My Summer Vacation

Day 0
Why am I planning a vacation? I live in New York City! Everyone else goes away and I have the city to myself (sort of). I hate airplanes.
Day 1
On the plane—Can’t sleep, iPad jumps when I try to read, no good movies, legs cramps.
Then we land, take our luggage on a bus, but the bus is a boat (vaporetto)! The boat is a bus! We’re in Venice! Canals, lagoon, pasta! Prosecco, gelato! Let me at it. Toilet paper in the hotel is gift wrapped! I’m not in Kansas any more.
Day 2 and…
Rialto bridge, Bridge of Sighs, Correr, Garabaldi St., gelato, Jewish Ghetto, Academia (May be most amazing museum ever! Bosch!), Murano (eh), St.. Marcos, Academe bridge at sunset, churches, churches, HEAT, museum of musical instruments, food!
I don’t want to leave…ever!
Day 6 Florence
Easy train ride. The hotel has given us a hand-held device with GPS and free international phone calls. “Hi, kids, eat your heart out.”
Day 7
Uffizi, David, museums, museums, HEAT, Galileo museum. Churches. Charlottsville 🙁
Day 8/9
Laundry day near Santa Maria Novella, loud smells. Museo del Bargello, walking, churches. Pitti palace, walking, shopping, eating.
Day 10
Tuscany, Siena, San Gimignano.
Day 11
Santa Croce, shopping, walking, eating. Did I mention HEAT.
Day 12
Train to Rome. Old hotel in back street below Spanish steps. Lovely. (see the view of cafes from our window)
Day 13 and…
Colosseum, Forum, HEAT, walking, eating, churches, flea market, ghetto, Kosher lunch (humus, baba, ahhhh), Borghese gardens (hot and dry 🙁 restful ), Piazza Popolo, Ara Pacis (slavery exhibit, oy!), Catacombs (bones removed because tourists steal them!), Borghese Gallery (Caravaggio, but we’re museumed out, can’t stop laughing, place is all marble like living in a [fancy] bathroom—where is the exit?) Last dinner—why am I yearning for fish tacos?
Day 17
Frantic message from our son at the airport, “R U OK? Heard there was an earthquake there.”
Earthquake?
Home.