Italy At Last

On May 31 we arrived in Rome. I heard many different languages including Spanish and Italian. We had to get our passport stamped and the line took at least 30 minutes to get through.  This is always my most hated part of traveling. We got our rental car and were on our way to my Mom's friends, Foe and Justins', rented Chateau just a few kilometers in Castellina in Chianti, named Gabbianuzo.  Here they use the metric system, so kilometers, Celsius, ounces instead of miles, Fahrenheit, and cups.   It would take us about 3 hours so we stopped at a service station for a snack.  There are exits all along the "A" freeways, which are the same as our interstates, but are also toll roads that are only on and off with gas stations and market with snacks, coffee and sandwich bars.  They are marked "stazione di servizio" translated is service station. Guess what I got, a Nutella snack pack with Gatorade...no new foods yet.  Dad started to groan and explained to Mom that we lost our GPS signal. It's OK, because we found the dirt road. I saw a tall building in the distance. Mom said it was a castle. We saw many houses with ivy on them. Ivy is my favorite plant.  All of the towns are built on hills so in the olden days they were better protected from attacks. We came to a steep hill and it started to rain. We inched down the hill. I saw a house that was all stone. 

We parked and we walked to the door. We went in and saw Foe with her 3 year old daughter named Georgia. Foe hugged us and asked Alec and I if we wanted cookies. On the way to the kitchen we saw a dining room where in the states would have been closed here it is completely open to the outside. The house was totally exposed to the wind and bugs (right now a fly is buzzing around me). Justin showed us our room. It was wonderful and even had a library. We took a dip in the pool and played outside. Soon it was time for dinner and we had pizza...yeah, no new foods yet. Soon all the little kids went to bed. Alec and I were still awake and allowed to have some gelato (very creamy ice cream).

I'm looking forward to our next adventure.