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!