Italy

My girls (ages 11, 9 and almost 8) announced today from the back of my rickety Honda Pilot that there are 18 days till summer break begins.  I waited with trepidation for the next logical questions, which came quickly:  "What are we going to do?  Can we go back to Italy?"

Lola, Stella & Isabel at lunch, Fiesole

Ahh, Italia.  Last summer we managed a trip to Florence, Milan and Venice via house swap with an Italian family I found randomly on the internet that far surpassed our expectations.   Our kids are well-traveled -- we're fortunate to have family in a multitude of fun places to visit (Colorado, Florida, Arizona, California, Michigan, to name some favorites) and I have never been shy about dragging them all onto a plane - mean people don't really register with me.  With my first child (mellow, calm Isabel), she and I flew to 13 different destinations before she was a year old -- mostly to nearby places like Columbus, Ohio and Evansville, Indiana, but she also experienced her first trans-Atlantic flight with mom and dad -- to Paris at the ripe age of 6 months.  Some of you might remember a favorite picture of Roc holding her up in the air with the Eiffel Tower in the background.  A few years later, when the brood had grown to three, I vividly recall several trips to Colorado to see my mom in Summit County, without Roc, making my way through the airport sporting a Baby Bjorn with Baby #3 stuffed in, pushing a double stroller with 3 carseats piled precariously on top, and doggedly calling to the two meandering toddlers behind me as they helpfully left a trail of Cheerios should we somehow become lost between Gates 2 and (what seemed like) Gate 1037.  Travel is my thing.  As a friend once pointed out (and not necessarily in a complimentary way), "You have serious ants in your pants."

Isabel wandering, Burano

So last year, following the precipitous decline in real estate in Chicago (my husband is a real estate developer, so this was especially bad news for us), our summer plans looked grim until I came up with the idea of doing a house exchange somewhere in Europe.  I had used mileage almost a year previously to purchase tickets to Milan, but where would we stay?  I began a search for a house exchange with an Italian family, and in a short time our dream family materialized -- in Tuscany (a 2-hour train ride from Milan), but so what?  I hadn't been on a European train since studying in London in 1989....time to see how times havw changed.

I informed my husband of the new plan for Summer 2010 and he gamely agreed.  One of the many wonderful things about my husband is his willingness to follow when possible, and lead when required. Our house - which we had recently completely renovated -  had been on the market for several months so it was pristinely clean and ready for occupation.  We even threw in our car (yes, the rickety Honda) for good measure so that "the Italians" - as we came to call the mystery family - could traverse the city easily.  I spoke with Patrizio, my exchange partner, only once -- on my cell phone while shopping at Target.  He huffed at me that Lake Como was over-rated and that Rome was too crowded (apparently only Tuscany was worth our while).  I asked about Venice.  He grudgingly acknowledged that the kids might enjoy "all of the water" and, since we were flying to Milan, I decided to make it a triangle -- by train to Milan to Florence to Venice and then back to Milan for our return flight.

Our friends thought we had lost our minds.  Amid protests that everything we owned would be stolen, our house vandalized and our car wrecked, we jumped on the plane to Milan and set off on our adventure.  The flights from Chicago to New York (2 hours) then from New York to Milan (7 hours) were fine as we had taken all three girls to France and Switzerland two summers before when they were 8, 6 and 5; however, taking the bus from the Milan airport to the train station (45 minutes) to board the train to Florence (2 hours) to find a cab to take us to Patrizio's city apartment so that he could give us his car (20 minutes) and then to drive the winding roads from Florence into Tuscany (30 minutes) was a bit of a push.  The last leg (from Florence to the hills of Tuscany) was crazy as the girls had completely gone into overdrive and were laughing in that hysterical way that lets you know a major meltdown (consisting most likely of hitting, pinching and screaming) was dangerously close.  I urged Roc to drive faster -- never mind the narrow, winding, roads with the cliffs dropping off the side.  Meanwhile, Patrizio (charming, enthusiastic and very Italian) insisted that after settling at his place in Tuscany we drive back to Florence to have dinner with him, so after a quick dip in the lovely pool of our beautiful Tuscan villa (Patrizio and his wife own a small hotel in which they have a fantastic apartment, which is where we stayed), we loaded the girls back into the car and headed back into town.  We were all a bit zombie-like, but that particular night was one of the best, mainly because Patrizio turned out to be such a welcoming and lovely person.  The girls dozed in their seats at the restaurant and we rolled back into the villa around midnight.  Whew.  Long day(s).

Stella in St. Mark's Square, Venice

I could fill many pages of this blog with stories about our stay in Italy, but suffice to say that we couldn't have been more delighted.  Tuscany was as gorgeous and historic as we had imagined.  Venice was magical, with its (somehow) romantic gondolas and the crazy pigeons in St. Mark's Square (Stella, Dr. Dolittle, was in heaven).  Milan felt just a bit like Chicago - big, noisy and crowded, but still overwhelmingly Italian.  We shopped for school clothes.

As for Patrizio, after welcoming us to Florence he left to meet his family at our house the following day and we communicated via text for the entirety of our trip.  His texts would come rapidfire:  "Headed to Oak Street Beach for swim! Using your bikes!" or "Dinner on Wells Street tonight."  One of my favorites regarded his upcoming plans to meet friends in the Hamptons (post-Chicago).  "Why do I want to go to the Hamptons?" he wrote incredulously, "I have the Mediterranean!" Another regarded his wife's frantic search for an iron (I don't own one) so that she could iron our bedsheets before their departure.

People sometimes ask me why we go to "all the trouble" of taking our kids so far away when, really, they would be just as happy playing on a Michigan beach. It's true - children do find joy in just about any new experience - but I think there's value in these cultural experiences -- even young as they are.  One of my favorite pictures from a trip to Paris a couple of years ago is of Lola sitting in the Louvre pouting on a bench (she's 6 years old).  She was miserable and it was definitely our fault.  Despite our plan to traverse the city via every Parisian park that we could find (there are a LOT!) - interrupted only by croissant and cappuccino breaks - we had uncharacteristically broken from the routine and decided to  squeeze in a few museum visits - the Louvre being one of them.  Of course Lola remembers nothing from that experience in "...the most boring museum in the world," but that's all right.  The picture is priceless.  What she does remember is going to the top of the Eiffel Tower at midnight with her dad.  And what her sisters remember is playing with French children whom they met in the awesome playground inside Luxembourg Gardens.

In Italy, as in other places we've visited, our kids played with children who spoke different languages and had foreign customs but who, surprisingly, were "just like us."  They laugh and cry and bleed just like us, too.  How miraculous to realize that "them" is not so different from "us", whatever country it may be.

On a more ethereal level,  we recently visited the spectacular home of John Ringling (of the Ringling Brothers' Circus) in Sarasota, Florida, which is clearly designed with Venetian architecture at its core. To our surprise, as soon as we walked through the first archway, 7-year old Stella commented casually, "It looks like Venice here," and then skipped down the flowered lane, while her surprised builder-dad and architect-grandpa looked on.

But....Italy was last summer.  This summer there's no European vacation in the works.  This year...while many friends are busy booking their kids into a myriad of amazing camps (it's Chicago, after all), we hope to soak up some much-needed downtime. It's been a hectic six months with the sale of our house (December 21 closing; that was awesome), a move to a rental home while we figure out what to do next, plus the usual frenetic pace that comes with three very active children and two working parents.  So....while we have some travel planned (those ants really have taken residence in my pants), what I'm really hoping for is a lazy summer spent down the street in the trees at Trebes Park, lots and lots of lemonade stands, and plenty of bike riding along Lake Michigan. Carpe diem!