Rome, Day Three.

JJ realizing that the ceilings were painted.

Before we headed home on Monday, we went to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel (since they were closed on Sunday). Once again, JJ enjoyed about the first 15 minutes before asking to go home. At one point he got so excited about a painting on the wall that he went under the rope to touch it and I instinctually grabbed him by the hood of his jacket and pulled him away from the wall, which then made him lay down on the ground and start crying and screaming! Other than that one incident he did really well and was very quiet in the chapel.

The only bad part about Monday was that for Italians it wasn't a holiday, which we didn't really think about. We went to get on the metro about 9 am and there were tons of people in a huge rush! When we finally got on the train, it was extremely crowded. JJ was so cute though, he kept saying to me, "Mommy, be careful, be careful Mommy!" Next time we go to Rome, we will be better about visiting places when they're open and will remember to not ride the metro during rush hour in the morning.

Rome, Day Two.

Yep, that's crying due to the cold : (

So we started out on our second day in Rome and it was freezing outside. Truly, it was about 0 degrees Celsius! Brian's mom had bought JJ a cute hat and gloves, but of course I forgot them back at our house, so we were all freezing together! We figured out really fast that JJ was super spoiled by the San Diego weather since he kept complaining about being cold and actually ended up in tears multiple times : (

We went back to the Colosseum in the morning when it was open and got to walk around, which was really neat, well at least Brian and I though it was. JJ started to beg to go home after about 5 minutes. Once we left, it had warmed up to about 4 degrees, so we decided to go on a walk around the city. Luckily we stumbled upon a huge toy store that we were able to go in to get warm and get JJ a small treat. While we were in the toy store, we heard a funny music problem. The toy store was playing American rap which was using lots of profanity! We think that they didn't know what the words were, but we unfortunately had to leave pretty quickly since we could understand what they were saying!

After our nap, we went to the Vatican and walked around in the square and went in to St Peter's Basilica, after buying a hat and gloves for JJ. Since it was Sunday, there was mass going on all day and we just happened to go in right when one service was starting. The cathedral was blocked off into the "tourist" section and the "Catholic mass goers" section. We were able to hear the boys choir, which sounded amazing. I really have never wanted to be more Catholic than I did when we were in there!

JJ did a great job in the cathedral and whispered the whole time. When we left he said, "sshhh, Jesus is coming, we have to be quiet." I think the Vatican was actually his favorite part of the whole trip. The only sad part was when we told him before we went that we were going to a church and he got all excited and started yelling, "going to my church!" When we told him we weren't going to "our" church, but "a" church he started crying. Apparently we need to find a church here to attend sooner than later.

Rome, Day One.

We tried to go to the Colosseum, but we got there too late, so it was closed.

So instead we got gelato : )

And took a long walk.

We went to Rome this last weekend and had a very successful visit! Brian found a hotel that was about four blocks from the main Metro station, so it was a great location. He had booked a double room, but they only ended up giving us one king size bed, so we shared the bed all night with JJ! It definitely did not make us want to convert to the "family bed"! JJ had a hard time falling asleep each night because all he wanted to do was play.

After our failed attempt to go to the Colosseum, we walked to the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain, which are both really amazing, especially at night! We ended up eating dinner near the fountain outside on the street. It almost seemed surreal to be eating pizza and pasta outside on the street in Rome as a family. I wish JJ knew how lucky he is. I'm sure we'll tell him a lot as he's growing up : )

One cultural difference about being here is that they don't have kids menus at restaurants. We actually figured out that we're saving quite a bit of money and wasting less food by not ordering JJ his own meal! The only funny thing though is that most restaurants don't have juice for kids, so we've been ordering him milk, which they keep bringing to him warm and frothy with sugar since it's from the cappuccino machine! JJ has decided warm milk is gross, but really enjoys that they bring him sugar with his milk. We really need to learn how to order "cold" milk in Italian.

The Royal Palace of Caserta.

This little box/chair was built for Pope Pius the IX to ride in (i.e. a Popemobile!) . . . apparently he was a pretty small man!

About the time JJ was begging to go home

On Sunday we drove out to a small town that has the Royal Palace of Caserta which was only about a 20 minute drive. It really does surprise me how much stuff we're close to! The palace was built in the 1700's, so it's not really old, but was still fun to see. JJ really enjoyed about the first 5 rooms and when we would walk into a new room he would yell, "wow, Mommy, look at that!" Then I think he caught on that every ceiling was painted and everything had pretty stuff, so he got pretty tired of it. He eventually started begging to go home. I'm beginning to think he's not really going to enjoy all the museums that we'll be going to over the next three years.

Sorrento.

Goodbye Starbucks, Hello Italian cappuccino!!! It's soooo good!

Mmmmm, super rich chocolate gelato.

Last Sunday we took another road trip down to the cute coastal town of Sorrento. There are lots of little shops and restaurants there so it's a great place to walk around for a leisurely afternoon, which was the plan. Unfortunately, we were there on a Sunday and a holiday, so almost nothing was open! We were able to find one alley with a few open shops and a coffee shop though, so we were fine. Looking back, I think Brian may have planned to go on this day on purpose so that I couldn't spend too much time and money shopping in the cute little stores : )

Pompei.

Before seeing the ruins JJ wanted to ride a few rides!

We rented a car for the weekend and took our first little day trip today to the town of Pompei to see the Pompeii Archaeological site (yes, I checked with my history junkie husband and this is the correct spelling for both Pompei and Pompeii). It was actually only about 1/2 hour drive away and was pretty neat to see. It's the oldest "stuff" that Brian and JJ have ever seen : )

We started out in the old amphitheater and JJ was a little scared to walk out through the tunnel. For some reason after that he decided there were dragons living in the ruins! We have no idea why, but he would randomly say, "Ssshh, Mommy, the dragons are sleeping. Look, the dragons are in there."

We got down there early, so after we spent a good amount of time in the ruins we were ready for lunch. Unfortunately we were way to early to eat lunch by Italian standards (it was only 11 am), so none of the restaurants were opened. The only place that was open was Burger King and although they did serve caprese salad and pizza, I refused to have the first pizza that I ate here to be at Burger King so we just went home for lunch! Tomorrow we'll be off on another day trip and will hopefully finally get some "real/original" pizza.

Merry Christmas from ITALY!!!

A little sleep on the plane : )

Brian's Chief put this tree in our room for us which was very nice of him

Merry Christmas everyone! Soooo, here we are in Italy! The flights weren't that bad and JJ actually slept for the complete second out of third flight. During the third flight (Munich to Naples), JJ threw a few fits, but was mostly good. At one point, I was looking at the beautiful new scenery that we were about to enjoy and I heard JJ yelling, "Mommy, I'm talking to you!" Apparently he wasn't as enthralled with the view as I was : )

Getting adjusted to the time change has been quite a challenge. I had been emailing with a Navy wife/mom who has lived here for three years and she warned me that the first night JJ might wake up at 10 and want to get up and eat and play. I'm now concerned that he's reading my emails because sure enough, at 10 pm he wanted to get up and eat and play! Since we were told this was "normal," we let him and then he finally went back to bed around 12:30.

For some reason we thought last night would be better . . . we were very wrong! Last night he was awake from about 9:45 pm until 3:45 am! He wanted to play, eat, cry, kick, whine, drink juice, etc. . . basically everything but sleep! He went to bed tonight at 8 and has already woken up once, so we'll see how tonight goes : (

We've now been here for two days and since we don't have a car, we haven't been able to get off base yet. We're really looking forward to getting out and starting to really experience life in our new country. So I'm going to be changing the format a little of the blog. I'll still talk about JJ and his silly antics, but I'll also talk about our experiences living abroad for the next three years. I hope you enjoy : )