European update 7/8

Hello everyone!

Well, I will admit that I am a little tired from the trip, but all in all I
am glad to be here. Yesterday's flights were a little long and tiring, but
from my experience they were not bad at all. I thought the little TV's were
great to get your mind off of the time.

I will say the best thing was the homeopathic "jetlag" stuff that we took
every two hours. It is supposed to help you get over the jetlag quickly so
you can move on with your life or vacation. For me, it definitely worked,
although my clock is still a little off. And I am not the only one. All use
girls woke up around 6am when we were suppose to sleep until 8am. Maybe
being excited has something to do with that too. :)

Today's plan is to take it easy and walk around Rome and see the Colosseum,
the Forum other ruins. Our roommates have been sightseeing for the last 2
days and gave us some good tips. They said. "Take your time! Rome is a lot
smaller than you think. They did almost all the sightseeing in one day and
are now going back for more in depth looks at things."

It is about 7:30am now and all of us girls are now ready to go. MerryK is
reading some papers, Doodle is looking at herself in the mirror, I am on the
computer and they boys are still in bed.

That is all for now.

Chow!

Ladybug

NOTE: Ladybug has uploaded some pictures to her blog, so you can go there
and see some of the places they have been here:
http://christianlifeinthe21century.blogspot.com/
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Hello,

All is well here in Rome. We went to the Colosseum today and it was amazing.
To see such old buildings with so much history behind them was great. It
was also hot and muggy. This made it very tiring and we were dead by lunch.
We ended up coming back to the apartment once we had finished lunch by way
of a market close to us. They had some of the weirdest fish in the market.
There was definitely squid and something else that looked like a crayfish
but was big like a lobster, yuck. I figured out how to keep children from
being so wild. Take them on a long exhausting hike in hot, muggy weather
and they are sleeping by 6 pm. I shouldn't say too much; I died at 3 pm and
took an hour nap! We think we are still getting over some of the jet lag.

Rome is an interesting place. It is definitely expanding everyone's view of
the world and how it is different from home. Most of the streets are small
and everything is packed together. It reminds me of New York city also.
The graffiti and how everything just seems to be dirty even though there is
not much trash laying around. Mitchell got a big kick out of the sirens.
They sound different from the ones at home and they sound just like the ones
in the movies (like in the Pink Panther). Getting around by walking and the
metro (subway) is not too bad. We have not gotten lost, yet! It is so
funny to try counting out money. It is very similar to American money, but
just because they say euros your mind goes all a flutter and gets it mixed
up.

No one is getting on anyone's nerves yet. We still seem to be one, big
happy family. The language barrier over here is not too bad. Most people
speak English, especially those dealing with tourists. Although, it is
still uncomfortable trying to talk to someone. I get very self conscious
when they are having trouble understanding me. But, you just keep going and
eventually they figure out what you are trying to pantomime. Time to go
check on the sleeping children. Ciao!

Waldo Pepper

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Mom, Dad, and all,

Jet lag hit everyone today. We were all up at around 6/7, even after going
to bed at around midnight, and so we got an early start on the day. We
walked to the Colloseum, but ended up going to the Roman Forum first. The
reason for this? Michelle Obama is in Rome and was touring the Roman Forum
at 11am, so we had to be out of there by then. She wouldn't be at the
Colloseum until 3pm. Even in Rome you can't escape Obamamania. ;-) However,
the Roman Forum was far more amazing than I thought it would be. It's not
something someone can describe to you and make sound cool, I think; there's
just a feel about it that's old and majestic, and you can walk right up to
it and through it. And up on one of the hills, you could look out over many
of the older buildings in that part of Rome, domes and columns and statues
everywhere. That was worth even the long hike up the steep stairs.

By the time we got to the Colloseum, though, I at least was starting to feel
a little worn, both from jet lag and from not having a large breakfast (it
being about 11:30 by then, too). It was a lot how I had pictured it, though
not the museum section. We were all worn by then, and needing lunch, and
after that we didn't want to walk anywhere else so we went back to our
apartment. However, we made a stop at the market a couple blocks away, and
found that the produce here is amazingly inexpensive. We bought a lot of
fruit and a few vegetables to take as snacks for the next couple days. Once
we got back to the apartment, though, we all crashed for a couple hour nap.
By the time everyone was up, it was after 7pm and time for dinner and now
we're back and it's almost 11pm. We'll go to the Vatican tomorrow.

Apart from the jet lag, today was a really great day. And in fact, getting a
few hours of 'siesta' was nice too, despite the reason for it; the pace is
really easygoing and we're enjoying ourselves. The food here is excellent,
especially any dishes with cheese. Everything here has a rich, fresh flavor.
Though it's strange to walk down the streets and see as many pizzerias and
gelatterias as the teriyaki/Chinese/Pho noodle restaurants in the Seattle
area combined. Almost no ethnic variety in restaurants at all, and for that
matter, not so much among the people either.

That's not the only thing that's markedly different. Culture shock has also
hit; it's impossible to feel at home here. People aren't rude or anything,
but everything is different everywhere you go. I think the best word to
describe Rome is chaos. We have to jaywalk for 95% of the time, the cars and
motorbikes go every which way they want to (I'm not sure they have traffic
laws other than don't crash and don't hit pedestrians), the streets are not
in a neat grid-like shape, and the roads and sidewalks themselves require
all your attention not to trip. Almost nothing is labeled; hardly any signs,
and what ones there are aren't easy to find or read (stone engraving, not
letters on a background). No billboards either, for the most part. Also,
we've seen some pretty scandalous commercials on the public TVs in the
Metro. And speaking of that, the subway is one of the best things about
Rome&lsqauo;I really enjoy it as a way to travel, simple and fast. It's not bad,
just disconcerting; I'm glad that we're finishing up our trip in England,
which should be much less a culture shock (and minus the language barrier)

The weather was the same as yesterday, hot and muggy. Most of the time I
enjoyed it, actually, but when I was really worn and had low blood sugar,
the shade was most welcome. The worst thing about it was that your water
bottle only stayed cool for about an hour. There are public water fountains
everywhere, so we could refill often, but even after an hour it was more
warm than lukewarm.

It's only our second day but we get along really nicely as a group.
Especially at meals, where we ended up rotating our plates pretty frequently
so we all got to eat a little off many plates. I'm finally starting to get a
handle on the conversion of euros and kilograms, I think, and it's hard to
think in Washington time at all.

Love to all,
MerryK

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Hello,

It looks like we all love to write emails. So, here is another. :P

Today we went to the Forum and say tons of ancient ruins. It was a huge
place! I had no idea it was going to be so big. It was pretty hot today, but
I didn't start feeling it until around 11am. One thing I have to say is
those powder Gatorade packs that you can pour into your water bottles are
life savers!! We need to find more of those and stock up on them.

One odd thing about today was the fact that the Forum and Colosseum were
closing early for the afternoon. After a few helicopters flying around and
some chatter, we found out that the First Lady (yes, Michelle Obama) was
planning to visit those locations. Ha, so we go half way around the world
and our President's wife follows us.

Us girls and my brother also had some fun with the ancient rocks. Doodle has
been upset about not being able to touch the Stonehenge when we go there. So
we all decided to get a picture with us all touching some ancient rocks that
we COULD touch. Fun. :)

The second place we went to was the Colosseum. That was really neat and big.
The best part about our Roma Pass was we got to skip the ticket line and go
straight to the entrance. Sweet.

Later in the day we all got hit with nap attacks and realized that we had
not avoided jetlag completely. Some of us slept for an hour and others slept
for a couple more. I will not name who (cough...Doodle)

The day was then finished off by having dinner at an outdoor cafe near a
neat old looking church.

All in all it was a great day.

Ladybug