An almost 100 year old man...

Tuesday, May 8, was my grandfather, or Bedstefar's birthday.  He turned 98!  Wyatt and the other kids are excited for him to be so old and hope that he lives to be 100!  He is an amazing man.  Our family has the privilege of feeding both my grandparents, my Bedstemor is 94, every Saturday night.  We are a noisy bunch, I know they love to have the kids over and give them treats and stuff.  We all went up there on Tuesday night to wish him a happy birthday.  It was so nice to be with them despite the fact that their little house is about 98 degrees all the time, they forget a lot of things, you have to repeat yourself several times per conversation because they either didn't hear what you said or they forgot you already said it.  I usually have to ask them a number of times to "say that one more time.  You said it in Danish.."  And then my Bedstemor will tell me I need to learn Danish!  They truly are wonderful examples of living a righteous life.  Just last year, my Bedstefar was driving and would drive them to church every Sunday!  Thankfully neither of them have licenses anymore, so the roads are a little safer....
  Some other interesting facts about my grandparents are: when they were a young married couple with I think two small girls, they hid guns and other things for the underground during World War two.  They immigrated to the United States in 1951 after joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints so that they could be sealed together as a family in one of God's temples.  There were no temples in Europe at the time.  They packed up their four kids, two steamer trunks and fifty dollars and away they came.  My grandfather, who has been on the seas since he was 14, got sea sick, that's how rough the water was.  He even held my dad for most of the trip across the Atlantic since he could barely walk on land by himself.
  I could go on and on about them, but I'll have to do it in segments.  A couple of weeks ago, my Bedstemor fell and broke her hip.  My aunt Gayle called my sister and I up to help her pick her up off the ground after she fell.  As soon as we moved her, I knew her hip was broken by the way she was moaning and grabbing at her hip.  As I left, I cried, thinking that that was it for my Bedstemor.  Statistics are not good for old people who have broken hips.  They usually don't recover well and are bed ridden.  Well, I'm happy to say that she is trying her best to get better and is even at home with her sweetheart.  He missed her so much while she was in the hospital and would forget so many more things without her being there.  It is so sweet to her him tell her how beautiful she is looking when I would take her to get her hair done every other week.  Another wonderful privilege I've had.  I'm so grateful I get the chance to see them on a regular basis and learn how to better myself through their giving example.

Coming home

March 24, 2012

It's actually the 25th, but I had more time on the plane to journal then last night when we were trying to go to bed at a normal time. We got all packed up and had to move our clocks ahead an hour since it was the Italian day light savings. Thankfully we were talking to another couple at the restaurant we had dinner in and they told us to make sure we changed or clocks. Jeremy and I couldn't believe that we hadn't he'd anything about that! We were so thankful to heavenly father for that tender mercy! We could ve missed our plane and our taxi to get there!

We spent another day wandering another part of Rome. We enjoyed walking over to the Spanish steps, but learned the hard way that anything within the few blocks vicinity is pretty expensive. Jerm was looking for gelato and a bathroom. We stopped in a place tha looked nice, but not anything super fancy. He was looking at the gelato and I saw some yummy looking chocolate stuff, so I order something while e went to the bathroom. The guy behind the counter insisted we sit. My dessert was three big cream puffs covered in this fudgey yummieness! We ask for the bill and almos fall out of yor chairs: €23 for two things! We couldn't believe! Usually we pay around €2 for a cone! We jus had to laugh at ourselves. It took several blocks to walk off the yucky feeling in our stomach about it, but oh well! They did have a menu outside that listed the prices but we didn't see it until afterward.

We found the spanish steps with hoards of people on them, but it was pretty fun in all the madness. Happy people milling around jus like we were, enjoying the crowd and the scenery. Its about 120 some odd steps to the top where there is a beautiful church that we peeked into where some kind of service was going on. On the right of the steps was the house where the poet John Keats lived until he died of tuberculosis. He was good friends with Percy Shelley, another English poet who died the year after Keats by drowning off the coas of Italy. So now the house is a little museum with some stuff of theirs. They are both buried in the cemeteray in Rome somewhere.

To the left of the church and down a bit, there is a huge (200 acre) park called Villa Borghese. The country villa that is attached this huge park belonged to a very wealth family, the owner being related to the pope at the time, and it says a big art collection with some of Rafael's work, three famous sculptures of Bernini's and also the artist Caravaggio has some work there as well. This place only let's in about 200 at a time, so we needed reservations which we had only gotten the day before for five o'clock. Since we had a bit of time to kill before our reservations, we decided to rent a surrey bike for two! We jumped on and started peddling, quickly realizing that it had a little electric motor on it! It was so helpful up the hills that were all through out the gardens. These gardens aren't nessecarliy ones that have beautiful flowers everywhere, but trees, hedges, sculptures, paths all over the place, a "lake" in the middle, grass with little wild daisies scattered about. It was very green and pretty with many of the trees bright green with their new leaves.

The map we had was not very helpful, so we just kind of threw it to the wind, laughing like maniacs as we were driving crazy up and down the hills. It is a good place to running, too, and I was really missing my normal runs as I watched all these other pele running around!

We took our bike back and went to find lunch off the piazza popplo, another big square in Rome with two twin churches and a huge Egyptian obelisk and fountain in the middle of end square. We've been noticing at all of the public squares, there have been a lot of carabinieri, a form of Italian police, standing around with their big vans and just watching the happenings. Ater our lunch we did see a group of people with some amps and big posters that they were trying to hang on the walls. We couldn't tell what was written on it, but we had heard about some protests that had been going on in Rome about their trains before we got there. We didn't hang around long enough to see the end result, but it was pretty interesting.

We walked back to the museum, we had already been there just to use the bathroom, got or tickets and read a little about what we were going to see. Jeremy and I are kind of lit weights when it comes to looking at art and things. I'm sorry to say that we aren't the type to spend hours pondering some sculpture or painting. We enjoyed it and did enjoy the sheer genius and many hours of work out in. It is truly amazing to see thin leaves carved out of marble that you can see light through. We saw Bernini's amazing sculpture of the young David as he's about to throw the rock in his sling at Goliath. Another one, the Rape of somebody... we could see the pressure of the man hand on the thigh of the woman. And the ceiling paintings looked 3-d they way the used the light and shading. Truly amazing. Needless to say and thank goodness the museum was small, we were done in about 45 mins. We rested outside for about ten minutes and decided to make a in of it to the other side so we could see the sunset over Rome. Oh yeah, and after lunch, it started raining! It stopped by the time we went into the museum, but while we were waiting it out under a tree, I put my scarf on my head to keep a little dryer,and people kept looking at me. I thought, what are they looking at? Jeremy then informed me that maybe they thought I looked like a gypsy! We had a good laugh about that. The gypsy thing is pretty sad. We came across a lot of them, some maimed, some begging, some trying to sell us stuff. At nights, there would be a few trying to sell these light up discs that they would shoot really high into the air. Our kids would have loved them! Some would sell roses, some had these gooey pig slime ball things that could be thrown down. They would splat and make this really funny squeaky sound as they would re inflate. Junk toys tha every kid would love until they broke ten minutes later. Some would go around the Trevino fountain with camera asking if we needed hell taking a picture. We got asked about four times last night. One guy even said free of charge! I should have let him but I said no thank you.

We really enjoyed our nightly walks after dinner. At dinner, we went all out and got more yummy artichokes, Jeremy had a filet that was soooo rare, dad and Erik would have been proud. Jeremy loved it! iPad the typical roman dish of ravioli that had some kind of yummy Gorgonzola and zucchini flower sauce. Sooooo good! We talked to a couple of the couples around us. One was from denver and the other one was a middle aged couple currenlty living in Belgium, the husband Jim has an america passport, but his half german. I noticed him and his wife talking and sometimes it sounded like danish and then I overheard them talking to the waitress, who was from Albania, about languages. Mia, the woman was from Denmark! She was born just south of Aalborg in a town I think called Luca? She lived there until she was thirteen and then her family moved to Germany. They were very nice and gave us some good traveling advice for the future. They also told s about another awesom gelato place, since all gelato is not created equally! Then, thankfully they told s about da light savings!

After we left, we found the amazing gelato. Jeremy and I went all out with three scoops plus real whipped cream! I had ciacollata fondente (dark chocolate), raspberry, and nutella, which I think was really nutella maybe mixed with a little cream! It was amazing! Jeremy had caramel (yum), ciacollata fondente and pistachio. Good combinations for sure. Then we made our rounds, first over to the Trevi, passing through more piazzas and lots of table filled streets with people eating dinner. After the trevi, we heard a man singing opera in the street to some diners, so we stopped to listen. Then on to the pantheon. This building is truly amazing! It is so huge! W just kelt looking at it and not belileveing that it was real! I then started making upmy own roman version of goodnight moon! Goodnight Trevi Fountain, goodnight pantheon. Good night Piazza Navona, goodnight coloseum!

And now we are on a ten hour flight, and then four or five hour flight back real life! Sigh....not of sadness or grudging, but more of what a great time we had. Squaring our shoulders, ready for whats next.

The Vatican

March 23, 2012

Our second day in Rome stareted with a nice breakfast in our room of bacon and eggs with toast, cereal, yogurt, peaches, hot chocolate, orange juice, cereal, milk, prosciutto and cheese! We tried to eat as much as possible so that we wouldn't be hungry so quickly. It worked since we didn't have anything else to eat until our delicious gelato at the famouse Old Bridge gelateria right outside the Vatican! That his been our favorite so far and we ate two huge scoops around noon. We walked over to the Vatican by way of campo di fiori, the way of flowers, where there is a huge market every day. Booths of food, flowers, weird shaped pastas, trinckets, dishes, clothes, etc... It's pretty fun to walk through and see what people are selling. We crossed over the Tiber river and veered to the left where the street takes you right up to St. Peter's Square. It's really huge and bed amazing. We didn't go in right away because we wanted to make sure we had a enough time to do the stairs up to the Cupala and we had a reservation for the museum at 1. It was just after twelve and we had to walk around the vatican walls to get to the museum entrance. That's where we found the yummy leeks to place. Else actually told me about it and then they talk about it in one of the books I brought as well. It was only €2 for two huge scoops! Much better then the gelato we got outside of e coliseum that was €4 for one really small scoop from some Italian roach coach! Of course around h coliseum, there are not man shops since its mostly archeological stuff. Oh well, we live and learn.

We had to go through security to get into the museums itself, not a big deal. We also bought our tickets online because we heard the ticke lines could be very long....nope, we walked right up. There are tons of rooms in the museum with all different kinds of things. The first one we went into was the Pinoceca where they have lots of art. We saw some of Raffael's work, as well as some leaonardo da Vinci, lots of paintings of saints and Christ and the Madonna. A couple of the crucifixion of st. Peter. It's interesting how they seem to revere their saints more then the savior. The art was beautiful.. We then followed the signs to the Sistine chapel, of course where the masses are going. Even heading in there, there are hallways filled with painted maps, the ceilings are painted and we got a neckache from looking up so much! The Sistine chapel was very beautiful, filled wit noisy people and guards going around telling people not to take pictures and to be quiet since it is still a chapel. I still can't believe how much work went into this place.

After leaving the chapel, we wandered down through more hallways of stuff, oil lamps, brass pitchers and other antiquities like that. We had also passed through rooms of sculptures as well. We grabbed a piece of pizza from the pizzeria on sight and the headed to St. Peters Crichton after that. The security line was soooo long, but it moved really fast. I think it only took about ten minutes to get through. We went straight for the cupola where we had to pay five euros each to climb the 515 steps to the top! It took us about ten minutes and we were tring too go fast, but with lots of people also climbing and narrow steps, we had to go slower. The view was amazing! 360 degree view of the whole city and it overlooked the gardens of the Vatican. The weather has been in the seventies here and up on top there was a nice breeze. I think had it been a bit clearer, we could have seen the ocean.

We descended the stairs and Jeremy had his second wind and momentum and sizzled right down. We were going around and around these big spirals and a couldn't see him any more. I said where are you as we are both running down and all I hear is this cackle of laughter! When I get down, he's waiting by the door like he's been there forever! The stairs took us right into the church. W ease michelangelos La Pieta which is a sculpture of Mary holding the dead christ across her lap. Its behind glass which is still at least ten feet away from it. The church has several smaller chapels off the sides, then a huge bronze arch in the middle that marks st. Peter's tomb. I guess the pope gives his addresses from there as well. It was all very ornate, very big and lots of sculptures and things going on. It's inscribe how much talent and money was used for this! It did leave me feeling a little empty. It's all very interesting.

We say outside to rest our feet for awhile and eat an apple and then started back for our bed and breakfast. We rested a bit and then got ready to go out again for dinner at 8:30. We walked into Trastevere for dinner at a place where Francesco recommended. He is the owner of the bed and breakfast we are staying in. The restarant was a nice warm, atmosphere. We sat out on wha looked like a patio where the had an old brick oven used as a fake fire place. Warm table line and a nice Italian lady welcomed us in. We had roman st,e artichokes which were probably steamed, then put in a bath of olive oil and parsley. The cut off the outer rough leaves and everything they served, you could eat. It was soooo yummy! We dipped our bread in the remains of the oil. Jeremy got some grilled lamb chops and I ordered a pasta called butini that was a bigger spaghetti like pasta, but a tube instead. Funny how I ended up getting a spaghetti type dish tip nights in a row. It was very yummy along with Jeremy's Caesar salad.

By the time we were through it was about ten o'clock. I know what you are thinking! Dinner over by ten and then we had to walk back a mile? Yep! And it's totally normal! People are everywhere! The places we were walking, we felt very safe. We made our nightly walk over to the Trevi fountain which was very crowded! Of course we had to get some gelato again on the way. :). By this time, we had walked over seven miles! We got back and crashed! Thankfully our bed at this place is memory foam, so it is very comfy to sleep on.

Today, Saturday, we are hoping to find some rental bikes and go up to villa borgehese which has a beautiful garden and nice museum with lots of renaissance art in it. Our last day!. We start out bright and early tomorrow around six and will be heading home!

Roma!

March 22, 2012

We left Introdacqua today with a little sadness because of how authentic and relaxing it was. Jeremy and I finished the Hunger Games, which was a lot of fun to read together, so on our way down to Rome, while I was driving, he quizzed me on muscles of the body. I have to say I did pretty well for jus learning some of them a few days ago. I drove most of the way not Rome, bu decided for Jeremy's sake, I better let him drive. I knew he would be more stressed out in the passenger seat. Not that I'm a bad driver, but he is better. Thankfully Rome was not nearly as bad as Naples, but we were relieved to get rid of the car since parking is a big pain. There are lots of parking areas, but they are all full!

After driving around the train station trying to find where to return the car, we took the metro over to circus massimo, where they used to have chariot races. Stacy Jensen, Kelly's sister was nice enough to put together an itinerar for us. It took is up some little hills overlooking Rome and the Tiber river. We could easily spot st. Peters at the Vatican. One spot even had us looking through the key hole of this gate and it had the dome of st. Peters perfectly framed, but it is a couple of miles away.

I think we walked about 5 miles toda, but my watch died around 3 miles. We even had a guy approach us, trying to give us some Girogio Arman things in exchange for a little gas money. Needless to say, had to remind Jeremy of the dangers of talking to strangers! We also saw this really hideous guy dressed as a woman and tonight on our nightly walk, we saw another one!

Our walk took us up to the colosseum which was so cool! We walked around on the different levels, trying to imagine what it used to look like when it was whole. Parts of it were taken down over the years and "recycled" for other buildings. Right next to it, they are whole bunch of ruins which include the Roman forum some temples and old streets. We walked all the a through and as we were walking, we think we heard guitar playing from the monastary that is in the mix.

Right next to palatine hill is capitoline hill where there are some really beautiful buildings. One of them is this huge, and we are talking huge monument celebrating Italy's independence. The just had their 150 ear celebration last year. Mussolini had the area around it changed up for him so he could have a straighter road in front of it! We picked our way down the street and found the Trevino fountain! It was super crowded, but everyone there is just as eager to see it. It was fun to get close and tr and get a picture of it and throw our coins in. We were supposed to put the coin in our right hand and throw it over our left shoulder. It means you will come back to Rome. Neither one of us did it right since we didn't know about that until later! Oh well. We then walked through the neighbor hood back toward our bed and breakfast, and yes, the do serve a full breakfast, until we fond the pantheon. It is about two blocks away and we didn't even realize we had actually passed it twice when we were trying to find a place to park this morning! It's so a amazing how some of these things are just tucked in between all these buildings!

So far we love it! W enjoyed face timing with Cristin and mom since we have wee-fee in our room! We also got to face time with jeremys folks as well. Dinner isn't usually served until bout 8, so we changed and got ready to go out again for dinner and our nightly walk. Dinner was sooooo good! I had bruschetta first, then spaghetti, which was a first! We also had some yummy roasted veggies and Jeremy's lasagna was so good,that he cleaned his whole plate! I probably would have drank the such if I could. It was so creamy and delicious!

We r pretty pooped and can't believe we are coming home soon! It's been very enjoyable having three very different experiences so far on this trip. We look forward to some more tomorrow. Bono Notte!

PS. Jeremy has out a few pictures up on Facebook.

Jeremy's edition

March 21st

Ditte is doing the dishes so I guess it's my turn to write. Last night as we were hanging out at the bar, which is a lot different than an american bar, and drinking our hot chocolate, an Italian man kept peeking in on us and finally came over and talked to us. In this small village no one speaks English except for maybe a few vocabulary words. So with the limited English he knew and the limited Italian we knew we were able to tell him we had 4 kids and was totally blown away and proceeded to tell the four or five guys in the bar how many kids we had. He was very animated and it was quite hilarious and came back and asked us a few times, "4 bambino's !?". We told him we were from California and his eyes lit up. He asked if it was hot or cold where we lived and we told him we were near the beach. He then asked, "Do you have TV in California?". We answered yes and he just cracked up and made us crack up. I cant help but think that might have been a phrase he learned in some English class he had at some point. It was quite the good time. This village is so small everybody knows each other so when someone new comes in, everybody is looking and staring, but they are all quite friendly and will give a friendly Ciao or buon giorno. We are going to go back up there tonight and see if hes there and get some hot chocolate. Plus as far as we can tell, it's the only place in town that has WiFi (wee fee in Italian).

Ditte made me go running again today. I can't keep up with her long distance speed, like I could at one point. I did beat her at our sprint at the end of our run, but now that I think about it, I wonder if she was just stroking my ego and let me win. Oh well, any which way it worked!. Now I'm really sore and we are going to do even more walking in Rome starting tomorrow and for the next few days. We are going to drop off the car because it would be a pain to have it where we are staying and all the sites are relatively close (a couple of miles:-)". Has Ditte mentioned that EVERYTHING costs here! You have to pay to use the toilette in public places, pay for parking, pay for autostratte (toll ways that connect everything) and everything is just more expensive here, including gas! I don't think we were anticipating everything being so much more money, just some advice for anyone thinking of coming to Europe anytime soon. I digress. . . . . .

We went into Sulmone today for the Wednesday market, which is in essence a kind of swap meet/flea market with clothing, produce, jewelry, etc. Everybody in town was there and it was hard to find a parking place, so we parked not quite a mile away right in front of a school. On our way back to the car, we found a nice looking restaurant and as soon as Ditte saw there were hamburgers on the menu, she instantly didn't trust there food would be good so we got up and left! To her defense thought, I'm not sure if she mentioned the burger I got in Sorrento, but we think the burger was boiled and it was pretty disgusting. I was just feeling like eating some comfort food and it didn't work out very well. There is no fast food here though. We have seen a McDonald's in the major train station in Napoli, but that was it.

So we won't for a drive through the country side to see lake sconno, which was quite small but very beautiful. Both of us we quite tired, so we went and found an empty parking lot, went pee behind the car, then repositioned the car in the warm sun and took a nap! It was quite nice. I love that my wife isn't afraid to take care of business when there aren't any bathrooms around, I'm quite proud of her! Luckily we learned early to always carry toilet paper because even the public toilets rarely have TP. On our way back, we stopped by this donkey farm which apparently has a breed dating back to Romeo and Juliet time frame (you're jealous you couldn't see the donkeys I know!) The donkey farm was closed (a collective ooohhhhhh from the audience) so we did the next best thing and took some pictures of my cute wife in from of the fence that held these ugly beasts that were heeing and hawing their little hearts out and we jumped in the car left!

I really feel comfortable driving over here now. Ditte had a revelation as to why NO ONE stops at stop signs. It's because they are all in English! The exact same stop signs that we have at home. A stop sign is a yield sign as far as they are concerned and unfortunately Im picking up some bad habits.

Off to the gelateria and bar (which has no gelato right now!) and hopefully get to see our friend that loves California!. Ciao!

The Adriatic sea

March 20, 2012

This morning we tried to wake up at a normal time so we can have some normalcy in our lives. We even had dinner last night around six instead of eight and went to bed by ten! After we had watched part two of Harry Potter and the deathly Hallows. We had some muesli for breakfast that was different from the stuff we are used to, but we ate it anyway. We were out of fruit too since we haven't found a little fruit mart in this place.

We decided to take a drive to the Adriatic sea today and check out some rock formations on the way. The hills all around us and going down to the coas are so pretty right now. Jeremy said it reminds him of the hills around ventura near the beach but with more variation of ups and downs. Everything is so green and the trees are blooming everywhere. Popcorn is defiantly popping here! We passed peach orchards and old and new olive orchards with white blossoms mixed in with the pink. As we were driving along the autostrade, which is a toll road, we came across little hamlets up in the hills, usually with some kind of medieval parapet crowning the hillside and the rest of the buildings below it.

We found the calanchi rock formations and thought we could hike down, but it ended up being this gravelly strep road, so we drove down part of the way until we realized we weren't actually going to be able to hike to it. So we turned around next to one of the olive orchards and as Jeremy said, rally car raced back up the hill. The gravel was pretty loose in some parts and steep and there were lots of turns, but it was pretty fun!

We could see the ocean from the hills and the high fog was kind of blowing in and out. W even brought our swimsuits this time, but it was to breezy and the water was very cold like the pacific right now! We of course stuck our feet in but only lasted a few minutes. The water had a few wind waves and is a beautiful turquoise color as well. All along the shore there are beach houses and a train track in between the houses and the beach. There are also these really tall pine trees along the beach that are pruned to look like really tall umbrellas. Between the trees there are some public picnic tables and a few parks scattered along the way. On the actual sand are all these small buildings where tourists can rent boats or lounge chairs, changing rooms, etc... Of course they are all closed because it's not the season, so we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. We put our towels in between a couple of these and read the Hunger Games out loud for about an hour.

We were getting a little restless, so we decided to take a walk along the beach. Since we were walking into the end, it made it even colder, so Jeremy wanted to go for a little jog! We went for about a mile, stopping a few times to check out the cool shells everywhere. We kept finding these cool big corkscrew ones, but there was always something living in it! Keep in mind we are both in jeans and I'm wearing my leaner clogs and carrying a purse! I was not fast, but it did warm us up. We turned around after a mile and headed back, still looking for at least one corkscrew shell that was resident free. We finally found not one, but two! We want to make something cool with all these shells when we come back. The shells are currently soaking in a bath of warm water and dish soap to hopefully get the smell out of them! W don't want any stinky dead creatures in our suit cases! That happened to us in Denmark!

We had a really pleasant drive back, after stopping for gelato at this very nice pasticcierri. I got pistachio with this ciaco fondante that was so rich and yummy! We of course had to buy some pastries for the car ride too! Te drive is about an hour, but it went by really fast as we read more Hunger Games. Jeremy offered to let me drive, but I told him no since I could read to him and navigate and that has worked out really well!

We made a pit stop in Sulmona which is the next largest town to us and found a supermarcato to get some fruit and veggies. I'm sure we bought way too much food here, but we'll have to use it up. I think it is still cheaper then eating out all the time. It has been nice to have meals at "home". We do miss not eating pizza every day and ready for it again when we get to Rome! :)

We drove around Solmona some more, looking for the aqueduct where the market will be tomorrow. We want to see what is there and if there is anything fun! It's going to be tomorrow under this aqueduct in the main square.

So for a quick Italian lesson, any time you see a "ce" or "ci" together, it makes a "ch" sound. If there is an "sce" or "sci" it makes a "sh" sound. If the "c" is with an "h" like in pistachio, it makes a "c" sound. That's why ciao sounds like chow!

Oh and has is about 1.88 euros per liter! Very expensive, but we've only had to fill up once so far. And when you are driving, stop signs and lines in the road are more of a suggestion. But up here in the country it is much better then in the city. There are not as many scooters, too, which makes likes lots better. We love and miss you all!

Secrets of the Italians...

Some things we have learned about the Italians: always carry toilet paper. Most of the bathrooms are out and always carry a little change in our pocket to pay for the bathroom!

-the napkins are like rough paper

-the pillows are like cardboard wrapped in batting. Seriously, you can hold a pillow up and it will stay horizontal. It won't flop down like my nice down alternative pillow at home.

-although the driving is crazy, you really don't see many dings in cars or accidents, even with all of the scooters zipping around the cars and pedestrians

-they are friendly and wiling to help, even if you don't speak their language. They love it when you try.

-so far out of all the pizza we have had, the basil leaves have been sparse! But it still tastes yummy and is like the pizza at Naples near Disneyland

-EVERYTHING costs money, parking, Internet, using the fridge in your room, using the gym, bathroom, getting into a lot of places. We have just come to terms with this and have to be okay with it!

-the love futbol! Go Napoli! There are no other sports here.

-most everything is really old. These stairs we walked up from the beach today were from the 14th century, and by the way, since there is a lack of public bathrooms, Jeremy has found many unique places to go!

-smoking is everywhere, but fortunately they can't smoke inside unless it is their own home.