Hmm.... No Danger of Forging That!

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After a busy weekend getting organized and tying up loose ends we finally hopped into the car with Andrew Horrobin to go to the airport (Thanks Andrew!). Frank had spent half the night finalising his reports, so he was pretty tired, but all worth it for the luxury of 5 weeks off!
The only thing that caused some angst was the eruption of a volcano in South America that threatened the ability of our flight to take off due to a volcanic ash cloud, but luckily everything went according to plan.

Going through customs took some time, partly as it still takes Hugo a while to sign his name, so we waited patiently as he carefully signed his exit card. It was very cute and the comment from my brother Brad when I sent him the photo was hilarious - "No danger of anyone forging that!
I hope he doesn't have to sign too often for souvenir purchases.

The children had a great time on the first leg of the flight watching movies and playing games on the screens in the seat backs. A family favorite was "Battleship", and we played each other for hours.
It didn't seem too long until we began our descent into Kuala Lumpur. We had booked showers at the Transit Hotel (Thanks for that tip Chloe Evans!), and it was wonderful to freshen up. The children hopped into their sleeping clothes and after a delay of a couple of hours and several gate changes, we were off to Rome! Everyone slept at least 6 hours out of this 12 hour leg, so we arrived in Rome at 6am feeling ok.

Our first adventure was finding an alternative wayinto Rome, as the car service I had booked didn't turn up. I later found out this is very common, and our friends, the Mathews family, had the same experience but at 11pm at night! It was very lucky in the end, as the first person I spoke to suggested we share a ride into Rome with 3 girls from Japan, so it ended up costing less than the train and a lot less than the limo, and it was a very comfortable ride. I tried out my Italian on Paolo the driver (and he indulged me). We pulled up at our hotel and struggled into the lift 2 at a time - it was so tiny it looked like a telephone box! The children were very impressed with the hotel when we got to the 5th floor, and the welcome we received was lovely - coffee and juice while we checked in, and a piece of cake for the children as well. As it was so early, we dropped our bags and then it was time to explore!

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