On this Tuesday I woke up around 10 am to take care of a few loose ends. That is actually early for me since I got off work at 2am and then went to the gym to workout until 3am and then drove home, took a shower, and then relaxed until about 5am when I headed to bed. My mom drove into town to pick up some EURO currency that she had exchanged for our upcoming trip and after that I had to load a deep freezer in her van. That would be the first reason I had to be up. Once up I realized the Direct TV return box was sitting on the porch. My wife had called a few days ago to cancel our subscription and saving around $170 each month. It was hard to not choose the savings since my family watches a lot of podcasts, videos, movies, and tv series on YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Tubi, Pluto TV, and Crackle. The only thing I will miss most is the live sports however cheap alternatives do exist. I am unable to use the Firestick or digital antenna at my house. I assume its due to an over abundance of trees blocking a signal. I will not have time to return the system today but having it gives me a piece of mind knowing I’m one step closer.
After chatting with my mother for a little while, she left and I opened up the Duolingo application to practice some more Italian phrases for around an hour. The reason I’m practicing is because on Friday I’m working a half shift and leaving at 7:30pm. Then I have to come home and take a shower and get on the road by 8pm so my family can go to Indianapolis to stay in a Hotel near the airport. That will enable us to get up early, not fight traffic, and be ready to begin our journey to two countries on most peoples bucket lists. My sister and mother have saved up enough airline miles that most of our group is flying almost for free. That is pretty impressive when you consider our group consists of my sister, mother, wife, daughter, step daughter, and myself who can all fly to France and Italy and back home for practically free. We have booked most of our excursions so it appears our trip will save us about half of the fees in comparison. My mom, sister, and I have been to both countries I believe in the year 2000. I promised my wife I would take her one day and she had said she figured it would be a retirement age type of trip the two of us would take but being able to take our whole family at this time is a huge blessing.
The trip will start with us flying out of Indianapolis and flying to North Carolina. Then we have about a four hour wait for our next flight which will take eight hours but get us to Paris, France. My step daughter took French in high school and has dreamed of going there. She actually just thinks we are going to Italy for the entire trip so we have secretly planned the first two days as a surprise for her. We will start off day one going to the Louvre Museum for a few hours. Then go back to an apartment we rented through Airbnb. After everyone takes a shower and relaxes for a few we will head back out and go to the Eiffel Tower. That is a pretty packed day when we will surely be dealing with jet lag, so the next day is all day Disney in Paris. After that we finally go to Italy on day three. We will begin it in Verona where we are staying in a castle. I am sure our 21 year old and 12 year old girls will be extremely excited. The second day in Italy will be in Venice. I have heard that in recent years they have allowed cruise ships to come up to the end of the city and they take over the city for most of day. Hopefully we do not have to fight the crowds. I would like my wife to experience the romantic gondola ride that she has pictured in her head. The only issue is that the ride itself is not really that romantic, however being with her is enough to make the time amazing. The other biggest frustration is that the costs for using a public toilet in that city has jumped up to two euro per person so based on fluctuating exchange rates could cost you $2.50 just to pee. The only way around it is to go to a restaurant and buy some food or drinks in order to use their restroom. After that day in Venice we will be in Florence for a day and a half. The other half of that day will be spent in Pisa. I’m sure we will do the stereotypical tourists “Pizza in Pisa”. Then we will move to Rome and stay for the next few days until we fly home. First we will go to the Colosseum and hang around the city. The next day we will use a guided tour to see Pompeii and Sorrento. My wife has said that Pompeii is a dream city to visit and it was one of my favorite parts from last time so I am sure she will love that and then the Sorrento part will allow my wife to see one of the coastal cities that a lot of people visualize when they see pictures of Italy with all the colorful small houses. The next day we will go to the Vatican and relax in the city because the next day we will be flying home.
To communicate with ourselves over there my wife called Verizon and set us up with an international plan that costs $10 a day for myself and my wife. My sister ordered an European sim card so she can use Yahoo or Facebook messenger to keep in contact with us if we get separated and can’t find each other. To communicate with the locals all six of us have practiced a little on the Duolingo app. A few of us have also downloaded Google Translate so that we can translate in French or Italian even when we do not have an internet connection.
Anyways, back to my day. So after practicing my Italian I took a small cat nap before work then l headed in and ran a good amount of parts. The only issue was that when I spot checked one of my parts I noticed there was a missing tap or thread pattern for a bolt or screw. Once I went through the basket I found that the parts from the previous shift were all missing that tap. So I got a “tap handle” and “tap” and put the threads in manually in order to save the parts. The rest of the day went pretty well. I had half a dozen unique parts that I ran consistently for the ten hour shift and completed about two hundred parts in total. After work I called my sister on the way to the gym to work out some final details about our trip and ended up talking to her while I did forty minutes on the treadmill. After that I went home, took a shower and went to bed after I relaxed for a little bit.