and markets that I had missed. He immediately won Ethan over by offering to show him where the people are buried beneath the church.

Monday I had a meeting at 12:30 and then another meeting "after lunch". So Tim and Ethan decided to go into Brescia with me and use the computer in my office while I was in the meetings and we planned to visit Santa Guilia and the Castello in the late afternoon. It was also Tim's birthday. Well the 12:30 meeting that I expected to be a short photo opportunity, turned out to be a photo op followed by a multi-course lunch. After lunch I went back to the office and discovered the "after lunch" meeting was scheduled for 6:00. So Tim and Ethan spent most of the day in my office waiting without much to see in that part of Brescia and I was feeling horrible about ruining Tim's Italian birthday.

Ilaria, Giovanna's daughter, was one of the participants at the 6:00 meeting and Giovanna and Victorio came with her to meet Matt, Tim and Ethan. When the meeting was over at 7:30, Giovanna heard Gary wish Tim a happy birthday and insisted that we come to her house for dinner. She and Ilaria left immediately, but Victorio stayed to help us find the house while Giac used our car to take Gary and Matt to the train station. I was glad Tim would get to see their house and meet the family who took me in. A normal dinner at Giovanna's house turned out to be a birthday dinner Tim will remember. They had a lovely table set for us in the garden. Ethan absolutely loved the spaghetti which was served first and ate so much that he was full. So we let him play in the garden while we ate the rest of the meal. He had been cooped in the office all afternoon, so he ran, skipped, talked to the dog, kicked a ball, and spun in circles all evening long. At the end of the meal, they brought out gelatto cake and sparkling wine (Italian champagne) in honor of Tim's birthday.

Well, that's all I have time for now. I'm back in a hotel with internet access, so I should be able to have the blog current before the end of the week.

Ciao,
Julie

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