If I Could Save Time in a Bottle--Woche 35-38

Dane's first hockey game

When you plan a vacation, you have a distinct picture in your mind of how things are going to work out.  It makes it even more fun when things turn out better than planned.

The kids had a much needed Fall break.  School and hockey have filled our days lately, and not much else has happened.  Dan's work changes have proven to be a real challenge as well.  Trying to keep up with it all was proving to be too stressful.  So, we decided to go on another cruising vacation.  Grandma Baker arrived on Monday night, then we pulled the kids out of school, a day early, and flew to Rome.  We were very excited to spend two short days there, before heading to the cruise port in Civitavecchia, Italy.  The day we arrived in Rome, it just so happened that all of the public transport people were on strike.  There were no busses, trams, or metros running for most of the day.  That made getting to our apartment and sight-seeing a little more difficult than we had expected. 

St. Peter's Cathedral in the background

Pizza, pasta, and gelato are
 the food groups in Italy

Menu at our restaurant

We decided to walk around town to see what we could find.  We lucked out, because we found a great Gelato place (Old Bridge) and were certainly not disappointed (any of the three times we visited it)!!!  We walked and walked and walked and walked.  Took a few wrong turns, and walked some more, until we found a fun place to have dinner.  It was pretty good pasta!  However, we had walked far enough and it was late enough that the kids would not make it back to the apartment (we figured it was about 4 miles away at that point).  Good thing that public transport had started back up by then and we were able to catch a bus to a stop within a few blocks of our apartment.  We made it back and were slightly bummed that we had "wasted" our day walking.  The next day, however, we made up for it.  We went to the Vatican and toured the museums there.  They had an excellent audio guide for the kids that kept them entertained through all the highlights.  We were also able to see a lot of cool things.  I thought that the highlight for me would be the Sistine chapel, but with so many other people packed in the room, it was really not very enjoyable and it didn't seem as grandiose as I had pictured it in my mind.  Maybe if I had been able to stop and actually look at it, it would have made a better impression on me.  As it was, we were just herded through.  Dan even got yelled at by a security guard for blocking the pathway with the baby stroller. 

My Gladiators

Coliseum

Of course afterwards, we stopped for more gelato.  Then we headed to the Coliseum. It is pretty cool to see.  It just sits right in the middle of bustling city life.  We hit a few other touristy places and more gelato.  The next morning, we headed for the shore. 




"When do we eat?"

Life on a cruise ship is awesome: There's tons to do, tons of people to meet, tons of stewards waiting on you hand and foot, and tons of food.  A family from our ward, the Rhees, had booked the same cruise.  It was fun to share the week touring with them.  They have a daughter close to Dyllan's age and the two of them had a great time together. 


Our dining room

During our cruise, we were able to go rock climbing, play miniature golf, in-line skate, ice skate, dance, watch movies, swim, hot tub, and even do family origami.  Dyllan hula hooped herself into a gold medal.  Dane was awarded an octopus for joining the sneezy club.  Deagan got a black eye from running around like crazy and running into a brass pole.  The days were fun, by night time, we were exhausted from all the fun things of the day.





Pretty tasty cannoli

I got to celebrate my birthday on the boat.  It was a really fun day!  It was our first day in port.  We were on the island of Sicily.  We hired a taxi to take us to a quaint little town called Tauromina.  It was fun to walk the streets and see all the fun stuff they had.  People selling their wares lined the streets and we had fun bargaining with them for good prices.  We ate cannoli and strolled along the streets.  Then the taxi driver picked us up and drove us to the beach.  The kids had a great time playing in the water.  Dan found a masseuse on the beach that gave he and mom a foot massage (10 Euro for 30 minutes, what a deal).  True relaxation.  But alas, time ran out, and we were headed back to the boat.





Sicily

However, there was time for one more stop at a gelato store before getting back on the boat.  After dinner, our dining staff sang happy birthday to me and presented me with a cake.  We had them deliver it back to our room to eat later.  We didn't want to miss the regularly planned dessert that night!  It was a perfect birthday.

We were also able to see shadows of the ancient world.  We stopped in Athens and went to the Acropolis.  While there, we found a Russian Orthodox priest.  Dan chatted with him briefly in Russian, and the priest motioned all the kids over so that we could get a picture with him.  He left us with blessings.  We went to Corinth and saw the ruins of the building actually mentioned in Acts, that Paul was on trial in.  We walked by the place that Paul would have taught from.  It is amazing to me that they have excavated so much from these sights.  Of course, no visit to Greece would be complete without eating some olives.  We had a perfect lunch with sea-side view. 

We continued on to Turkey to see Ephesus.  The ruins in Ephesus are pretty cool.  They had roman baths, public toilets, amazing mosaic floors, columns and statues abound, and my favorite, a really cool library.  The theater there is very well preserved, and we were even able to dance on the stage.  We were able to visit the supposed house that Mary (mother of Jesus) lived in until her death.  And we were able to add our wishes to the wishing wall nearby.  The kids loved going to the carpet factory where they could see how rugs were made.  They got to lay on all kinds of different rugs made from cotton, wool and even silk.  They got to see how they get the silk from the silk worms.  We went to a pottery factory and got to see how pottery is made.  Each of the kids got to try their hand at the pottery wheel.  We finished the day with more bargain shopping (Allynn is now the proud owner of a genuine, fake Prada bag) and Turkish Delight.

Our last port of call, was in Crete.  We only had a half day there.  We decided to head back to the beach.  We spent all morning lying on the Golden Beach relaxing.  More foot massages were had by all.  The kids spent all their time in the surf and sand.  They had a great time.  The beach was sandy, the water was clean and very turquoise blue.  It reminded us of our great times spent in the Caribbean in the past, but with kids involved this time.  A perfect way to end.



We had a few hours in Rome before we had to head back to the airport for our flight.  We decided to go see the Spanish steps and Trevi Fountain.  We had heard of both of these and seen them in movies, but when you share them with 1,000 other tourists, they kind of lose their luster.  We stopped for a quick lunch, that turned into a long lunch, which made us have to literally run to catch our flight.  We almost got stranded in Rome.  We made it just in time, and we arrived back home safely--even with Grandma still in tow (for a Grannie, she's still a bit of a track star).

We are all exhausted and ready to sleep and relax for a week.  But, back to school, hockey, laundry, and house cleaning.  We feel so blessed that we are able to be seeing so much of the world.  It feels so surreal to have been to all these places.  We have been bit by the travel bug---or maybe just the vacation bug.  Dan has already spent time planning our next trip.  I can't wait.  "The greatest adventure is what lies ahead!"

Other interesting updates:
So, we have mentioned a few times over the past few weeks that Dan's job is changing.  Things are finally official so we thought we would share the details.  Dan's company completely reorganized their global structure and the area that he was working in was dissolved.  It would have been nice to know that this was coming when we moved here a few months ago.  So this led to all the senior leaders in his area needing to take on new responsibilities.  Some got smaller pieces of the area, that was split up and some got asked to move.  Luckily, out of respect for our family and the kids stability in school, etc... we were not asked to move from Vienna.  We are pretty sure that we will be here in Vienna for at least another year.  Dan's new role is as the Director of Value Added Services for an area the company now calls the EMEA hub (Europe, Middle East, and Africa)  Now his responsibilities will range into south and sub-Saharan Africa and all of Europe in addition to the area he already was responsible for.  The organization he will be leading does not really exist yet and he has only inherited two employees.  So he is now in the process of creating a new org structure, selling it to management and recruiting the new team.  Lots of work ahead, but a good challenge and we don't have to move!