Don't let the smiles fool you. It's been two weeks, and I am only now able to talk about the experience without getting a little dizzy and nauseated.
To begin: There is nothing more exhausting than staying at home raising two toddlers boys. That is, except, going on "vacation" with those same boys.
I decided in the spring that I would "push through" the heat of the southern Italian summer this year, rather than hopping a plane back to the states. Though I was warned about the heat, the humidity, the store closings, the absence of activities for the kids, and more-- it seemed like such a cop-out to miss out on even one bit of our amazing first year living abroad. How bad could it be, anyways?
Turns out I am not nearly as smart as I might look. We spent most of the month of July sitting up to our necks in a small above-ground pool just to keep the heat rash at bay. When August began the only choices for daily activities seemed to involve sunburn and/or heatstroke. It is at this time that I decided that we needed to go on vacation for a week to somewhere with air conditioning and a nice pool. Already freckled to my summer-limit, I decided to forego the beaches and head North and inland to Umbria and Tuscany-- the fabled lands of lore in Italy.
Look at a map.
All of the cities that I chose for our tour of Umbria and Tuscany lie well inland. Because of the mechanics of weather, inland cities have more dramatic swings in temperature than coastal cities. So while Naples topped out at a toasty 95 degrees Fahrenheit during our planned week, Tuscan days were forecast well over 100.
Cue the air conditioner failure on the Pathfinder.
About a week prior to our departure, Pathy lost the ability to push air conditioning except on the highest setting. When I took it in to the mechanic, he said it would be better to "take a chance" that it would keep working for our trip rather than have him tinker with it, because if he broke it, he would not be able to source parts until September.
And off we went.
Rather than the play by play of the entire
10: Escalators required to get you up into most medieval city centers. (Number actually working in high season in Italy, 4. Number of times you must ride them in order to entertain your sightseeing-numbed toddlers, 18.)
9: Granitas ingested in a 7-day period by each boy.
8: Earliest hour in the evening that dinner can be obtained in the summer in Italy. (Makes for some cantankerous evening hours)
7. Bottles of water required to fill up our radiator in the three separate instances we overheated the Pathy while driving with the AC on the only possible setting in 104 degree heat. (Aside on this topic included below)
6. Cities visited during our 7-day adventure-- Orvieto, Montepulciano, Pienza, Sienna, Arezzo, Perugia. (Now go back to #10: Escalators, multiply by the toddler entertainment coefficient, and pity the parents the seasickness we had to endure)
5. Drive-hours for the trip home. (Also, number of potty-breaks required by the elder-- the last one was a "going native" experience of dropping trou and aiming for the nearest available freeway weed)
4. Pharmacies visited before finding ONE open to fill a prescription for Amoxicillin for a Sinus Infection which appeared immediately upon arrival in Tuscany.
3. Projectile vomiting incidents.
2. Car Seats covered in vomit.
1. Moment of time where we considered simply setting the whole scene on fire and running into the woods half-naked singing the National Anthem.
Then we arrived home and mutually agreed it was the BEST TRIP YET!! :) :)
Nobody was seriously injured, irreversibly scarred, lost, or abducted. This is pretty much the success point for vacations right now.
Next year, I'm thinking Disney Cruise. For the kids, that is. While they are gone, Hubby and I will go back to Tuscany and drink some wine this time.
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Aside: On this trip, during Pathy boilover #3, I asked hubby to pull over to the side of the road where I could see an older Italian man watering his garden. I told hubby I would ask the man for a few bottles of water to fill the radiator. As I approached, I asked him in my best level #1 Italian for beginners way whether we could have a few bottles of water. He told me that he was deaf, and he couldn't understand a thing I said, but that he thought that I needed water, and that he believed water should be free for everyone. Mind you, he didn't have many teeth, and had a pronounced lisp, and also said something about the English people being either the devil or bulls with horns. Fortunately, being an American, the water offer was still open. Being very proud of his well water, he insisted that after using it for the truck, that I should drink the remainder. He was so adamant about this, that he insisted I drink some (and tell him how good it was) prior to returning to the car. Hubby filled the radiator but suggested that we really needed two additional bottles. I returned to the gardening Italian, who again began telling me something about either friends, family or neighbors that had been to America, and how the English were the devil. He then offered to have us over for dinner. Which is pretty much how every encounter I have with the locals seems to go.
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