Planning the trip..

The idea for this trip came over a year ago while I was still pregnant with Veena. Sometimes when I am bored, I browse expedia packages just for fun. I was sitting on my bed, relaxing and surfing the web. I thought about places that I still wanted to visit and entered them into Expedia to price our packages. It was then that I realized that traveling to Italy in March during Priyana's spring break was actually really cost effective. I was pregnant at the time but naively thought that the March after Veena was born would be a good time to visit Italy. I figured, she'll be about 5 months, still not mobile yet, still only drinking breastmilk. It would be a piece of cake! Then, Veena entered the world and she had other plans. Like many already know, she was a handful. She didn't eat well and she didn't sleep well. And then there was a measles outbreak and the last thing I wanted to do was get on a plane for a trip to Europe with an unvaccinated newborn. So, we didn't go that year. But I was determined to go before she turned 2!

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, we have taken a trip before each of our kids has turned 2 outside of the country. With Priyana, we went to Ireland and with Sariah we went to Grand Cayman. So, with Veena it was decided that it would be Rome. She would be the youngest of our world travelers, mainly because we had to go in March for it to be cost effective. Priyana was 19 months, Sariah was 23 months and Veena would be 17 months when we left. It would also be the longest journey. With Priyana the longest journey (return trip) was 13hr 38min flight time, 19hr 52 minutes of total travel time. With Sariah it was 6hr 28 min flight time, 8hr 28 min of total travel time. And with Veena... drumroll please... it was 16 hours 10 minutes flight time and 23 hour 40 minutes of total travel time! Take that and add in our most difficult child yet and well, maybe we were just plain crazy!

I booked the trip on February 12th, but planning started way before that! Countless hours went into planning everything... from what area to stay in, how to take the metro, places to see and nearby areas to visit.

Unfortunately, just 5 days after we booked for and paid for the trip, my cousin Jean died. She had been battling breast cancer. We had just seen her about 3 weeks prior and it seemed like she was doing better. Yes, she was on hospice, but she was so positive. I thought for sure I would see her again. I felt guilty about this trip. But, one of the things she had told me during our last visit was how glad she was that she was able to travel so much and see the world. She loved to travel. Her death was a sad reminder that life can be short and nothing is guaranteed. All we have is now and enjoying it to the fullest doing the things in life you love should be a priority.

After the funeral, I just wasn't in the mood to research, plan, etc. I ended up not doing much for a few weeks after and then cramming a lot of it in within the few weeks before we left. By the time we left, I had trains book and/or bus directions. I also had purchased our travel insurance,  our shuttle from the airport to our hotel as well as tickets to the Vatican museum and the Colosseum. A few days before we left, we decided to look at parking at LAX options and were surprised to find out how affordable it was. We decided to park at the airport for 10 days instead of having my dad drive us there and pick us up. We ended up spending about $8 per day for the parking and it worked out perfectly.

We decided to buy new luggage for the trip. We have been traveling a lot and the main luggage we have been using, a large suitcase, was a hand me down and was ripped at the bottom and sealed shut with some Gorilla Tape. We didn't want to risk it tearing apart in another country and we wanted the new rolling technology that we have been jealous of for so long. We shopped around but ended up finding the best deal on a Samsonite luggage set at Costco. I believe it was $99.99 and we got one large and one small suitcase. My goal was to have our luggage packed a week before our trip and for the most part I got this accomplished. I returned to my ziplock bag method that I used for our summer road trip. I packed enough clothes for each day for Priyana and Sariah plus 1 set of pajamas, 1 set of extra shoes, and 1 extra sweater/jacket. I figured if we ended up needing extra clothes, we could just reuse clothes from previous days. For Veena, I packed an outfit for each day along with 2 extra set of clothes. I brought her 3 sets of pajamas, but in the end only ended up using one. I brought her extra pjs because being a baby, she is more likely to have a diaper leak in the night and wet her pjs. I also brought her tights for each day since she has a tendency to remove her socks. I didn't want to deal with losing socks and her having cold feet in the middle of Italy. I also packed enough diapers for her and enough overnights for Sariah. I packed a winter hat for each of the girls as well.  I also packed the nebulizer and some albuterol in case Veena needed it. Daniel and I also vowed to pack light... we packed 2 pairs of pants and enough shirts, socks and underwear for each day of the trip and 1 set of pjs. We each took an extra pair of shoes too just in case. Nothing extra. We fit all of the above into 1 large suitcase!

We took a small suitcase as well, but guess what that was filled with?! Yup, food! I upped the ante on my food packing game. I still portioned everything out like I did last time, but in addition to that, I packed a day's worth of food for Priyana and Sariah into a gallon sized ziplock. I packaged a days worth of food for Veena separately, in a quart sized ziplock. That way I didn't have to think about which items to pack the day of or day before. Each night, I just pulled out 1 gallon and one quart sized bag and put them into my backpack. It was so easy and we were so prepared. No thinking was involved, which I loved! All the food fit into the small suitcase and was under the weight limit!

                                  Some goofiness while portioning out the snacks...

Pryana was actually a pretty big help this time with preparing the food and with packing the clothes!

       This is what a typical bag contained... I found that I over packed, as most days we had leftovers.
                                              This was for lunch and snacks for both the girls.

                                             This is what the bag looked like all packed...

       Then we had Veena's food. A typical bag for her included lunch and dinner and looked like this...

                             Here is a picture Priyana took of me getting the suitcase packed...

And here is the final packed suitcase with all the food...

The day before we were leaving, my dad mentioned that he didn't think we could bring any food on the plane. He said that he knew it was a fact that it wouldn't be allowed. I went to the website and found that although what he said wasn't exactly accurate (I could bring food onto the plane), there were limits to how much food you could bring into the country. So, I was worried that my whole suitcase of food would be thrown away! I panicked a little, but figured why worry about something that hasn't happened yet. Plus, its not like we can't get any food for the baby or snacks for the kids in Rome. It would just be way more of a hassle. My dad suggested we not put all the food into one bag and I thought that was a good idea. So, we moved some of the kids clothes into the small suitcase and some of the food into the big suitcase. One problem though... the large suitcase was now over the 40b weight limit. So, we had to bring an extra duffel bag where we put some of the food, some of the kids clothes, the extra shoes and most of the diapers. I really wanted to keep it to 2 suitcases but oh well.

We let the kids take one backpack which they shared. They brought their little stuffed animals, Lambie and Mo Mo that have always traveled with us, the nintendo DS, headphones and small notebooks. I also put in toys for Veena: her giraffey,  a few baby dolls, and a few cars. They wanted to bring their blankets, but I told them it would be too much of a hassle. They are big enough now that they don't need to travel with their blankies. Plus, I didn't want them losing them or ripping them.

Daniel and I each carried a backpack as well.  We carried water bottles for the girls, Priyana's asthma medications, diapers, food for the plane and an extra set of clothes for Veena. Daniel also brought some headphones and his iPad. Oh and our passports and camera of course!

We decided to bring two strollers. Daniel only wanted to bring one and make the other kids walk, but with all the walking we had planned to do I was pretty sure the kids would need a break. The two strollers we brought were pretty lightweight and easy to use. With Sariah still taking a nap, I also thought it would be nice for her to be able to take a nap if she needed. We could leave it in the hotel on the days we didn't need it and bring it when we did. In hindsight, I am so glad we brought both! We also brought the pack n play for Veena because the hotel we stayed at charged 8E per night to use one. I figured that would be about 70 bucks, in which case we could bring one of ours that I plan to sell soon on craigslist for like 25 bucks and then just leave it there to save money. Plus, you never know the condition of the cribs they have available. We didn't bring carseats this time.  I figured it would just be 1-2 rides and I didn't even know if they would have seatbelts to use the carseat. Had we rented a car like we did in Grand Cayman, I would have brought her carseat. Since we would mostly be using buses and the metro, I figured lugging it there just for the ride to and from the hotel/airport wouldn't be worth it.

I complied our itineraries, important papers (copies of our passports, travel insurance documents, hotel reservation info), vouchers, etc into a folder and we were set to go!

Day 1: Traveling to Rome

The day before we left for Rome, there was a terrorist attack in Belgium. I didn't give it much thought as I was running around finishing last minute stuff for the trip. But at night after everything was done I turned on the news and I googled about what was happening. My brother texted me that we should cancel the trip. I started freaking out. I asked Daniel if we should cancel. He said no. He said the chances of it happening again so soon would be minimal. He said there would be tighter security. He said that we couldn't live our lives in fear.

But researching it more started to really scare me. Apparently, after the Paris attacks, Rome (specifically the Vatican), London and Washington D.C had been named as future targets. I thought about Rome during Holy week being one of the busiest times. I thought about the Vatican on Easter Sunday... I read about all the terrorist suspects they were tracking. In all honesty, if we could have gotten a full refund for the trip, I probably would have cancelled. But we couldn't, and I, too, believed that there would be tighter security and that the likelihood of anything happening while we were there was minimal. We would take extra precautions as well. The fact that this happened the day before our trip definitely took away some of the whole experience for me and I was unreasonably nervous during various parts of our trip, but such is life right?

The first flight was on Wednesday, March 23 at 5pm. I checked in the day before and luckily we all got seats together! We left Escondido early, around 930am. I think we got to LAX around 1130, maybe noon and went straight to the place to park our car. It was pretty close to LAX, maybe a 10 minute drive at most. We parked the car, gave them keys and waited a bit for the airport shuttle. The place worked out well for us. It was outdoor parking and seemed secure. I doubt I would leave a brand new car in a lot such as this, but for an older car its totally fine. The guy that drove the shuttle to the airport was nice and by the time we got to the airport it was about 100pm-ish. There were a few people already in line. I wasn't sure when the agents would come, but luckily it was only a 20 minute wait and they were there to check people in. Everything went smoothly at check in, although we narrowly missed a potentially huge problem. Apparently, when I entered in Veena's name , I left out the S in DAVIS. Normally there can be no name changes, but the agent we worked with was nice. She casually mentioned what happened and said she cleared it with her boss, so there would be no problems at all. Phew. For someone that checks and double checks and triple checks EVERYTHING, I don't even know how that happened.

Once we checked in, we went through security. Because we had the strollers, we were allowed to go in a special line and we literally walked passed hundreds of people. It was so awesome! One of the few perks of traveling with kids I guess. Security was also a breeze and by the time we were done we were all very hungry. We got some food near the gate. By the time we got to the gate, we only had to wait around about an 1hr, which was awesome. Veena had fallen asleep right before lunch, so we let her run around while we waited at the gate.

We boarded the plane and got our seats. The girls were overjoyed when they saw the little screens at each chair. They did amazingly the entire trip. They basically watched shows, ate, dozed off and watched some more shows the entire 12hr, 25 minute flight. 

Veena did pretty good. Not as well as the others from my recollection, but good enough for a baby. Because she had taken that nap during lunch she wasn't really tired right away. She was awake for a good few hours after boarding and with no place else to go besides my lap, was a little restless. She wanted to touch everything. Oh, yeah, and she pretty much only wanted me. It was like breastfeeding a newborn for part of the flight, but I was glad I at least had that. She finally did go to sleep and overall she did really good. 

We landed in Moscow and it was raining! We had to go outside to get on a coach to get to the terminal. There we waited for about 3.5 hours. We walked around, fed the kids,  and Daniel and I had some coffee. Veena was getting restless in the stroller so we let her walk around while we followed. Overall the time went by fairly quickly. 

We had to again go outside in the rain to board our flight. It was cold and rainy. Luckily it wasn't very long. But, we were standing behind these two guys that seemed a little shady to me. Once they sat down, one of them kept looking back. All the 911 stories started replaying in my head and I got super anxious. I told Daniel and he thought I was crazy. He wasn't concerned at all. That relaxed me a bit, but not much because Daniel doesn't get concerned with much. I held my breath, but luckily nothing bad happened. The kids all slept the entire flight and once we landed I was oh so relieved to have made in safely. 

Once we landed the stewardess told us that our strollers would be outside. We went outside the aircraft where they normally would be but didn't see anything. We asked another employee walking by  if it would be at baggage claim and she said yes. I wasn't very confident if she understood me or if she knew what she was saying yes to, but we went with it. 

Once we got to baggage claim, Daniel quickly got our suitcases. Still no strollers. I panicked of course. Got anxious thinking that our shuttle wouldn't wait for us, we'd have to search and search for our strollers. We couldn't just go back to the plane because we had to take a tram to get to the baggage claim. It seemed like hours, but Daniel found our strollers probably within 15 minutes and we were on our way out. 

I was told on the Expedia paperwork that someone would be waiting for us after baggage claim with our names on a sign. We walk out of baggage claim and there were tons of people with names on papers. We walked past every one of them with no sight of our name. And of course, yup, you guessed it, I panicked a little. I finally asked someone and showed them the name of the shuttle we were waiting for. He pointed to some people that were right behind us and low and behold our name was on their sign. Phew. We waited for the shuttle and got on. We were the first to be dropped off. We checked into our hotel. The lobby was awesome and the room was great! They put us in the room on the same floor as the breakfast area which was also great! The elevator was tiny and didn't hold all of our luggage, but luckily it was only 1 flight of stairs (downstairs) to get to our room.

We got to the room, unpacked, took showers and went to sleep. We were pretty exhausted by this point! The girls all had their own beds, which they thought was the coolest thing ever!

Day 2: Aqueduct Park and Tivoli

We woke up fairly early today and hit the ground running. I was thankful we didn't have plans for the city center on account of the recent events and the fact that it was Good Friday. We did, however, have to take the Metro which worried me a little bit.

Anyways, we started the day by eating the hotel's breakfast. And it was delicious! All the pastries you could ask for, plus croissants, eggs, cereal, juice and a cappuccino maker. We were all pretty impressed with the spread. Yummy!

We found out that we could buy metro and bus tickets right from the reception desk of the hotel, which was a huge plus11 No spending extra time in the metro station fiddling with the ticket machine or having to have exact change. Yay! I calculated that we needed 4 tickets total (1.50 each, kids are free) for the entire day's trip and off we went to walk to the metro station. It was pretty close to the hotel, maybe a 10 minute walk at most. Once we got to the station it was pretty easy to figure out which metro we needed to get on. At our metro, the Cornelia stop, the metro only goes two ways. So since I had written down which way we needed to get off, it was easy. In fact, I was pretty impressed with the metro. Everything was really easy to understand. Didn't even have to ask for help at all. For this stop we didn't have to transfer at all, which was nice.

The first stop, Aqueduct park was about 5 miles outside the city centre and turned out to be pretty easy to get too. I had written down directions with pictures (from someone's blog I found who wrote up very detailed, helpful directions) of how to get from the metro station to the park. It was an easy 8-10 minute walk.

This ended up being a common sight, as sometimes it was just easier to carry her over than to find a path. 

                                             
                                           

   The aqueducts were breathtaking!

See those funny looking trees in the background? Apparently they are Italian trees. The park itself was less touristy and more of a place for locals to spend time with their families at the park.

Our next stop was Tivoli. Tivoli is located in Lazio, about 20 miles from Rome. We had to take two metros, one back the way we came and then we had to transfer at Termini. I was worried that we had to go through the Termini station. I had read that the main metro station in Rome, which is the Termini station, was named as a target. So, I wanted to spend the least amount of time there as possible. Luckily for us, all the metros come very quickly, so on today's trips we didn't have to wait at all for the metros to come.

Once we got to the metro stop, Ponte Mammolo, we had to transfer to a bus to complete our journey to Tivoli. Again, I had found very detailed directions with pictures online and so it was a breeze finding where to buy the tickets and where to stand to get on the bus. It was a bit more complicated to figure out which stop we needed to get off on. The bus stops in Italy aren't marked well. Also, the bus driver doesn't stop at all the stops if there is no one waiting or no one requests a stop. We had no way of knowing which stop to request, since we didn't know the one before the stop we needed. I kept seeing signs for Tivoli, so we knew we weren't there yet. Then a local heard us talking and let us know it was the next stop where we needed to get off. Phew. We got off and made our way to The Villa D' Este, a Grand 16th century cardinal's villa. We got lost a little bit walking to the place, but not too bad. We decided to eat our sack "lunch" before going inside. 

Villa D'Este is listed as a World Heritage Site, meaning it is a place of special cultural or physical significance. We went inside, used the bathrooms and then started wandering around indoors. There were tons and tons of paintings everywhere. The ceilings were beautiful.

                           Then we ventured outside and the grounds/gardens were amazing! 

                                                                         

                                                                       So much detail...

                                 I thought this would be the main water feature. I was wrong!

                                                     

                                                          Love "The Hundred Fountains!"

Amazing views of Rome!

The kids looking at all the fish in the water...

Incredible right?

Close up

 
                                                                 Views from the top...

Beautiful fountain...

                                                               Pretty vines....

By the time we were done, it was still fairly early, about 4pm. It didn't seem like there was much to eat near out hotel so we decided to eat an early dinner in Tivoli itself. I knew food wouldn't be an issue on this trip for the kids because, 1. My kids are good eaters and I make them try new stuff all the time and 2. Italy is known for pizza and pasta right? My kids favorite!

We ate outside on the street which was so romantic. Even with three kids.

Love these moments between siblings that were unscripted...

                                                          Veena loved Italian food too!

                                    Behind Priyana in this picture was where we ate dinner....

                                    Random cool structure on our way back to the bus stop.

We asked a stranger for the bus stop back to Rome and they pointed us in the right direction. We met some foreigners (like us) who spoke English and they confirmed they thought we were in the right spot. They informed us that they had visited Italy last year for a week and decided it wasn't long enough. So, they returned and have been loving it.

                     Here are the kids waiting at the bus stop... They were tired, can you tell?

We went to the same stop where we got on the bus, which was the last stop so was hard to get mixed up. We then took the metro line B back to termini, transferred to line A to get to our stop, Cornelia. We then walked back to our hotel. The girls were excited back at the hotel, but we got to bed pretty quickly after posting to Facebook and texting back home.