The Halfway Point

Our adventure is halfway over. We are feeling extremely fortunate to have this opportunity and the many, many experiences we've had. As Dave pointed out earlier this week, any slice of this trip could qualify as 'a trip of a lifetime'.

Tonight we had our weekly dinner at the local pizzeria and talked over how things have gone so far.

What do you miss most (that's not human, because, obviously we miss people)?
   Dave- Our shower. And the grill.
   Ben- Michigan Tigers (Soccer team- we decided that this answer would qualify)
   Ethan- My V-Tech watch
   Lindsay- My bed. No, the washer and dryer.

The boys being goofy on the bus.

What's your favorite thing about Italy?
   Dave- Taking Walks
   Ben- Playing Pokemon Go
   Ethan- Learning Italian
   Lindsay- Public transit has made daily life and tourism easy

Ben: POKE'MON GO.

Pokemon got to catch them all. Hello guess what I got Pokemon go. I am very good. 
better than Ethan. My highest Pokemon is a grumping. It is very good.
no jultian.

Ben:Soccer

Hello,

I am having a very fun time playing soccer.

At the Prato with friends.
everywhere with everyone.
I also got a Ronaldo jersey.

I Dolomiti

As you may have read, we spent a weekend in the Dolomites snowboarding. We rented a car and left Padova right after the boys were done with school at 1:00 on Friday. The boys did their homework in the back, then enjoyed playing video games and listening to music.

Mountains! From the Autostrada
(freeway)

It only takes an hour and a half to be at the foot of the Dolomites from Padova. Since we had time, we took the scenic route through the national park. The park itself was really nothing special- it was when we reached the far side of the park, in the mountains, that we had great views and a fun drive. There were lots of climbing S-curves, small towns, and snow. We stopped a couple of times to get photos.

We started at the bottom

From outside of our
apartment

The Dolomites appeared very 'sharp' to me. They were unlike any mountains I'd seen before. There are a lot of cliff faces and dramatic peaks, which is due to their geological makeup and the unique way that they were formed. Some of the best views came while we were snowboarding, and I didn't stop to take pictures. At one point, our piste (run) was right at the base of a cliff that was thousands of feet high. When the light hit the mountain in the afternoon... it was pretty awesome. 

The skiing. Ethan was especially excited about the weekend, and proved it by waking up at 5:45 in the morning, ready to go. Of course, he's the same kid we have to drag out of bed at 7:15 to get to school. We got him to rest a while longer, then took the car five minutes down the hill to the lift. The ski area was called Ski Civetta. There are several access points to the mountain, with the ski area in the middle. We stayed on one blue run for the first hour while the boys got used to skiing. Ben was reluctant to leave that run, but when we returned to it at the end of the day he said it was too easy. The colors here are a bit different than I've seen in Colorado. The easiest runs were blue, and those included groomed runs and catwalks.

I do need to mention that skiing was much more affordable here than in the U.S. We all rented gear for two days, and it only cost us 110 Euro. Ethan's ski pass was free, and for the other three of us it was about 100 Euro for two days of skiing.

The day couldn't have gone better. We stopped several times for snacks and lunch to keep the boys fed, and their spirits were high. Even when they got stuck on catwalks, their frustration was short-lived and disappeared once we were moving again. The weather was perfect for us- 40 degrees and sunny, which made the snow soft and fun to ski. We finally got on our last run at 4:00. It was red (medium difficulty), because that was what led to our parking area. Both boys pretty much went down the mountain standing up, and Ben decided that he was NOT returning the next day if we had to take the same route down.

We got gelato, because that's what Americans do in Italy, even when you are snowboarding. After showering, we headed up the street to a local restaurant for dinner. Then we piled together to watch Michigan play basketball.

It was a pretty perfect day, and we got to repeat it on Sunday, since Ben grudgingly agreed to return to the hill. Ethan made sure we were ready for another seven hours of snowboarding with a 5:00 wake-up call.

Go Blue! Half of us stayed
awake for the whole game.

Ethan: Questions about you

What are you doing today?
Who do you feel about me away for a whale?
Do you what to come here after you guys learn a little Italian|?

Ethan: school and questions

I hope you are having a good time with out me. Am I missing some thing fun like a really fun game that I have never leaned before? I hope not. I probably would really like it I really like everything though.

Rudderless: Culture Shock

I've had a rough week. There is no Starbucks here.

It's not so much that I miss Starbucks itself (though I do). I had envisioned that I'd be able to spend some time working at coffee shops while I'm here. It's such a part of the Ann Arbor, university town culture, and I love it. But it just isn't done here.

For one, eating and working are not combined here. Many people don't even sit down at the coffee shop, they just take their espresso quickly at the counter and move on. Those who sit are generally there to visit with friends. When we did ask for the wifi password at one bar, it was a string of letters and numbers on a sticker, on top of the cash register, behind the bar, underneath the calculator- which shows you how infrequently people ask for the wifi password.

This is one small cultural difference that can easily be worked around, but in combination with literally everything else that is new and different here, it's made for a rough week. I don't function well without structure and routine in my life. For the first few weeks, after getting the boys off to school I had a purpose each day. Learn this, go there, figure that out, etc. Now it feels like I drop them off and I'm purposeless, drifting around and trying to find things to fill my time.

I'm fairly certain that this is being compounded by culture shock. I've traveled a bit, and also studied culture shock as part of my teacher training. When living in a new place, there is a period of time that is the 'honeymoon', where everything is new and enjoyable. After that comes a period of homesickness and struggle, followed by gradual improvement and acceptance. I'm floating around somewhere in the 'grumpy and struggling to improve' phase. I'm tired of apologizing for not being able to make myself understood. I'm tired of waiting for the bus. I would rather not fight the teenagers for room on the bus in the morning. Being out in this new world is frustrating and exhausting.

So I'd rather just stay home. Which is why the last week has been so rough. I'm also tired of doing laundry and dishes. I'm tired of studying Italian at the kitchen table. I've already done two puzzles. And played enough solitaire. Wifi only works in one room here. Man, I'm starting to sound whiny.

This morning, I got up determined to have a better day. I went to the coffee shop around the corner, where the barista has been friendly and taken the time to help me with my broken Italian. I sat for half an hour and (gasp) worked on a few things while I was there. Then I found the post office and figured out which form to use to pay the bill for the boys' school (more on that another time). Finally, I succeeded in getting Dave some medicine for his sore throat at the pharmacy. I may not leave again until it's time to pick up the boys, but that was a win for today.

This town is big enough that there should be a Starbucks. McDonald's doesn't even have mochas, just a regular Italian coffee bar. Though now that I think about it, I did see a guy working on his laptop there the last time I took the boys...

Ethan:snowboarding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I loved loved loved 1000 loves snowboarding. it was so so so so so so fun fun fun fun. I have to go there again! Snowboarding is fun fun fun fun too! Their mountains are so high too! It is very very very very very  cool to go down too! No I am not kidding actually it's so fun though! Please leave a comment. my favorite part of that was going up the chair lift.

Venezia... The Post with Many Pictures

Excited

Venice was not on my bucket list. I honestly thought that it was going to end up overrated and tourist-y, not to mention expensive. Going to the Venetian in Las Vegas was close enough, right?

I was very wrong. Venice is amazing.

We visited for a few hours at the beginning of January (picture here and Ethan's post here) and got a small taste of what the city was like. Riding the vaporetto (water bus) was exciting, but cold. The architecture was impressive, and the tiny streets were fun to explore. Lunch with our friends was fun and delicious. The boys were intrigued by the scaffolding they had around town for when there were floods. We knew we would return at least once, so we weren't worried about trying to do everything during that visit.

Also excited

When we told some of the other parents here that we were going to Venezia, they were concerned about there being 'acqua alta', or flooding. Dave checked the forecast, and I did some Internet research to learn more about it. Despite the concerns of the Padovans, everything we found suggested that the flooding would be within the norms. The weekend would be a fine time to visit, because the city continues to operate normally during small floods.

Immediately after leaving the train station, we could see that the Grand Canal was high. The boys changed into the rain boots that we bought at the market that morning while Dave bought vaporetto tickets. There were warnings that some of the stops were closed due to flooding, but we rode all the way to St. Mark's on the regular route.

Ben: SNOWBORDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey people whats up? I will tell you we went snowboarding. It was so much fun.

I will show you my pictures and tell you.  I loved it there was a lot of easy ones. 

It was so fun to go down the hard one to. 

This is the box that leads to my favorite and the one I could do jumps on.

This was the one I liked the second best. 

I really liked one of the blue ones.

It was not very steep. There was also a box that we sat in to get to a very fun one. I could do wall jumps. they where my favorite.

                             

These are my second favorite.