MY VACATION? IT WAS FINE…

I am back from a week-long vacation on the beach in Italy. How was it, you ask? It was fine. Yes, only fine.

People keep asking that question at work and seem shocked by my answer. Um hello, I spent a week in a small condo with my mother and father-in-law, limited aircon and barely any internet access. Oh, and my two kids and husband were there too. “Fine” is about as good as it gets.

Here are a few highlights from my vacation:

1. Second-worst moment: the day the temp topped 90F, humidity sat at 100% and my father-in-law still refused to run the air-conditioning. If my in-laws hadn’t been there, I would have stripped down to nothing and fanned every inch of my body. Of course, if my in-laws hadn’t been there, I would have turned on the aircon and not pretended like it was 1879.
2. Worst moment: my 70 year old father-in-law in a speedo. There are some things you just can’t unsee.
3. Best moment: jumping the waves with my little ones and laughing and squealing when they crashed on our heads.
4. Best purchase: Ferragamo loafers. 100 Euros at the outlet mall.
5. Worst purchase: Smurf blue gelato for three days in a row for my two year old. Think bright green poop and you’ll understand.
6. Best getaway: dumping the terrible two on my in-laws and escaping to the next town over to meet our Italian besties for pizza and drinks.
7. Best decision: deciding not to pack any make-up, hair dryer or decent clothing for the week. Made for the perfect excuse to wear my husband’s old basketball jerseys instead of something decent.
8. Grossest moment: when the apples my in-laws fed my two-year old kicked in just as we were heading back in from the beach. I wouldn’t walk too close to that shrub on the beach edge if I were you.
9. Biggest frustration: no internet. NO INTERNET!?!? Turns out you don’t need to go to Tibet to get away from it all. Just head off to Italy. We piggybacked on a wifi in the center of town for 5 minutes per day, just enough time to download emails and check facebook notifications but nothing more than that. As if the withdrawal symptoms weren’t bad enough, facebook kindly sent me an email of notifications and activities I’d missed. Saltwater in an open wound.

But here we are now. We survived. We had some fun. The kids seem to understand everything we say in Italian now and little G is throwing in the odd word here and there. We slept in past 8am a few days, stocked up on vitamin D and managed to eat dinner a few times without any interruptions.

In other words, it was fine. And that’s good enough for me.

(Photo courtesy of Alberto Vigani at Italian Language Wikipedia )