Road Trip to Italy

It took 3 days, 3 border crossings and 1650 miles on our trusty Volvo but Monday we made it to Italy! Here are some pictures from the journey....

Back seat is full!!

This is what 90% of our drive in Ukraine looked like.  Flat, boring and full of trucks. Not too unlike much of the US!

This was Enzo's favorite position, even at 80 miles per hour.  When Paolo did this drive in December he had to be completely bundled in hat, coat and gloves as Enzo insisted on having his head out the entire way. 

A huge advantage we have on these road trips are our diplomatic plates.  Here Paolo is going a tad bit over the speed limit.  

Other than trucks most of the vehicles we saw once we left Kyiv were heavily loaded Ladas.  Not a black Range Rover in sight!

Zoned out to The Backyardigans!

Lunch break on first day.  

Gio took this fabulous shot!

Every stop along the journey involved a bug hunt. 

And since we were still in Ukraine, we had to endure yet another greasy meal that involved a lot of sour cream.  We are  soooo ready for Italy!

An intense father-son discussion....about why we really cannot bring this snail along on the journey.

Still debating about throwing a fit regarding the snail we must leave behind. 

The fit did actually happen.  Advantage of a fit?? A big nap follows soon after.  Gio slept for the rest of the afternoon drive.  And did the same for all 3 days of the journey, bless his heart.  

The stadium built in Lviv for Eurocup.

Sometimes we closed up the windows and blasted the A/C for Enzo.  He eventually figured out where the most powerful vents were and learned to sleep with his nose pressed right up against them. 

Toward the end of day #1 we finally left the flatland and entered the Carpathian Mountains.

Throughout the drive in Ukraine we saw a lot of agricultural work, all being done by hand.  Even the hay was stacked manually in these interesting tall piles.  As soon as we crossed into Hungary agricultural work took a giant leap 100+ years forward to modern round bales of hay and giant farm machinery.

Night #1 at a very nice motel with this fantastic playground. 

Yep.  He did it again.  Another day, another streaking boy through a Ukrainian restaurant.  Sigh.  

Our hotel. 

Enzo loved it here as it was very cool and breezy.  

I had a very hard time waking Gio for day #2.  Eventually (at 9:30!) I let all of the air out of his air mattress which did the trick.  

The Ukrainian-Hungary border.  Again the D plates and Paolo's UN passport made life very easy for us.  We got to skip the 4-5 hour line and go right through.  Yes, we are THOSE people.  

First Hungary tag and road sign.  Bye-bye Cyrillic text.  I will NOT miss you this summer.  Okay, so I cannot read this sign either, but at least it is my alphabet!

Yep, passed out again.  

Roads in Hungary and Solvenia were as dull as Ukraine, so I did not take any shots (also, I was driving much of the time this day), but here we are at the end of day 2 taking a much needed break. We ran and wrestled on this lovely mountain field near our hotel.... 

...and eventually tired out the two young fellows enough to capture a rare group shot.  

And so the final day of driving began.  We wondered if Enzo had any idea where we were going.  After all, this is the third road trip he has taken from Kyiv to Italy! Day #3 was the hottest (about 90F) and the toughest driving as once we entered Italy we had 5 hours of crowded highways and tollbooths.  We had been spoiled by the ease of the empty roads in Ukraine, Hungary and Slovenia.   

By 4PM we made it to our house to find our wonderful landscape  designer working hard in the heat.  

Gio jumped right in to assist.  He was most helpful at squirting the men with his water gun.  They were grateful.  

The biggest surprise for me?  A wild flower field in full bloom!

Enzo immediately discovered the coolest part of the property- the grass in the back of the house.  He took up residence with his best buddy there to crawl aboard.  

As always, Enzo's incredible patience endured and he eventually got to take a long nap.  Two months of country life for you, dear friend.  No leashes, no apartment living and all of the cheese you can possibly eat.  

With the heat on here we took Gio to the local pool to wash off the road grime.  

When in Italy.... At least he is not naked! 

Gio begins school on Monday where all of the children are required to wear bibs for lunch.  As Gio refused to wear them after he was about 10 months old, this will be a challenge, to say the least, so we decided to begin practicing immediately.   This session lasted about 5 minutes before the bib was thrown to the floor.
Oh, and not a soul will speak English at his school.  Challenge #2!!
 More on that in a future post.....

EuroCup 2012: Sweden vs. France

EuroCup seems to be all that is happening around here right now.  We have all been very impressed with how well the city has been managing the tournament and really find it a bit surreal as suddenly we see and hear English constantly.  The dark side of all of this is the astronomical cost of the tournament for Ukraine financially.  The country spent more than $10 billion to get ready for the games (new airports, high speed trains, stadiums, road construction, etc...) yet with a paltry amount of visitors who have actually come to any of the Ukrainian host cities (today's estimate is about 80,000), that means the country shelled out over $125,000 for each fan who came to see the games.  One does not need to look far to see where corruption has played a part in much of this, with the consequences for the country's economic future likely to be dire.
Well, enough gloom and doom.... For now we are enjoying the fun of the tournament.....

In the FanZone on Kreshatik.  The main street of central Kyiv has been closed to cars for the entire tournament.  We like to head down there to watch games on the giant screen and to people watch!

Gio finds it a bit overwhelming but gets into the spirit eventually.  And it is great to be in a place where he is not the loudest person around!

Last night I finally got to enter the stadium I have been watching being built for the last 20 months (at a cost of an estimated $900 million, not the mere $700 million I had written in an earlier post).  We went to watch Sweden play France.  Even though Sweden was already out of the tournament the stadium was most certainly pro-Sweden.  Not only were there a lot of Swedes, the locals were also cheering loudly for them (they also share the same uniform colors so it is actually difficult to tell the Swedish fans from the Ukrainian ones!).  The Ukrainian team was playing England in another city in Ukraine at the same time as this match.  If Ukraine won and France lost, then Ukraine could advance to the quarterfinals.  Hence the loud cheering for Sweden.  Paolo and I were also hoping for a Swedish victory.  Many of our friends here are Swedes, and the star player on the team is one of the stars on Paolo's beloved AC Milan team.  So, we left Gio happy as a clam with his beloved babysitter Lorraine (a 10th grader at his school) and strolled the 10 minute walk down the road to the giant stadium (with a capacity of 70,000).  Here are some images of our evening....

Strolling down Red Army Street to the stadium....

French fans.  Sorry, fellows!!

Stadium is on left one more block down from here.  Not sure what they are going to do with such a giant stadium in the middle of the city once this tournament finishes.  Madonna is coming in August, but will they really be able to fill 70,000 seats for her...or anyone??

Police were everywhere...on bikes, with dogs and on horseback.  

Yep.  Even for the Sweden vs. France game.  

First round of security (3 more to go).

There it is.  $900 million.  

The entrance and exit where surprisingly smooth and quick. Here they were checking our bags.  

My ticket!

We are in Ukraine, after all.  There MUST be beer, and in vast quantity (love the 5 cup carrier).  Notice the percent alcohol, though.  A disappointment for most, I suppose.  

Our seats were, to put it mildly, quite high up.  And the "big screen" was tough to see.  Still, it was a lot of fun and the spirit of the crowd for Sweden was infectious. Now to cheer for Italy who play here on Sunday in the Quarterfinals!!