My husband, Jeff, stepdaughter, Emily, and I have recently arrived in Ferrara, Italy for a 2 year assignment. We arrived on Thursday, October 2nd and have been trying to get our bearings in a new city, country, and culture. So far, it has been a pleasant adventure.
The trip over here was long, but went fairly smoothly. We were very concerned about our cat, Hamlet, and how he would handle the travel. He has been known to get very stressed and carsick when traveling by car, and this was his first plane trip. His vet had given me some medication at the last checkup the day before we left, so I gave it to Hamlet before we left Warner Robins. He made the trip to Atlanta on the Groome shuttle very well, with only minimal meowing and complaining. We were lucky enough to get on the shuttle and go straight to Atlanta, without the usual stop in Macon, so we arrived at the Atlanta airport very early (before 9 am for a 1:07 pm flight). We had to check in our 7 bags and the cat first. Luckily, United Airlines allows military personnel on orders and their dependents to carry 3 bags apiece up to 70 pounds, rather than the now customary one bag up to 50 pounds without any extra charge. We did have to pay separately for the cat, but it was not terribly expensive. We saw Hamlet's carrier in between flights in Washington and Frankfurt before we were able to pick him up in Bologna. He was very happy to see us!
Our sponsor, Will, picked us up in Bologna and brought us into Ferrara, after we made a report about our one missing bag. We got to the hotel, but our "apartment" was not ready, so we walked around in Ferrara for a little while. We finally got into the apartment, dumped our suitcases and got showered after wearing the same clothes for more than 24 hours. Of course, when we got done showering and wanted to go get something to eat, it was after 1 pm, and it was Riposa. Everything here closes from about 1 to 4 while everyone goes home to eat and take nap. We did find a "bar" that was still open and got some pizza. A bar is the most informal type of restaurant here, not like an American bar that is mostly for drinks.
We allowed ourselves one 30 minute nap so that we could make it through dinner with our sponsor and his family as well as another family who have been here about 6 weeks, and are still staying in the hotel like we are. No decent restaurant here starts serving dinner before 7:30, so we didn't get back to the hotel to go to bed until about 10:30. Jeff got up to go in to the base about 7 on Friday, but I didn't get up until 9, and Emily slept until 11:15. Staying up that late helped us not be so jetlagged. We are enjoying the custom of napping in the afternoon when we get the chance, but we are mostly adjusted to the time difference (6 hours ahead of Eastern).
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