Post by Lydia!!!!

Hey y’all, it’s Lydia here! Kirsten coerced me into writing a post... “If you’re bad at math you have to be good at writing”. We shall see. 😂 I write this sitting on the bus, out of breath, thanking God we could literally flag our bus down and not have to be deserted in San Gimagno. But more on that later, let me start with Siena. After arriving in Siena around 1 pm, we flagged down a taxi to give our aching legs a break. (See blog post about standing on train for hours!!) As our taxi driver told us he was from Albania, our eyes went wide with fear. We have seen “Taken”!! When he questioned if we were traveling alone, we quickly replied that our father was arriving in one hour!(#NOTtaken) Siena is a charming, beautiful city with many hills and narrow streets. Grace would shriek with terror at Kirsten and I to get out of the road as the cars would speed by. We narrowly evaded death many times... 😂 With my (lack of) sense of direction and our inability to read google maps, we miraculously found our way to the Duomo, a beautiful church dedicated to Saint Catherine of Siena. The church was magnificent and after we viewed it, Anna said she was in “need” of a gelato break... (different city same need. 😂) We then went into a different church and saw the head of Catherine of Siena; Kirsten remains unconvinced it is the true head of the great Saint! Kirsten introduced us to apertivo time and then we enjoyed a lovely dinner of pizza margherita. (Splitting it, as we were all full from said apertivo time. 😂) The next morning we took a bus to San Gimagno, a tiny town outside of Siena with a stunning view. As we walked the cobble stone streets, Kirsten laughed and told the story of how my mom, Rebekah and her had sprinted through the streets to catch their bus just a year before as they had unknowingly gone to the wrong bus station. Little did we know the same fate bestowed us. Our phone batteries and our will to walk in the bitter cold were dying so we ducked into a cafe to recharge our phones and spirits. Poor Anna laid on a chair and slept as Kirsten ran to the near pharmacy to get her cold medicine. The time was nearing 2:30, our bus was about to depart and Kirsten still was not back. At 2:27 I saw her walking down the streets and we motioned for her to RUN. We sprinted towards the bus stop just to see our bus drive away. Kirsten then said the bus arrived at 2:40 and I had gotten the time wrong. We waited and waited for the bus that would never arrive. We decided to run to the other bus stop across town. As we walked, we saw a bus coming towards us... OUR bus!!! We stood in the road and waved our hands and hallelujah, the driver stopped! He could not leave the bambinos in the street!! We made it back to Siena safe and sound! Getting to Assisi is a different story I am too tired to write at the moment. Now, I am sitting in our hotel in Rome reflecting on our trip and feeling thankful for my parents who gave me the opportunity to go on such an incredible holiday with my sisters!!

Ciao,

Lydia 💗🌟

Florence!

Florence began with me falling into the arms of a mountaineer with a 3 feet long grey beard. No, literally. It turns out that I weigh less than my 187 pound suitcase even after eating pizza after pizza so when I got off the train the suitcase flung me forward and next thing I know I’m flying through the Florence train station into the arms of Mountaineer Man. Anna later admitted that she gave me “a little push” to make sure I got off the train in time. We then scurried away from the train station, where I noticed a heavier presence of armed soldiers than I ever had before in Florence. I know they’re here to keep us safe but they are terrifying with their machine guns! Our apartment was in a lovely part of the city on the same street as Valentino and Gucci and Burberry (“these are my people” exclaimed Anna staring into the shop windows) so we felt safe. The apartment was modern with a marble shower and a large living room which was perfect for tea time! Mom did well!! This trip was a bit last minute so apparently it was one of the only apartments left in the city (probably because of the cost!) but no complaints here!!! We all fell asleep quickly, even Anna and Grace (this alone was worth the cost of the apartment so that Anna could be comforted going to sleep knowing she was by “her people” 😂😂😂). The next morning we found an adorable bar across the street with reasonable prices (I refuse to pay more than 1 euro for a croissant or cup of coffee because I know that’s how much it should cost unless it is a tourist trap) where we gobbled down croissants (but not chocolate ones) and coffee. On our walk to Santa Cruce, Anna saw chocolate croissants inside a bar. I gave her a euro and told her how to order one in Italian. She then went into the bar alone and ordered a chocolate croissant “la porta via” (to go). Anna nibbled on her second croissant in 20 minutes during our walk to the church. Inside the church, the tombs of Michelangelo, Dante and Galileo awaited us!!!  Frescos painted by Giotto adorned the walls and we eagerly followed along on the interactive i-pad tour guide. After spending a couple hours in the church we headed to a pizza place I had scouted out online, where we enjoyed our best pizza yet in Italy. I got pizza Napoli which has anchovies. Grace wanted to branch out so she wanted to try it. After seeing the fish on the pizza she no longer wanted to branch out and continued to devour her pizza margarita. 

After lunch we saw the David. I remain unconvinced that grace and Anna were old enough to appreciate it without shyly averting their eyes, but my mom thought they were so we toured the Uffizi with tickets she had generously purchased for all 4 of us. It turns out that children under 18 are free, so when I return on another trip with Ben or my niece (any bambina yet Katie???!?) I will not be scammed again and won’t purchase tickets for them. Exploring Florence was delightful but one by one we began to crash around 7pm. A nasty virus somehow found us and by 7:30 we were too tired to take another step.  We anxiously looked for somewhere to eat but each time we stopped to read a menu we saw a greedy restaurant owner (literally) rub his hands together and begin to walk toward us to convince us to dine at his barely serviceable and expensive tourist trap of a restaurant. Ultimately we found the least tourist trap of all the tourist trap restaurants and had fun eating together. The food was nothing to write home about but the atmosphere was lovely (dark with candles and small—only 4 tables in the whole place). After dinner I went to send a Snapchat and was horrified at the face looking back at me.   I asked Lydia why she hadn’t told me I had mascara drooping down my face. She said with a laugh that she thought it was just bags under my eyes, which was my cue to head us back to our apartment to get to sleep early. It wasn’t early enough because when our alarms went off at 7:30Am in order to make the 9am train I couldn’t get Lydia to get up and grace and Anna were still sleeping. I decided to let them sleep in hopes they’d sleep off their virus. Unfortunately we all woke up at 9 with inflamed throats and pounding heads. We gobbled down ibuprofen and hot tea and,  skipping the croissants,  raced to the train station to make the 10:10 train. We arrived just in time at 10:02 to find that the 10:10 train had been  CANCELLED.  MAMA MIA. I found a 10:28 train and regrouped by ushering everyone to a world renowned cafe—MCDONALDS— for a quick croissant and coffee. We hopped on the 10:28 train and hauled our luggage car after car looking for a seat. We sat for a short three stops before getting off to change trains. I was terrified that we wouldn’t get off at the right stop so I had made the Trenitalia man write it down after I heard him say “get off at the Heroine stop” Good thing I did because what he wrote was quite different than what I heard him say “Emoli.” He also told us we would wait 10 minutes for our connecting train, but in typical Italian style we waited 50 minutes. While waiting we enjoyed a second round of chocolate croissants and cafe americano! I never get tired of chocolate croissants!!! We had fun at the Emoli train station, located in the middle of nowhere really. A few locals popped in, but more or less, we were on our own to enjoy our second breakfast.  The train ended up being packed—so full that we had to ride standing up balancing our suitcases and backpacks for 1.5 hours! Anna and Grace were troopers! I have been amazed at how wonderful, kind, and even tempered  they have been on this trip. They have become noticeably aware of how small they are compared to the great, big world filled with great, big people and that’s humbling to anyone who realizes. Moreover it’s inspiring to see ones so young realize their littleness. Nothing like seeing the works and the grave of Michelangelo among others to have that effect. 

SkyWay!!!

As I write this we are walking along side a road, probably 2 miles outside courmayeur. we think. Stefania drove us to Skyway (a cable car to the top of Monte Blanc) and we were supposed to take the bus back but waiting on a bus in Italy is like “waiting for rain in a drought: useless and disappointing.” (*gag* Anna made me say this) And so we we walk. 

Our time in Courmayeur passed too quickly. Something about gelato twice a day makes the day go by fast. On our second day, Anna scouted out the best bakery in town “Mario’s” and proceeded to walk the 10 minutes there every morning to get a chocolate brioche (with Lydia and Grace, I normally stayed behind to blow dry my hair [see previous post on blow dryers in italy]). She wanted one in the afternoon too, but when the croissants are gone, they’re gone, so in the afternoon she settled for gelato. In fact one morning she didn’t get to Mario’s until 10:50AM and all the brioches were gone so she “had to get” a gelato instead. Gelato for breakfast!

For New Years friends of Stefania invited us to their house. It is always difficult, and more than a little awkward, walking into a party of strangers, but particularly when the strangers speak a foreign language. I was proud of the way Anna and Grace immediately jumped into a game of hide n seek with the other Italian children, most of whom knew ZERO English. Lydia and I also were outside our comfort zone, but by the year’s end we were sad to say goodbye to our new friends! We left right after midnight so that the little girls could go to sleep and I could, let’s just say, not get a good nights sleep. Stefania’s nephew invited me out with him and his friends and we had a great time at the Disco!!!

Earlier in the day we went to skyway. We ate lunch and toasted to the new year with a glass of Prosecco 4,000 feet up with a view over looking Courmayeur. Lydia and I had prosciutto and some-kind of cheese-sandwiches. The bread was like a focaccia and they were delicious!!! After lunch Anna and Grace skipped and danced and laughed through a few feet of snow for awhile to get used to the altitude (they both got altitude sickness at the Grand Canyon so they were worried about the height) We then took the skyline another 7,000 feet up to the top of the tallest mountain in all of Europe!!!!!! Skyline advertises that Monte Blanc is the 8th world wonder. Lydia pointed out that Monte Blanc is the 8th world wonder of 7 world wonders. World wonder or not,  the experience was spectacular. Being on top of Monte Blanc is like being on an island in the sky.  You stand eye level with the birds soaring through the sky and pray that the biting wind doesn’t blow a bird into your face 😂😂. When we got down the mountain, Anna ran to the bar to ask if they had chocolate croissants. Something got lost in translation because they served her a mediocre hot chocolate and served me a ridiculously expensive check. 

reflecting on courmayeur it’s hard to say how we filled up a day in the small, but anything but quaint, mountain village.  We ice skated and went sledding, shopped and ate. And ate. Anna will miss Mario’s very much. In the words of Annaliese, “if the trip ended with Courmayeur, I’d be happy.” 

We are now on a train leaving Florence to Siena, but Florence deserves a post of itself, and I am too tired to write one. Somehow we all got horrible sore throats and headaches so our first stop in Siena will be the Farmacia! Here’s to putting my Italian to the test with the the pharmacist 🤣🤣