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!