Now reporting from Massa, Italy

Where to begin?

First off, we made it. We are in Italy now, mostly moved into our fifth floor apartment, looking out towards the Med. Huge thanks to Jeff and Jenny for helping us get to the airport on Monday. There are already many fun little stories to tell.


We went to the airport extra early, just to be safe. I had been given the run-around on our seats, which was disconcerting. We ended up spending about a half an hour at the ticket counter, because they had record of us travelling with two infants on laps, instead of one in a seat. I had to plead with Lufthansa to provide us with good seating, all together. Then we stopped for lunch before going through security, and the restaurant was a bit slow in serving us. So we went through security as fast as we could (given four little girls with baby dolls and a stroller), and ran to the gate, and they were just closing the doors! Hooray, the opened them up for us, and we scurried onboard. At least no waiting time at the gate!

We ended up having two rows (middle four seats) to ourselves, which was nice. The flight wasn't completely full, so we even found a window seat so that the girls could peek at Scotland and Ireland from above. Maisie had her moments on the plane, and Cami felt queasy at one point, but overall they were all complete gems. When Maisie became impatient and needed to move around, either Jess or I would let her walk up and down the aisles. She would stop and say "Hi!" to each and every person.




I ordered a vegetarian meal, to conform to my naturopath's orders, and kid's meals for all but Cami. Turns out the kids' meals were quite good! Breaded chicken, corn, potatoes, great fruit, cheese, candy, dessert, bread. Wow. It made the regular meal seem even less appealing than normal.

The interesting thing about having so many little girls on an international flight is how they each can adjust to the time change in their own creative way. Translation: Cami slept when we asked her to try. Hailey slept later, only when I bargained with her. Maisie took two or three good naps- one was quite long. And Ellie, well Ellie stepped on me right when I was on the verge of nodding off. So I went without sleep then and in fact most of the time, except maybe 30 minutes when we had a four hour layover in Frankfurt, and Jess got maybe one hour on the flight. Aunt Joyce was a trooper, also going without almost any sleep, and helping out in so many ways throughtout the journey.

The short flight from Frankfurt to Florence was just long enough for Ellie and Hailey to sleep for a few more minutes. Those who were awake enjoyed seeing the snow-covered alps.



At the airport in Florence (Firenze), we met Luigi. He's the "professional driver" (aka taxi driver) for Jeppesen Marine, and he helped us with our luggage- driving it to Massa, with us following behind in our minivan. Luigi is known for insanely fast driving, so I decided to take it slow and risk losing the guy. But he was understanding- maybe of the fact that I couldn't take curves in the mini-van at, what, 160km/h, so he kept a more reasonable pace.


The apartment is great. View of the sea, snow-capped mountains behind, and a castle that is lit up bright at night. We have three bedrooms and two baths, and we figured out how to turn on the heat. That means we won't be as cold as we were last night! Cute little kitchen with new counter and appliances, though no microwave, toaster oven, or disposal. Utensils are also a bit lacking. Thanks Linda for the advice on packing our own knives!


There is a tiny little elevator. They gave us a special key, "In case anyone gets locked inside of it" (!!!). It's too small even for the double stroller, so Jess may have some challenges once Joyce heads home to Portland. We have parking space under the building, but I'm hesitant to use it because the minivan is so big and the parking spot is so small!

We've been trying to catch up on sleep, and adjusting to the time change. Each daughter is on a different schedule, with Hailey dozing off at the dinner table, and Ellie still going strong at 12:53am. She's watching Mariposa on the iPod.

Unpacking is almost complete. Marnie's good advice on packing helped- check out the efficient folding that Jessica demonstrates..


The larger general grocery store is about a ten minute walk to the north, towards the center (Centro) of Massa. So far, nobody in the store, and only one in nine or ten people I've tried to speak to in Massa, knows any English. That's actually made it a lot more fun! I can say, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Italian" which seems to at least garnish some sympathy. Oh, yeah, back to the grocery store. What fun! An "etto" is 100 grams. I ordered "due etto" of some cheese (fontina?) which tastes different than I expected. The breads, meats, cheeses, and seafood selection is fabulous. We made delicious little mozzarella and salame sandwiches last night. Gnocchi and salad in our apartment tonight. The girls are having a blast with breadsticks and Nutella.

Today we did more grocery shopping, and we pushed the double stroller around Massa, finding roads that are safer than others for our troops. Of course, we stopped for gelato.

I only got lost twice on my drive to work this afternoon. I needed to head in for a meeting, and tomorrow I'll start catching up on email and spending time with the likes of Paulo, Maurizio, Francesco, Roberto, Alessandro, and Manlio! Roberto is "trying to learn better English by watching the American show, 'Friends' ".