European Adventure Day 1--Our Flight to Milan

 Happy September world!  I have oh-so-much to say and no idea how to begin to share it all.  When it comes to our European adventure, venimus, vidimus, vicimus.  We came, we saw, we conquered.  At least all the gelato, fine cheeses, pastries, pizza, and bread, that is.  

Really, our trip couldn't have gone more smoothly.  Nobody contracted Covid, nobody lost their passports, nobody crashed the rental car, nobody got pick-pocketed.  My only regret is that I wasted so much energy worrying about these worst case scenarios.  The truth is, as soon our trip began, I felt this overwhelming peace that everything was going to work out fine, and it did.  We were so fortunate to have squeezed in this adventure right when we did.  We arrived home late last Saturday, just before the European Union recommended new travel restrictions for the U.S. on Monday morning.  When we booked our tickets, we had not way of anticipating the ideal travel window, but we seem to have lucked out and hit it just right.

There's no way I can share all of our adventure in a single post.  My hope is to break it down and share a little bit day by day,  With a little luck, I can intersperse some of our other summer adventures as well.  Summer 2021 will forever be summer to remember.

Our adventure began at 5:00 am Monday morning when Aunt Christy dropped our crazy crew off at the airport.  We were so grateful to finally begin our journey.  Arranging for Eli and Annika to get Covid-tested the day before had been pretty stressful, as was uploading mountains of forms to the United Airlines website.  But with bags, passports, and vaccination cards in hand, we were finally ready to go.

Oh, and masks.  Can't forget the masks.  We wrote individual names on the inside of our KN95s in Sharpie.  It took us a moment to figure out that this was the source of the unexplained bruising on our cheeks.

Looks like Jason could use some instruction on how to wear his.

For luggage, we traveled with two roller bags, two small handbags, four backpacks, and a fifth backpack that we could collapse for our budget airline flights.  In the end, everyone was quite grateful that we hadn't brought more.

While most of the kids were excited to travel, Annika was more reticent.  She'd already had a summer chock-full of travel and was rather honest about how she'd prefer to stay home.  Fortunately she had a couple of stuffies to keep her company.

Have tigey, will nap.

Our domestic flights went quite smoothly.  Knowing we'd be traveling all day, I'd packed food for the airport. Our cheese and crackers weren't quite the camembert and prosciutto we enjoyed a couple days later, but still tasty.

Hanging out in Newark for so long, we couldn't help but think of our New York family across the way.

Our international flight from Newark to Italy was delayed by two and a half hours, so we broke out the UNO cards.

The big kids went in search of Starbucks frappuccinos as well.

At long last, we meet our giant plane.

You can't see the smiles beneath the masks, but we were all feeling the excitement.  I think the last time we all flew together was our Alaskan cruise in 2014.

Once on board, the kids were eager to get plug into their screens.  For them, an international flight where they can watch movies all night long is a dream come true.  As for me, I was more excited that the flight wasn't full and we had plenty of room to stretch out.

Seven hours later and it was the alps we saw the alps stretching out below us.

Our first task in Italy was to find the Malpensa Express to take us into Central Milan itself since the airport is on the far outskirts of the city.

As you can imagine, the kids were quite sleepy on the train ride.

Annika still seems unsure about this whole Europe thing.

The Milan train station.

Who knew we'd gone straight back to the Big Apple?

In truth, I was amazed by how easy it is to travel with older children.  Not only can you forget about strollers and car seats, it's as if you have your own personal bellhop to manage the bigger bags.  Highly recommend!  Watching this family work their way through the train station, however, I was quickly reminded of earlier years when it wasn't so simple.

Next step, figuring out the metro system to our hotel so that we could drop off bags.  By this point, we definitely regretted not learning more Italian, but we got it sorted out, sleepy brains and all.

We arrived at the hotel at 1:30 pm, but check-in wasn't until 3:00, plus we knew that we ought not lie down as much as we wanted to.  So instead, we went to grab lunch at a little Peruvian place called El Hornero just down the block from the Meininger Lambrate where we were staying.  Little did we know that we were actually walking into fine dining, but it was the perfect pick me up.  In truth, the food was as tasty as anything I ever ate while living in Lima. Well worth the splurge!

Lomo saltado, bistec a la pobre, ceviche, a basket of fresh bread, and frozen lemonade: the smiles couldn't have been wider.

It took a good long while for the check to come, so eventually the travel-weary souls crashed once more.

Instead of heading back to the hotel, we forced them onto the subway so that we could check out the Castello Sforzesco.  Annika's favorite part was definitely chasing all the pigeons.  They would fly through this archway in droves, often landing on the gate.  If you're into slapstick, you could also stick around and watch how one would invariably veer slightly off course and hit the glass of the neighboring window instead.  I must have seen it happen half a dozen times!  

Talia's photo of the courtyard.

I liked this fresco because it reminded me of the sun on baby Rapuzel's palace ceiling from Tangled.

While at the Castello we met a woman from South America whose pet bunny had gotten loose.  Here's a photo of the snatch.  Once safely harnessed, Annika even got a chance to give the bunny a quick pet.

Outside the castle, we discovered a giant needle and thread.  Talia felt right at home in Italia.  

A little more wandering, a trip to the grocery store for some essentials, and it was late enough to respectably return to the hotel, hop into our bunk beds, and sink into sleep.  We may have been exhausted, but we'd made it to Italy and the adventure had begun.