Day 110 and 111

We are coming down the home stretch of the trip. Only 12 more days of being in Europe a year ago! Wow, time has flown away. I am going to try and write a post everyday until January 14th. In todays post, first I will be writing about yesterday and then writing about today.

Day 110, The morning was a time of cleaning the house and doing laundry and packing. Tomorrow we left Mark’s house and headed down to Rome for a week then came back up to France for the last 2-3 days. Since we had stayed in Mark’s house so long it was dirty and needed a good cleaning.

After a little school Jack and Bria went out to play at the fort and finish it. Mom and I stayed inside sitting around the warm fire. The house was chilly and it was nice to sit and watch the fire crackle and pop. While sitting there I took a picture of all the Chrome books and their stickers. Even now here in PA I look at those computers and think of all the things we did in each country.

A little before lunch Jack, Bria, and Landon were finished with their fort. Dad came out and took pictures. I went in the fort and sat down on the wet mud by accident. :) That gave me a big surprise and I jumped up. Soon Dad and I got cold just standing out there watching them play that we came back inside and got warm by the fire. The picture of the fort is the header picture.

In the afternoon we asked Mark if it would be ok if Jack, Bria, and Landon left the fort up or should they take it down? He said that they should take it down. So they headed out and took it down. When they came in they were muddy and wet. Again we started the process of drying their shoes and doing more laundry.

Day 111, Leaving Mark’s house was disappointing. We all loved his house (Maybe not Dad because the internet was not that good sometimes). Around 10am we left, the house. Before leaving we talked with Mark about taking some olive oil with us. And, if we were to go back to Italy we would try and visit his house.

On a traveling day we always tried to stop at a place of interest. Today we stopped in Assisi to see the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli. The day was drizzly and the ground was wet and muddy. Inside the building there were people everywhere. Most people were in line to see inside the little church, called The Chiesetta. This little church inside the basilica was given to Saint Francis (1182 - 1226 A.D.), dating from the 9th century, by the Benedictine monks. We got in line too.The chiesetta (little church) of Porziuncola (Italian for "Little portion") is the most sacred place for Franciscans. Above the door to the church was a still discernible painting of people worshiping. Inside at the far end was an alter and paintings all around the walls. There were no photos allowed but at the end of the line there was a man giving out cards with a picture of it.

Outside the basilica again Mom, Jack, and Landon went to the stores on the right side of the picture below. Dad, Bria, and I went to the WC, and then switched with Mom and the boys. One store was a book store and the other store was a souvenir shop. Around 12pm, Dad and Mom decided that we were going to have pitas for lunch. We all then walked across the street to the shop and picked out the pitas we wanted. Mom then took us back to the car and Dad brought the pitas back. My pita was a pita with meat and mache greens —excellent greens if you ever have the chance to try it.

The drive to Rome was a LONG drive! (5 hours?) We listened to Mr. Poppers Penguins. As we got closer to the house we were staying the phones lost connection a lot, and then the GPS got confused about where we were. The GPS first took us up a hill to a development. We then called the host (in Poland) and found out we were at the wrong place. When we finally arrived, a lady, welcomed us, but she could not speak one word of English. So it was really hard for her to tell us what we had to do. We tried to use Google Translate, but that did not really work. We found out that there was no internet connection anywhere. The only place Dad we could get a little connection was if he stood out (in the rain) at the gate.

The outside was painted in many different colors. The inside was very different too. Inside there were all the designs and colors you could imagine. The entrance room had the main heat, a wood stove, for the house and the upstairs house where the lady lived. I was really excited to be able to do the fire. But the lady said that she would come every morning to make the fire. Mom did not really like that idea. The following pictures will explain the rest of the rooms.

Entrance

Living/Dinning room

Kitchen

Girls room

Boys room

Mom and Dads room

One thing that I thought was weird was that there was a light switch for almost every individual light. All the switches below for the living/dinning room. There are many more in the house.

After the lady left, Dad went outside to connect to the internet. When Dad came back we had dinner and then Dad read stories before bed and we retired for the night.