It's been a while
I thought about breaking this up into smaller, more readable portions, but then decided that since most of you have wanted an update for a while, I'd go ahead and give you a delayed christmas present!
Happy Belated Holidays!
These last few weeks have been pretty busy for us. Kelsie and I left for Canada on December 15. We caught the shuttle bus to the Florence airport at 5:30 in the morning, and arrived back home in Guelph at 9pm. Now, factor in the six hour time difference and you realize that something went amiss on our journey home to take us a grand total of 22 hours. So what happened? Did the fact that Kelsie and I didn't even sit together slow us down? No. Was it the smelly man beside me whose body odour was so rancid I think I vommitted in my mouth? No. Was it that the guy behind me kept forcing my seat back into the upright position so it only felt like 22 hours? No, it was actually 22 hours. Well, upon our arrival at Pearson (2pm) we waited for an hour in the customs line, and then another hour getting our bags. Apparently my bag was oversized (even though it was smaller and lighter than Kelsie's) and so they put it in the oversize baggage spot. After an hour of standing and waiting for it, after everybody had left some woman from Alitalia put it back on the carousel. How nice. Now it is 4:00 and we've just met my mom and stepdad outside. Tralala off to the car we go. First we have to wrestle with all the luggage my mom left in the trunk (remember it wasn't just kelsie and I coming back from Italy, but my step-dad was flying in from Newfoundland, where he had been for a few months) to fit in all of our things. That done, we get onto the highway in the middle of rush hour, in the middle of a snow storm. Welcome to Canada. On top of that, we have no gas. This however, is not my mother's fault. I am not blaming her. So we make it to Mississauga Road, pull off, and attempt to find a gas station. Afraid we will be stranded in the blizzard with no gas, we stop at the Delta Hotel. Kelsie and Don trudge off to find the gas station and see if they have a jerry can to bring back some gas. Meanwhile, my mom jets into Stage West to inquire about dinner. She has a sixth sense for restaurants combined with the knowledge that we are not going anywhere for a while. So Don and Kelsie return, gasless, and the four of us go inside for some much needed fuel replacement. After eating, the storm has let up as has the traffic so we manage to make it to the gas station, where we refuel the car. 7:45pm. We roll into Kelsie's house just before 9, allowing my family to get back to our house around 9. A lovely 22 hours after leaving Florence, all with very little sleep. It was a grand time.
Christmas itself was very busy, and lovely to be home. We saw all of our families, and most of our friends. To those whom we didn't get a chance to see, I'm sorry. You just didn't make the cut. Kidding, kidding....seriously, we were both being pulled from all directions, and it was hard to get time to see anybody at all. Some highlights for me:
*Seeing my Nana singing Christmas carols for the women at the Y
*Christmas morning my grandmother with dimmensia nodding off to sleep most of the time, only to blow us away with her piano playing skills.
*Seeing my dad's family for Christmas, something we haven't done in years
*Spending a few minutes with Andrew, who has grown and changed so much in only 3 months - seeing Julia and Peter was great too (not getting to see Tina was very sad)
*Seeing what a beautiful, lovely young woman Merlot is turning out to be
*Spending time with my big brother, then kicking his butt at DK bongos (admit it, you totally suck)
*Hanging out with all my parents
*Feeling very loved and welcomed all the time in Kelsie's family, plus eating all their delicious food
*Seeing my girls
*Getting to visit with lovely Ang, and the fabulous present that her and Linda made for me
We got back to Florence via a multitude of busses. See, you'd think we would spend most of our travel time in the air, in an airplane. Not the case. Our flight left Toronto from Terminal 1, where they ship you off in a shuttle bus to the "infield terminal". From there we took an airbus to Milan, got put on a bus to get to the terminal, where we waited in a couple lines for a couple hours until our next flight left. When they announced our flight they put us on another bus to get to our plane, out in the middle of nowhere. Our flight got rerouted to Pisa because of the fog, so then they put us on a bus from Pisa to Florence. Only instead of taking us downtown, they took us to airport (reasonable I suppose, since that's where we were supposed to go), From there we caught another bus to downtown Florence so we could walk home. My favourite part of the whole getting home was the fact that we were sitting right behind a screaming 2 year old. Or was it that when I tried to go to the washroom on the mainfloor of the airport it was closed, and they sent me upstairs, only to find the upstairs washroom was closed as well, and then to have to get on the plane without relief? It might have been that when we landed in Milan it was colder than Ontario at minus 9.
I'm a cranky traveller.
Luckily, we had something to look forward. Our stupid futon was to be replaced while we were gone (for those who didn't see the pictures - basically our bed had no more supports and we were levelling it out with a shelft. even so, the poles and wood poked through piercing us every night as we cried ourselves to sleep). We were very excited to see our new bed, so you can understand how disappointed we were to arrive to the same old stinkin' bed. I called our rental agency right away, and they were confused as well, as they were under the impression our landlady was going to fix it. The next morning as Kelsie was in class and I slept off my jetlag and aching bones, Katerina (landlady) walks in. She's in her pyjamas, I'm in mine, she's speaking Italian, and so am I! Woohoo! My Italian lessons are starting to pay off, because apparently when I'm half asleep I can understand and speak a lot more. Anyway, she dropped in to get our espresso maker, and thought we were gone for another few days. She informs me that she'll come back later to take me to look at an Ikea catalogue to pick out our new bed. Score! The day goes by, and I pick out a nice solid looking wooden one. She returns after a few hours at Ikea to tell me we have to pick a new one, that one is finito. I get the impression she is not into spending a lot of money, as she skips by all the other nice looking beds and moves right along to the bunk bed. Yes, that's right. A bunk-bed style bed that is a double bed, but up in the air. She tells me it would save space because we could move the other smaller couch/bed underneath it. Kelsie will have none of this, so we inform her we'd rather wait until the other bed is available. Her other option are these two single pull out chairs/beds that we could put together. I don't care at this point, so long as we have a new item to sleep on and its not 6 feet in the air.
The next day we return to our apartment to find a stack of wood, and a woodchip looking roll of fluff. Apparently our mattress will "return to its regular shape" within 3-4 days, so we open that up and it opens like a pillsbury package with a fun pop. Our friend Caitlyn has come over for dinner, so we coerce her into building the bed with me while Kelsie cooks dinner. Katerina drops in to see if we need any help, and finds it hilarious that a) kelsie has rolled himself up inside the matress like a hotdog, and b) that kelsie is cooking dinner while Caitlyn and I do the "heavy lifting". Later that evening we have ourselves a fantastic new bed with the strangest, most comfortable matress ever.
I love Ikea.
Happy Belated Holidays!
These last few weeks have been pretty busy for us. Kelsie and I left for Canada on December 15. We caught the shuttle bus to the Florence airport at 5:30 in the morning, and arrived back home in Guelph at 9pm. Now, factor in the six hour time difference and you realize that something went amiss on our journey home to take us a grand total of 22 hours. So what happened? Did the fact that Kelsie and I didn't even sit together slow us down? No. Was it the smelly man beside me whose body odour was so rancid I think I vommitted in my mouth? No. Was it that the guy behind me kept forcing my seat back into the upright position so it only felt like 22 hours? No, it was actually 22 hours. Well, upon our arrival at Pearson (2pm) we waited for an hour in the customs line, and then another hour getting our bags. Apparently my bag was oversized (even though it was smaller and lighter than Kelsie's) and so they put it in the oversize baggage spot. After an hour of standing and waiting for it, after everybody had left some woman from Alitalia put it back on the carousel. How nice. Now it is 4:00 and we've just met my mom and stepdad outside. Tralala off to the car we go. First we have to wrestle with all the luggage my mom left in the trunk (remember it wasn't just kelsie and I coming back from Italy, but my step-dad was flying in from Newfoundland, where he had been for a few months) to fit in all of our things. That done, we get onto the highway in the middle of rush hour, in the middle of a snow storm. Welcome to Canada. On top of that, we have no gas. This however, is not my mother's fault. I am not blaming her. So we make it to Mississauga Road, pull off, and attempt to find a gas station. Afraid we will be stranded in the blizzard with no gas, we stop at the Delta Hotel. Kelsie and Don trudge off to find the gas station and see if they have a jerry can to bring back some gas. Meanwhile, my mom jets into Stage West to inquire about dinner. She has a sixth sense for restaurants combined with the knowledge that we are not going anywhere for a while. So Don and Kelsie return, gasless, and the four of us go inside for some much needed fuel replacement. After eating, the storm has let up as has the traffic so we manage to make it to the gas station, where we refuel the car. 7:45pm. We roll into Kelsie's house just before 9, allowing my family to get back to our house around 9. A lovely 22 hours after leaving Florence, all with very little sleep. It was a grand time.
Christmas itself was very busy, and lovely to be home. We saw all of our families, and most of our friends. To those whom we didn't get a chance to see, I'm sorry. You just didn't make the cut. Kidding, kidding....seriously, we were both being pulled from all directions, and it was hard to get time to see anybody at all. Some highlights for me:
*Seeing my Nana singing Christmas carols for the women at the Y
*Christmas morning my grandmother with dimmensia nodding off to sleep most of the time, only to blow us away with her piano playing skills.
*Seeing my dad's family for Christmas, something we haven't done in years
*Spending a few minutes with Andrew, who has grown and changed so much in only 3 months - seeing Julia and Peter was great too (not getting to see Tina was very sad)
*Seeing what a beautiful, lovely young woman Merlot is turning out to be
*Spending time with my big brother, then kicking his butt at DK bongos (admit it, you totally suck)
*Hanging out with all my parents
*Feeling very loved and welcomed all the time in Kelsie's family, plus eating all their delicious food
*Seeing my girls
*Getting to visit with lovely Ang, and the fabulous present that her and Linda made for me
We got back to Florence via a multitude of busses. See, you'd think we would spend most of our travel time in the air, in an airplane. Not the case. Our flight left Toronto from Terminal 1, where they ship you off in a shuttle bus to the "infield terminal". From there we took an airbus to Milan, got put on a bus to get to the terminal, where we waited in a couple lines for a couple hours until our next flight left. When they announced our flight they put us on another bus to get to our plane, out in the middle of nowhere. Our flight got rerouted to Pisa because of the fog, so then they put us on a bus from Pisa to Florence. Only instead of taking us downtown, they took us to airport (reasonable I suppose, since that's where we were supposed to go), From there we caught another bus to downtown Florence so we could walk home. My favourite part of the whole getting home was the fact that we were sitting right behind a screaming 2 year old. Or was it that when I tried to go to the washroom on the mainfloor of the airport it was closed, and they sent me upstairs, only to find the upstairs washroom was closed as well, and then to have to get on the plane without relief? It might have been that when we landed in Milan it was colder than Ontario at minus 9.
I'm a cranky traveller.
Luckily, we had something to look forward. Our stupid futon was to be replaced while we were gone (for those who didn't see the pictures - basically our bed had no more supports and we were levelling it out with a shelft. even so, the poles and wood poked through piercing us every night as we cried ourselves to sleep). We were very excited to see our new bed, so you can understand how disappointed we were to arrive to the same old stinkin' bed. I called our rental agency right away, and they were confused as well, as they were under the impression our landlady was going to fix it. The next morning as Kelsie was in class and I slept off my jetlag and aching bones, Katerina (landlady) walks in. She's in her pyjamas, I'm in mine, she's speaking Italian, and so am I! Woohoo! My Italian lessons are starting to pay off, because apparently when I'm half asleep I can understand and speak a lot more. Anyway, she dropped in to get our espresso maker, and thought we were gone for another few days. She informs me that she'll come back later to take me to look at an Ikea catalogue to pick out our new bed. Score! The day goes by, and I pick out a nice solid looking wooden one. She returns after a few hours at Ikea to tell me we have to pick a new one, that one is finito. I get the impression she is not into spending a lot of money, as she skips by all the other nice looking beds and moves right along to the bunk bed. Yes, that's right. A bunk-bed style bed that is a double bed, but up in the air. She tells me it would save space because we could move the other smaller couch/bed underneath it. Kelsie will have none of this, so we inform her we'd rather wait until the other bed is available. Her other option are these two single pull out chairs/beds that we could put together. I don't care at this point, so long as we have a new item to sleep on and its not 6 feet in the air.
The next day we return to our apartment to find a stack of wood, and a woodchip looking roll of fluff. Apparently our mattress will "return to its regular shape" within 3-4 days, so we open that up and it opens like a pillsbury package with a fun pop. Our friend Caitlyn has come over for dinner, so we coerce her into building the bed with me while Kelsie cooks dinner. Katerina drops in to see if we need any help, and finds it hilarious that a) kelsie has rolled himself up inside the matress like a hotdog, and b) that kelsie is cooking dinner while Caitlyn and I do the "heavy lifting". Later that evening we have ourselves a fantastic new bed with the strangest, most comfortable matress ever.
I love Ikea.