We had a good relaxing day today. It was sunny and Frunty accompanied me around town to explore. We had fun just throwing rocks into the ocean. Later, we met up with the rest of the crew for a little play time on the beach before lunch in the apartment. The Mommy and I made a plan to go to Milan together and enjoy a little R&R without the boys. It will give the boys and grandparents a little 1-on-1 time which I think everyone will appreciate.

I just finished feeding and putting the boys to bed. It was fairly easy because they were both very tired, from yesterdays travels, and today was a long day. I say it was easy but I had to keep tight discipline and not give any chance for the hysteria that can snowball into an avalanche of hyper-activity. The Mommy went out with my parents to a local restaurant which helped me because it meant there were no distractions. Earlier in the day, my dad had selected a fish on the menu so the chef apparently sourced the supply from the fisherman whose shop is right next door to our apartment.  Today was a long day because we made the 45 minute train journey to Genova to visit the Aquario di Genova with my colleague Carlo, his wife Cinzia  and his little boy Andrea. It was their idea to get together and it was a good one because the aquarium was really very impressive. They had huge tanks with seals, sharks, and dolphins and many smaller tanks with recreations of ecosystems from around the world. This place was huge and The Mommy remarked that, "... This place never ends!" The boys enjoyed themselves immensely, although they were sad because they didn't get to touch any rays in the sparesly populated touch tank. It was so big that it took us almost 4 hours to walk the full circuit. Andrea is almost 3 years old so he was still in a stroller from time to time. We, on the other fin, noted that this trip is the first time we don't have a stroller. Pit is a strong walker and did almost all the walking on his own. What a difference - it was easy with the stairs, easy in the crowds, easy all around.

We finally arrived at Camogli! Our apartment is fantastic, right in the centre of town, steps away from the seaside and just around the corner from Don Ricardo, a mexican taberna. Perfect! We had to force our car down some restricted streets to park the car not far from the apartment to unload. My parents showed up to help bring the dozen or so boxes and bags of luggage - it seems like we brought everything to set up a small second home. Oh wait, that's exactly what we needed to do because we rented an apartment. Seeing the boys run into the open arms of their grandparents was touching - it has been 7 months since Greece - the last time they saw each other. It was especially good to see the boys in such good spirits despite the journey we had. After leaving Luzern, we drove for about 45 minutes before coming to a full stop on the highway due to traffic. We were 15km away from the Gotthard tunnel and aparently, they already start regulating the flow of traffic to prevent jams in the tunnel itself. We were completely stopped in the middle of the highway for close to 45 minutes! We got out of the car, walked around, took pictures, and chatted with other people. It finally took us over 2 hours to cover that 10 mile stretch of road! The kids didn't complain once. Eventually we left Switzerland and into Italy for a tank of gas and a small gift of Gormiti playing cards for the boys. Once past Milan, the highway was straight and open and I cruised the car at 170km/hour to make up for lost time. The Mommy never noticed we were going so fast which shows that our car is really made for the autobahn. Unfortunately, the motorway became a zig-zag of curves and bends that forced me to slow down and forced Pit to litterally toss the cookie he ate earlier. Poor little guy! He's such a good sport -he just wanted a bucket and kept on truckin'! Later this evening The Mommy and I will go to the Mexican place for a tequila or two to celebrate the start of our trip. Yippee!

We spent a couple of hours walking around the historic part of Luzern. The buildings in the narrow streets are beautiful because of their ornate decorative paintings on their facades. We stopped to listen to a male accapela octet and the boys learned that Switzerland is famous for watches, chocolate, cheese fondue and money. Now we are stopped on the highway waiting for our turn in the Gotthard tunnel.

We are taking it easy this morning because we arrived at our hotel at 2am! Much later than planned partly thanks to the extra hour we spent cruising the back streets of Strasbourg. Thanks to Barack Obama and other world leaders attending the NATO summit, the main motorway was closed. Police were on every street corner and so we had to weave around with no clear directions of the best way to drive past Strasbourg to Colmar and beyond. So annoying! Anyways, we're in Luzern now and our hotel room is great and the location is even better. The kids are excited to watch real TV. The fact that most of the shows are in German does not seem to phase them. Frunty says he understands and explained to me that "nein" means "no". During one commercial break there was an ad for Gornitis (alien monster figurines) and Pit was extremely excited to get some. The next ad was for dolls and it was funny to observe Pit's immediate reaction as he groaned, " aargh, that's for girls!" It was a cute moment!

I went to get the boys from school to bring them home for lunch. As we were walking home, Pit asked me to carry him so I answered him, "Why?" and without hesitation, he said, "Because I love you!". So I picked him up and he showered me with kisses. What a melt-your-heart-moment. Later in the afternoon we delivered the TV and home theatre items to a new acquaintance. Frunty came home from football practice and noticed immediately that the TV unit was gone and that only the empty cardboard box was left behind. I was worried he would be upset, but instead, he cheered and was happy that the old electronics were gone and especially happy that there was a great big empty box that he could play with. The boys spent the rest of the evening decorating the box and setting it up as a house to sleep in. At 8:45pm, they crawled into the new house with pillows and blankets and spent the next hour taking turns to say, "sshhh!" and, "Move over!" or "Stop talking." So finally, I evicted them and put them in the proper beds.

Wednesday, 1 April 2009

Written by Unknown at 15:32 0 comments

"Coucou, poisson avril!", that's "April Fool's Day" in French for those who don't know. All day Frunty was tricking me. For example, he would point to something behind me, and when I turned around, he would exclaim, "Haha! Poisson avril!" and laugh his head off. So I would laugh too just because he was funny, not because his joke was funny, to be honest. And I love him for trying to make me laugh, and being a clown, and doing funny dances and other silly stuff. I love him even when he's having a tantrum, but it's a little harder. Today, we went to the club as we usually do on Wednesday's and enjoyed a picnic, played badmington and indoor soccer, then the boys went to the craft daycare (Asprini Land) for about 1 hour while I went to the sauna, and then we all swam in the pool together. Frunty is really good at badmington and can maintain some long rallys with me. Pit always does fancy footwork with the football, doing spins and other little dances before kicking the ball. He's also a really strong swimmer and can hold his breath for what seems like an extremely long amount of time. I suppose he's been practicing holding his breath because he doesn't like to swim with his head above water. Wednesday's are always fun and they are a packed day full of activities, afterwhich we arrive home starving and exhausted.