Valuable Lessons Learned - Part 2

* Don't let your husband borrow your cell phone and put it in his pocket (granted this technologically advanced Roman Gladiator isn't wearing pants, but I thought it was a cute photo). You might be surprised to learn that an unlocked phone in a pocket can use up an entire 40 Euros prepaid card by sending SMS messages (300+ calls) to a friend's landline and lock up their phone for 2 weeks.

* Don't listen to a Dutch classic rock station unless you can handle regularly listening to Meatloaf (apparently he didn't really die in "Rocky Horror Picture Show").

TV in Holland...

It took a few months to get a digital receiver so we can watch TV. For $10/month, we get CNN, BBC, Discovery and Animal Planet as well as many Dutch channels. Dutch TV has a lot of game shows and reality shows (no doubt from the ads that shows like “Temptation Island” are much spicier here than the US counterpart). In honor of The World Cup, TV station Veronica has been interrupting movies to air 15 minutes of “Hot Shots” which features these bimbos kicking footballs; a more appropriate name would be “The D Cup”. Jimmy (who obviously picked the photo) encourages any non-female with a pulse to click here to check out the US team.

The local channels also air several US shows such as our favorite “Lost”. Lucky for us, all shows are aired in the original language, except for kiddie shows, since this country is small enough not to require dubbing like in Germany, France or Italy. Most nights there are 2 or 3 uncut US movies to choose from; it still freaks me out to see a movie ad complete with nudity and swearing. I asked my Dutch teacher why all English profanities are translated to the same word on the Dutch subtitles and she said that’s because everyone already knows those words so they don’t need to be translated.

A Day in Paradise...

After 2 days of the madness of Naples, I was ready to escape to the calm and beauty of the island of Ischia, a 1-hour ferry ride away. While we never made it to this castle, we enjoyed this view from the little beach cafe that we hung out at for the day. At first glance we thought the beach was covered in trash, but were happy to discover it was mostly sea glass, which made for a great souvenir along with local limoncella (a lemon liqueur best served chilled).

Lesson from History--Don't Live Under an Active Volcano

While Jimmy was busy working in Naples, I took the girls to Pompeii, my favorite place we visited during the week in Italy. It's hard to describe how amazing it was to walk down the streets of this ancient Roman city. This photo was taken in the Forum, which was the main business and political area of the city. We especially loved seeing mosaics and frescoes in their original locations after almost 2,000 years (we saw many others the following day in the Museum Archaeological in Naples). This place is truly immense and we made it through less than half in the several hours that we were there; definitely somewhere worth visiting again. Luckily we made it back to the train right before the skies opened up.

A Dome with a View...

A trip to Rome isn't complete without a visit to the Vatican. Unfortunately, the line to the Vatican Museum was ridiculously long, so we missed seeing the Sistine Chapel. Instead we climbed the 320-stairs to the top of the dome of St Peter's Basilica (completed in 1593) where we saw a fantastic view of Rome. Then we explored the inside of the Basicila, which was definitely the most spectacular church we've ever seen. We did postcards sitting by a fountain in St Peter's Square (wonder what GGMa thought about that Pope stamp), then visited neighboring Castel Sant'Angelo, which you may have read about in Dan Brown's "Angel & Demons".

When in Rome, Do as the Romans...

Of course, that statement's open to interpretation. As fun as a public bath or toga party might have been, we stuck to the usual overindulgences -- chianti, pizza and gelato. In fact, we made it a goal to find the best gelato in Rome and despite having to eat it everyday, I'm happy to report we found it near the Colosseum.
Rather than live like tourists, we lived like modern day Romans by renting an apartment from a family at our school. It was great having the extra space and seeing what a typical neighborhood was like.

Love that Water!

It's impossible not to love Trevi Fountain. The newest tourist site we visited, the fountain was completed in 1762 after 30 years. This photo doesn't even begin to capture the beauty of this magical place. Despite being surrounded by tourists tossing coins over their shoulders (if you do it the right way you're ensured a return trip to the Eternal City), it was easy to be mesmerized by the force of the water as commanded by Neptune and two Tritons with seahorses. We especially loved the drinking fountain on the side that had the best water we'd ever tasted. Although Rome has more trash than we'd expected, it has amazingly clean water with many historic drinking fountains.

The Colosseum...

While we enjoyed seeing the outside of the Colosseum at all different times of the day, we only saw the inside once during a tour (we're not big tour fans, but this one was worth the price because we got to skip the long lines). It truly is spectacular and an engineering marvel. Amazingly, it took 20,000 slaves just 8 years to build this stadium for over 50,000 spectators. In an effort to appease the public who were upset over high taxes, the Emperor offered free fights of gladiators (surprisingly, both men and women) and wild animals (lions, hippos, elephants and zebras). The ground was covered in sand to help soak up the blood. The two floors below ground housed the slaves and animals. The stadium was greatly damaged by quakes in the 400's after the gladiator combats were banned. While today the ruins are mostly exposed brick, originally everything was covered in marble. Much of the marble was recycled by the Popes and can be seen in St. Peter's Basilica.

A Dream Comes True...

When we started talking about the idea of moving to Europe, we asked the girls where they'd like to visit. Ashlynn said Iceland because she'd seen some thermal pools on TV that looked really cool. Veronica didn't even hesitate to say she wanted to go to Rome to see the Colosseum since she loves digging in the dirt and dreams of being an archaeologist. While we hope to go to both places eventually, we figured it would be in a few years. Lucky us that Jimmy was sent on a business trip to Lisbon then Naples routed thru Rome that just happened to fall during a week holiday from school. With just 12 days to plan, we were able to put together 4 nights in Rome and 3 nights in Naples. We also managed to see the Colosseum 4 times, which really made Veronica's dreams come true.

Starting the Dutch Treat Family H3...

Since the Hague Hash runs on school nights during the summer, we decided to try our luck with starting a family hash to run monthly on Sunday mornings. We hared the inaugural run on Queen's Day and were very pleased with the turnout. We did a mimosa stop at a playground overlooking a field complete with a windmill and some wild hares hopping around. The girls were so excited to be running with their friends and getting to help find trail that they actually ran most of the 3 miles. The On-In included a Southern breakfast and canoe rides. Turns out that there's a family of hashers in Veronica's class, so they hared the 2nd run with a drink stop at the beach. Here's hoping you can come run with us sometime.

Fun with the Hague H3...

It didn't take us long after we arrived in the country to hook up with the Hague Hash House Harriers. The girls have been the only hash horrors along and the hares have been very considerate. One even suggested a way around The Hague's Red Light District, but they just picked up their speed (frankly, we didn't know that Den Haag had one Red Light District, let alone two, and were shocked how many guys were strolling through on a Sunday at 3pm since it isn't in a tourist area). We've ridden our bikes to several runs and gotten accused of child abuse for making Veronica ride so far and then run; someday when she's doing Ironmans she'll thank us. This photo was taken when we hosted a On-In for Queen's Day.