Almost Ready To Go!

When I got up this afternoon (I'm on midnights this week), I worked for a little while on math with Caroline (who is a scant 15 topics away from being entirely finished her course!) before taking her to the doctor's and running some errands.

It was notify the bank day - hey, we're going to be in Italy - please don't cut off my card for suspicious activity.  This is a good idea, these days, as long-distance fraud is a reality that banks are on the lookout for.
We got some money exchanged to Euros today, too.  We are intrigued by their money - the coins are very much like ours (we don't have any of those yet, but they are) but the bills catch our attention with their changes in size as they move from denomination to denomination.  I'm looking forward to the coins, actually, because although the faces are the same everywhere, the reverse side differs from country to country, so we should see a fair variety, and that's always nice.

This was also a fitting day for the dresses. We'll be picking them up tomorrow after Nicole makes a few adjustments. We're very pleased. They're lovely.

Here are my two dresses!  I really love the neckline.  I was content to go with the same style in two different fabrics.  Aren't they beautiful?  The colour is very accurate for the blue, but the floral print is actually a little darker than shown here - more vividly darker.  It's definitely a dramatic fabric.

I feel intensely feminine in them.  I almost never wear dresses.  I'm not sure why.  But I love having these on.  Jason (Nicole's husband) said that I need some pearls to wear.  I might just have to find something!

I do, actually, have a necklace from Venice that my sister gave me years ago that will probably look very lovely with the second dress - something like this: 

So there are just such a small number of things left to do before we leave. I have two shifts left to work, counting tonight.  We have the rest of the packing to do - and I want to measure the suitcases to see if they're really small enough to be carry-ons.  They might not be.  And I'm trying to be okay with that. As long as they don't lose them, I don't really mind.  They're still one small suitcase each.  But they did lose one of our suitcases when we went to Great Britain last year, and I am more wary as a result. Still, we'll do the same thing as last time, making sure that our belongings are divided between the two cases, and making sure that we have the comfortable shoes already on our feet - and I've learned my lesson and am not afraid to buy things and submit the invoices if we don't get lost luggage to us right away and we need things.  

I have something special going with me for Caroline, too....but you'll have to stay tuned with that till we reach her birthday. 

I have been printing out the itinerary notes

This is when I really begin to feel that things are real...I'm digging through all my confirmation emails and printing them up, and getting ready to print a final version of the overview of the itinerary.

I'm pulling together a few considerations for recommended restaurants and a few notes for each spot that we'll be visiting.

I usually do this with a binder - but we're travelling light, so this time, it's a duotang.  But it's all the same.

My sister is sending me an old cell phone to our hotel in Rome so we can make some local calls while we're there without fussing.  That's helpful!

We are so close.  The last big thing I had to do was to get Meredith's birthday party done. There's a sleepover going on at home right now while I'm at work, and the early part of the party was quite nice.

Caroline has 30 topics to go in math - she's working hard to make that all happen and get it over and done with. She's more than sick of algebra and can't wait to end this course!  I have faith!

We have our fittings for the dresses that we're having made for the trip on Monday. Caroline's are ready for a sneak peek - very lovely!  Of course, with the yellow dress, Caroline will need to wear a shrug for a church. She has a little white one that she has to pack.

Aren't they pretty?

Airport mixup

 I just realised that we are going to be flying out of Billy Bishiop Airport on the island in Toronto, not Pearson - but that when we fly home, we land at Pearson.

We're driving up, which means that I have to park near Pearson at the Park & Fly.  I guess we're taking an expensive cab ride to the airport on the island.  I'm not driving three hours to the airport, taking nearly 2 hours of public transportation and then flying for another nine with a two-hour stop-over.  Nope.  It'll be a cab.

It's going to be a very long day next week - and I'll be coming off midnights.  Shudder.

Caroline is doing serious battle with algebra, and it's fighting back hard. She makes progress, and then loses ground again in the evaluations (which come up every time she covers about twenty topics). She's hovering right around 40 topics to go in a week.  I still believe she can do it, but she's got to work hard to get there.

We're still waiting for the fittings for our new dresses.  I definitely want to get that done as soon as possible.  Caroline needs a hair cut, too.  And I have to buy some Euros to start the trip off with early next week, too. I don't have that many errands left. The main one - disciplined packing.  I always pack too much. I must curb my impulses.

We'll check at least one of the bags on the way home, I think.  I'm hoping we won't have to buy another suitcase!  I really, REALLY have to be careful what I pack. I want plenty of room for souvenirs, even if they are likely to be small ones for the most part.

I think I still don't genuinely believe we're going.  I need to get over that.

Thank God for DuoLingo!

Thank God for DuoLingo. 

Seriously. 

How else would I have ever become confident with such sentences as these?

Entrambi gli animali hanno le lingue azzurre - Both animals have blue tongues.

Quella è la mia cipolla! - That's my onion!

Il lupo ci aveva seguito tutta la notte. - The wolf had followed us all night.

Ero morta. - I was dead. (I am confused as to when one might be able to use this sentence, but perhaps with the recent surge of near-death experience books, it has found its place.)

Lui è il primo a morire. - He is the first to die. (For when I really need a large group of gypsies to back off in Rome, perhaps?)

Lorro hanno messo i loro pantaloni. - They have put their pants on. (Thank heavens!)

Non cerco un regalo speciale; qualsiasi va bene. - I am not looking for a special gift, anything will do. - How generous!

Qui abbiamo uno dei più antichi castelli portoghesi - Here we have one of the oldest Portuguese castles .......because I'm going to..you know...ITALY.

Tutti e tre portavano guanti e cappotti scuri - All three of them were wearing gloves and dark coats (again, preparing me for that police report?)

Le vittime potenzial vivono nella stessa zona. - The potential victims live in the same area. (I grow more nervous by the moment. And, incidentally, which zone is this, so that I can go be in a different one, please?)

And at at last, the sad ending to the DuoLingo adventures?

La turista imbarazzata è andata via. - The embarrassed tourist went away.

Getting Much Closer - The Suitcases Are Out!

So, yesterday, we went to pick up some of the fiddly little things we want to have on hand - hand sanitisers and Kleenex (constant warnings of no toilet paper in bathrooms have made us alert!), that sort of thing.  We have locks to buy for our suitcases yet, and a bicycle lock to chain our suitcases together on trains.

Caroline has picked up a couple of dresses - birthday gifts from Aunt Paulette.  They're too short to wear in churches, but they're really cute, and won't take up much space, so they're coming.  We're still waiting for the four sundresses that we're having made for us, but hopefully we'll have them soon.

Meanwhile Duolingo pushes on.  Caroline is clearly a snail relying upon  me to do all the speaking, because she does about one exercise a day.  Meanwhile, I'm blitzing along at Level 13 and yet can't come up with words to say to my Italian-speaking coworkers, except "Buongiorno - come sta?"

Caroline is working extremely hard to finish her wretched algebra course before we go.  She has about 58 topics to go in 12 days. She's knocking out about 5 topics a day - she should make it.  For some crazy reason, she finds exponents easy.  I haven't a CLUE what they're doing (in fact, I think they're making things up), but she keeps giggling and getting them right.  I'm of the opinion that someone giggling during algebra is a sign of mental illness, but there you are.

Meanwhile,  I am also exploring options for sight-seeing and plotting travel between cities and train stations. I'm stalking places on Google Maps trying to figure out what our places will look like.  I find the streets that our apartments are on a bit depressing/alarming but my sister tells me that they're perfectly ordinary and that I need to get over it, because this is typical in Europe and that they aren't seedy neighbourhoods.  The hotel in Sorrento does not suffer from this problem.

I still have to get bathing suit bottoms for the girls.  We have to take care of that on Monday/Tuesday on my days off.

There is this travelling exhibit for DaVinci models in Rome that I was hoping we could see, but we have so little time, that I wasn't sure it would happen.  I have just discovered that the permanent exhibit is in Florence, and that there's another travelling exhibit in Venice.  I think we have a shot at seeing this!

Less Than a Month Away!

We leave in a little under a month for Garswood Girls on the Go: Italy Trip!  

Caroline will turn 16 in Italy.

We thought about writing a book with this trip.

But we're pretty lazy.  So maybe we'll just make a blog.

We will try to make you laugh.  The first ten days of the journey, we're on our own - so no doubt, there will be much to laugh at as we blunder along.  On day 11, we meet up with Cheryl and Robin, and everything should get easier.  In the meantime, two Canadian women with scant knowledge of Italian, eager to take homeschooling to that elitist tier by exploring Italy under the umbrella of "Preparing for the Humanities Exam."

Last year, it was Great Britain, but we were a full foursome of Garswoods on that trip - and we had a car.

This time - it's just the two of us, and public transportation.  Gulp.

This is the overall picture:

Leave from Toronto and fly to Rome.

A few days in Rome, and we move to Sorrento.

A few days in Sorrento (Capri, Pompeii) and we move to Florence.

A few days in Florence and on to Milan.

Milan and surrounding areas with excursions to Cinque Terre, Venice, possibly Verona, and a couple of days in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Our hearts ache and grieve that we haven't managed to squeeze in the Dolomites.  We don't know if that can possibly happen, but we suspect not - not on this trip.  Switzerland was too close to pass up.

Caroline, turning sixteen at La Festa del Redentore in Venice.  Turning sixteen.  In Venice. With fireworks, gondolas, balloons, and crowds beyond compare.  Not too shabby.

Caroline:  It's gonna be like Tangled!!  I am Rapunzel!