In which I think I'm back on the proper posting order, morning through night.
(After last night's betrayal of the weather report, I woke this morning to dark skies and again hid in my bed like a wuss while I cursed the weather channel's magic 8 ball. Until Steven walked in and informed me that actually the darkness was due to AMAZING blackout blinds and it was actually gorgeous and sunshiny.) (I want those blinds)
Our morning started with Daddy feeling better. Hurting, swollen, well-wrapped, but better. (And laughing about Mother's attempt to flood the bedroom in the middle of the night, hoping to use the hot shower to heat the room)
We pretty much just detoxed. Steven and Gabbie returned the rental car and there was so incredibly great rejoicing at never having two !@#$ cars again. The kids and I went to the grocery store
and I remembered how much more I like shopping in other languages when I can actually read what it is. (As opposed to Ukraine. My reading ability for Cyrillic is pretty bad) Food is good, Italian bread is wonderful, unpacking is lovely, doing laundry is fantastic, and, once they returned from the rental car stuffs, all was, if not well, at least better.
Our one necessity for Tuesday was picking up our tickets for the Papal Audience. So around 4pm, we schlepped the kids out to the bus stop and between GoogleMaps and the helpful Roman signs, we got on the proper buses - listening to the kids squeal with delight every time we passed a monument they recognized - and to Santa Susanna. Oh, did I mention that the American church in Rome (nearly every country has a home base church there. It's almost like an embassy for Catholics) is one of the few churches that I've ever found for my namesake? It's a beautiful church, filled with paintings of her life. I loved wandering around it and just appreciating poor kicked-off-the-calendar-by-St.-Clare Susanna. Except that it's closed for repairs.
Bah.
But there was no rain. And we only had one car. Which was happily parked back at the apartment.
Since the Papal Audience was the following day and that was one of the primary purposes for our visit, we needed to find a wheelchair for Daddy. WE knew it was possible to rent them in the city, but we weren't sure where. Apparently the place to get wheelchairs is called a "sanataria" - which in Italian means "health" - but eventually made me feel like I belonged in a sanitarium. We went from pharmacy to pharmacy, asking each time and getting a few bits of direction with lots of hand motions. It was shockingly reminiscent to another pharmacy search in Donetsk many years ago.
Long story short (too late), we eventually found it, took dozens of pictures of street signs so we could find the sanitaria to return it,
took it back home on the bus, and had a lovely (albeit appallingly late) dinner of roasted chicken, fun-shaped pasta,
Our morning started with Daddy feeling better. Hurting, swollen, well-wrapped, but better. (And laughing about Mother's attempt to flood the bedroom in the middle of the night, hoping to use the hot shower to heat the room)
We pretty much just detoxed. Steven and Gabbie returned the rental car and there was so incredibly great rejoicing at never having two !@#$ cars again. The kids and I went to the grocery store
and I remembered how much more I like shopping in other languages when I can actually read what it is. (As opposed to Ukraine. My reading ability for Cyrillic is pretty bad) Food is good, Italian bread is wonderful, unpacking is lovely, doing laundry is fantastic, and, once they returned from the rental car stuffs, all was, if not well, at least better.
Our one necessity for Tuesday was picking up our tickets for the Papal Audience. So around 4pm, we schlepped the kids out to the bus stop and between GoogleMaps and the helpful Roman signs, we got on the proper buses - listening to the kids squeal with delight every time we passed a monument they recognized - and to Santa Susanna. Oh, did I mention that the American church in Rome (nearly every country has a home base church there. It's almost like an embassy for Catholics) is one of the few churches that I've ever found for my namesake? It's a beautiful church, filled with paintings of her life. I loved wandering around it and just appreciating poor kicked-off-the-calendar-by-St.-Clare Susanna. Except that it's closed for repairs.
Bah.
But there was no rain. And we only had one car. Which was happily parked back at the apartment.
Since the Papal Audience was the following day and that was one of the primary purposes for our visit, we needed to find a wheelchair for Daddy. WE knew it was possible to rent them in the city, but we weren't sure where. Apparently the place to get wheelchairs is called a "sanataria" - which in Italian means "health" - but eventually made me feel like I belonged in a sanitarium. We went from pharmacy to pharmacy, asking each time and getting a few bits of direction with lots of hand motions. It was shockingly reminiscent to another pharmacy search in Donetsk many years ago.
Long story short (too late), we eventually found it, took dozens of pictures of street signs so we could find the sanitaria to return it,
took it back home on the bus, and had a lovely (albeit appallingly late) dinner of roasted chicken, fun-shaped pasta,
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