First Real Weekend

When one doesn't know exactly what we want to do, or how to do it, or where to go for it, it's easy to take our time getting out the door.  It's almost like avoiding the pink elephant in the room. But with a 13 and 10 year old who are both conditioned to going hard day after day (especially coming off summer), I knew it was time to confront the pink elephant!

When arriving in Rome, most would want to go see things like the Colosseum, or the Vatican. Nope. Not these kids (or many kids that I know for that matter). We ventured out to find City Beach Surf Shop in downtown Rome to scoop up the last few skim boards on the shelf (better for Mediterranean waters vs. surf boards. The Med is no surf Mecca).  With skim boards under our arms, it took an hour to get out of the city and into Ostia - Rome's closest beach community (30k from downtown).  Really only 30 minutes from our house, but an hour from inside the city, I was determined to figure out the beach scene.  Right off the bat I learned that no beaches (side by side, cabana/resort style) allow dogs, except for this one beach in which we got lost trying to find. Another hour later (this is where expat meltdowns happens, ie, mom tears up because she's lost, tired, everything takes 10x the effort and 5x longer than it should while trying to keep the mood upbeat for two discouraged kids) we finally found the needle in the haystack.  "Beach #1", also known as "Free Dog Village" is specific for dogs. "Free" is poor marketing because they require you to rent an umbrella for 7euros so that the dog has shade. Whatever! "It took me 2 hours to get here dude, you can have whatever is in my wallet at this point!" (In all seriousness, Italians love there family and apparently their animals just as much). "Ok, I'll take the pink umbrelle!"  The kids and I had a great 1/2 hour (yes, that's right. We only had time for a 1/2 hour because we had to race home to meet our new friends (future blog story) in time for the AS Roma game (an away game we weren't able to attend).   But sometimes when you've done something once, ya have to return to enjoy it in it's full capacity. So we came back the next day and it only took us 1/2 the time, and was there 10 times longer. Sunday was an overcast, windy, beautiful, warm water day.  Kite surfing is a big deal here (Hahna counted 39 in the water) and we had a blast spending all day in the water/on the beach, including the dog! Everyone was happy. We ended the day at AS Roma's training facility (pics to come) to pick up Darcy. Very exciting to finally see where he spends countless hours a week.   Champion's League game coming up on Wednesday:   AS Roma vs. Barcelona. This will be mine and the kid's first game of the season. Set to be a late night, we're thrilled to go. Can't wait!