Roma! part 1

Emily's mom came to visit for just over a week, so Jeff and I decided to take a little trip by ourselves while she was here with Emily. Neither of us had ever been to Rome, so we decided to go.

We left New Year's Day and took the train down. It was about a three hour, fifteen minute ride from Ferrara, with only 2 stops along the way, in Bologna and Firenze (Florence). We had a little trouble getting off, because there was a significant snowfall New Year's night. There is only one taxi company in Ferrara and we tried several times that morning to call and get a taxi, but kept getting a message that we couldn't understand. Finally, we went next door to our neighbors' house to see if they could help or possibly give us a ride to the train station, and they were able to get in touch with the taxi.

We decided to splurge on 1st class tickets, which was nice. In 1st class, you get assigned seats which are larger than the ones in 2nd class, and they also recline. There are attendants in 1st class who bring around newspapers (only in Italian, though) and drinks and snacks, pretty much like on an airplane. The train is a great way to travel, with no worry about directions, tolls, or parking. You can just sit back and ride, watching the scenery. We saw snow until just before Firenze.

The train station in Rome (the Termini) is also the central point for the subway system, which is very convenient. We got off the train, crossed the terminal and bought our 3 day tourist passes for the metro. Three days of unlimited use for the metro, buses, and trams is only 11 Euro. We took the metro one stop over to where our hotel was. The hotel was 50 meters from the metro station, and only one stop from the Colosseum, though we could also walk to the Colosseum. We arrived about 2:30 in the afternoon, checked in, and decided to go do some exploring.

We took the metro to the Colosseum and just walked around marveling at it for a little while. No matter how many pictures you see, you cannot appreciate its size until you are actually there. We wandered around trying to orient ourselves with the map provided by our hotel and finally succeeded in locating the Basilica di San Clemente, a site recommended by a friend. We took the tour of San Clemente, which was fascinating. The basilica itself is very pretty, and can be seen for free, but for a small fee you can tour the areas below the current basilica, which are absolutely fascinating. Under the current basilica, which was built around 1100, are the remains of a 4th century basilica, a 1st century Christian church (from when Christianity was still an underground religion), and a 2nd century Mithraic temple. San Clemente is also the resting place of St. Cyril, of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the missionaries to the Slavs and inventors of the Cyrillic alphabet. No pictures are allowed in San Clemente, so I don't have any.

After the tour of San Clemente, we went and found some dinner. Restaurants in Roma apparently cater to the tourists and are open all day, unlike the ones in less touristy areas that don't open until 7 or 7:30. We walked back over by the Colosseum and took a few pictures.


This was the best picture I got of the Colosseum in the dark. Unfortunately, none of the ones I took from another angle, showing the crescent moon off to the side, turned out.


This one is quite blurry, but is of a tram, entirely covered with Christmas lights that went by while we were out walking.

The next morning, we got out and walked around ancient Rome for a little while, taking some pictures while it was sunny, because it was supposed to rain in the afternoon. We walked over and toured the Jewish museum of Rome, which was interesting, but not spectacular. No pictures allowed there, either. That afternoon, we had booked a tour of the Colosseum and ancient Rome, which was great! Our guide was a Ph.D. in Archaeology and was a native of Rome. We saw the Colosseum (and skipped the line for tickets because the tour had reservations), one of the forums, the Trevi fountain, the Pantheon, and the Piazza di Navone. I won't bore you with a lot of details, though we learned a lot of very interesting things on the tour, because you can look up information on any of these things if you so choose.


Here are Jeff and me inside the Colosseum.

Here are some of the ancient ruins. It is absolutely amazing to walk out of a big, metropolitan street and come upon a scene like this.
This is the Temple of Vesta, where the eternal flame was kept alive by the Vestal Virgins. The Virgins were chosen when they were between 6 and 10 and served for 30 years. They were the only women in Rome with independent rights (such as owning property, writing a will, and testifying in court).

A view of the ruins through the Arch of Septimius Severus, built to commemorate a military victory.

The famous Trevi fountain.

This is the dome inside the Pantheon, which was originally a pagan temple to 12 gods, but was taken over by the Christian church and thus saved from destruction. Yes, it is open to the sky in the middle, originally to let out the smoke from sacrifices.

That night, we went to a restaurant right by our hotel that had been recommended by a friend. It was excellent, though Jeff was a little disturbed when the pork special of the evening turned out to be a roasted pig leg with foot still attached! He really enjoyed the fresh fruit with limoncello cream for dessert, though!

Fireworks and Christmas lights

On New Year's Eve, we went to a party at the home of some of our British friends, who live in the downtown area. We were able to go up on their roof around midnight and watch the fireworks that were being shot off from the castle downtown. It didn't photograph terribly well, but I did get a few good shots.


At the end of the display at the castle, it looked like the castle was on fire, as seen below.


It was a nice display, and there were people shooting off fireworks all over town, so we could watch them all around us. We could hear the music and the countdown from the castle quite clearly from where we were, so I can only imagine how loud it was for the people who were actually in that square. The piazza downtown was still very crowded when we came through about 1:30, so it was probably packed at midnight. I stopped and took some pictures of the Christmas lights downtown on the way home that night.

Here is the downtown Christmas tree lit up.

The others are examples of the different kinds of lights strung across the streets throughout downtown.

La Neve e La Brina (Snow and Hoarfrost)

Ok, as soon as I posted about the tiny dusting of snow we got, that very night we had a real snowfall. We woke up on New Year's Day to a clean, white new start!


Only two pictures because we were trying to get packed and off for our trip to Rome (to be addressed in a separate post).

Then this morning, we woke up to a beautiful hoarfrost on the trees. I had to take some pictures of that, too!


The hoarfrost has not melted at all as of noon, and there have been snow flurries off and on all morning. Seems we're in for an unusual winter for Ferrara, Italy!

Snow!

On Monday morning, December 29, we woke to a (very) light dusting of snow! I got a few pictures of it before it melted by midday.



We are in the Po River Valley here, so we don't get a lot of snow. Mostly, we get fog and rain, though we have been blessed to be without rain for the last week or so. And, to a girl from Georgia, ANY snow is exciting!

Compare this to the snow I saw while in Chicago a few weeks ago:


It has been cold here, though. Last week, our neighbors, who have been very kind to us, were gone to Paris to visit family for the holiday. Their cat got lonely and cold and decided to ask to come in our house to warm up! Hamlet was not receptive to the idea.

Buon Natale!

I keep meaning to walk downtown one evening and take pictures of the lights around town, but I haven't done it. I did get one picture of the town Christmas tree in the piazza in front of the Cathedral (see below), but that's been it.


The lights are not gone, though, so I may yet make it. They do the full 12 days of Christmas here, ending with a national holiday on 6 January (Epiphany), when Befana the Christmas witch comes and fills the children's stockings with presents. We went to the store the other day and saw that all the Christmas trees and decorations were gone, but there were stockings and pictures of Befana everywhere!

Speaking of Christmas trees, they do have Christmas trees here, though their standards are not the same as in the US. Apparently, artificial trees are very popular, probably more popular than live trees. Jeff insists on a live tree, though, so we went in search of one. They don't seem to have Christmas tree lots like in the US, but nurseries and garden centers do have a small selection of trees. All live Christmas trees come with the root ball still attached, and it seems that most people put up their tree in a pot, rather than a stand, so that they can plant the tree after Christmas. The vast majority of live trees are very small, maybe 3-4 feet tall. We did manage to find one that's about 7 feet tall, but it is not very full. Jeff says that it's a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but I think it turned out pretty well once we decorated it.

I didn't use nearly the number of ornaments that I usually do, but the important ones are all on there! Jeff even rigged up our star tree topper. We had to buy new lights here because we would have had to put our old ones on a transformer to use them. We just bought the tree topper last year after much consideration and searching for something we both liked, and it was lighted. So, Jeff took it apart and inserted some of the lights from our new set, so it lights up again!

On Christmas Eve, we went out some friends' house for a little get together. It was nice to just sit and talk for a while and enjoy some yummy snacks. It was just a few families from the American contingent here. We got some good advice for the Rome trip that Jeff and I are taking at the end of this week. I hear that there is a really neat pageant downtown on Christmas Eve, including a procession through the moat of the castle to place the baby Jesus in the manger, but we didn't make it this year. Maybe next year.

We had a lovely Christmas day, though I thought Jeff would bust when Emily slept until 8:30 that morning! I wouldn't let him wake her up and he was dying to get to the presents! Here are a couple of pictures of Emily with her Santa presents.



Here are Jeff and Hamlet relaxing later on Christmas day.


We missed our families and all the festivities at home, but it was actually kind of nice to just have Christmas once this year, and not worry about all the travelling.

Christmas stuff

Ok, time to play a little catch up! I haven't posted anything for a while, but that doesn't mean nothing was happening! We were actually quite busy right up until Christmas, especially the week before.

That Tuesday was the NATO Christmas party, which is very neat. All of the countries that are stationed here (I think there are about 12) get together for a big party, and each country has a table where they serve food from their homeland. It is really neat to go around the room and see and try all the different foods. We Americans did chili and cornbread this year, which didn't thrill everyone, but they were tired of doing ham and turkey every year. One country had made signs for each of their dishes saying what it was and what was in it, which I think was a really cool idea. Santa comes for the kids, and there is a raffle for some pretty cool prizes donated by different countries.

On Thursday, the 18th, was Emily's school Christmas show. Apparently they do this every year, and the kids practiced for it for about 2 months. Each grade level puts together a little play, skit, or song to show the parents. It was very cute! It was especially funny to hear all of the kids speaking English with their Italian accents (all the skits are in English). Having worked in public education in the US for 8 years, it was interesting to see the contrasts in what kids were willing and allowed to do. For instance, the secondary school kids did a mystery skit, and one of the "detectives" had a fake cigarette throughout the skit, which would never be allowed in an American school. Also, the 5th grade did a skit based on Romeo and Juliet, and, at the end when the families realize their folly in being enemies, the kids representing each family hugged, including boys. There is no way you could get American 5th grade boys to hug each other!

Here are some pictures of Emily's class' skit "Snow White on Christmas Night." Emily was a dwarf. That is one of Jeff's sweaters she is wearing.


Below are a couple of pictures of the end of the show when the whole school came out and sang a few Christmas carols. All the black shadows in the lower picture are the parents standing in the aisles taking pictures.

It was a cute little show, and Emily sure enjoyed working on it!

Pronto Soccorso

I got back from Chicago Wednesday evening, December 10. I had a good visit with my family and especially with my grandmother. It had been a very long time since I had spent that much time with her, and since I had seen the whole Butler clan together. The journey home was not so very pleasant, though. My flight from Chicago to Paris was officially delayed just over 3 hours, though it was more like 4 1/2 by the time we actually took off. I ended up missing the connection to Bologna in Paris, despite having given myself a 4 hour layover in case of a delay from Chicago. Then the flight to Bologna was delayed 20 minutes, so I finally got home about 7:30 pm, about 22 hours after my arrival at the Chicago airport the day before.

But, of course, the trip was not the end of my adventures in the last few days! I woke up Thursday morning with a mild backache, and, thinking that it was from sleeping on planes, etc. I didn't worry about it. I got Emily ready for school and walked her there. By the time I made it back to the house, though, my back pain had increased greatly and I had to run to the bathroom to vomit. I managed to call Jeff and tell him to come home from work, and spent the next hour and a half on the couch or in the bathroom crying, vomiting, and trying to deal with the intense pain. Honestly, if I had known how to call an ambulance, I probably would have. Poor Jeff had a dead car battery at work, so it took him quite a while to get home. He finally got home about 10:00 and we took off for the hospital.

We went right to Pronto Soccorso (which means ready or prompt help), the equivalent of the Emergency Room. The nurses did not speak English, but it wasn't too hard to communicate that I was in pain and where it hurt. Luckily, most medical terms are from Latin and are very similar in Italian and English. They put me on a gurney and a doctor (who spoke a little English) did a quick examination before I was sent to what seemed to be a holding room. There were several other patients and their family members waiting there and they were constantly moving in and out. I was still in pain, but not vomiting anymore, and the pain was beginning to subside a little.

After about 30 minutes, I was taken back to an examining room with 2 doctors and a nurse. One of the doctors - I think he was an intern - spoke pretty good English. They examined me and asked some questions and told me that I probably had a kidney stone. Kidney stone is colica renale (renal colic) in Italian. I was given a shot for pain and an IV with more medication. After that, the pain finally went away. The doctors said that they would order an X-ray and an ultrasound, and I was sent back to the holding room.

A little while later, I was taken to another area of the hospital for the ultrasound and X-ray. The radiologist who performed the ultrasound spoke some English, and one of her interns spoke it even better. She could not find a kidney stone in the right kidney (where the pain had been), so she said it must have passed, but found a small one developing on the left. I was then taken for the X-ray and wheeled back to the holding room after the X-ray was developed.

A nurse came a little while later and told me we were going for another visit in another department. I thought at first that she said Neurology, but it turned out to be Urology. The Urologist spoke English and explained a little more about what had happened and what we should do next. She gave me some prescriptions to have filled. She just wrote them on one of the papers that we were given to take home, not on a special prescription pad. Then I went back to the holding room.

A few minutes later, the 2 doctors who had examined me came out, asked if the pain was gone, then told me we were done. The nurse took out my IV, and we left. The only information that the hospital took from me was a copy of my passport. They did not take an address, insurance information, or anything about payment. We were told by some of Jeff's coworkers to call our insurance, which we did, and they said that they would send a guarantee of payment to the hospital. They had a nurse ask about what had been done for me, I guess to make sure we had received appropriate treatment. I was told to make a follow up appointment on the Army base, but they seemed satisfied with what had been done at the Italian hospital.

All together, I did not think that our experience was very much different from an American ER, except that I think the wait may have been a little less, there were definitely fewer people there waiting, and far less paperwork. The whole visit took just over 3 hours. I did notice a poster on the wall about ER visits. I could not read everything that it said, but the gist that I got was that if your reason for visiting the ER was legitimate (a real medical emergency, and there were 3 categories of legitimate reasons, from life-threatening to just needing immediate care) that the visit would be free (on the social health care plan), but that if it should have been taken care of in a regular doctor's visit, you would be charged for it. Seems like a good way to keep people from overusing the ER.

After he took me home, Jeff went and had my 4 prescriptions, including one that I have to take for a month, filled for 39 Euro (about 52 dollars). Just a neat little fact, all the medicine boxes that I have seen in Italy have Braille labels imprinted into them in addition to their regular labels. I hope that I do not have to use the prescription that I was given for pain, because it is an injection. I was given 5 vials and 5 sterile syringes, with instructions only in Italian on how to use them. So now I am home, drinking lots of water and hoping that the medicine with shrink the stone on the left side so that I do not have to go through that again!