the vaca is so over

I’m writing this from the balcony of our Rome hotel. And by Rome, I kind of mean New York City.

And by balcony, I sort of mean living room.

Yes. We’re home. Not that anyone cares with that attention hogging Michael Phelps around.

We spent our last night in Rome, gorging on heavenly pasta.

We even gave the girls a quick peak at the Roman Colosseum.

“Dylan, this is one of the most famous buildings in the world,” I explained.

“Is it new?” she responded.

“Oh no. Very very old. It dates back to – Well, it’s super old,” I said.

“Do people live here?” Dylan asked.

“No. It was used for shows. Like “Sesame Street Live” only sort of more geared for adults. Adults who dig gladiators,” I explained. I really am so good at this parenting thing.

Then we hailed a cab and told the Italian driver, “The Holiday Inn near the airport.”

And he apparently heard, “Airport.”

Because 25 exhilarating minutes later (holy crap, they really drive THIS-IS-GOING-TO-SHORTEN-MY-LIFE-FAST), we were delivered to Leonardo da Vinci airport… which was totally perfect except that we had no luggage and we were about 14 hours early for our flight.

So we cleared up the confusion, made our way to the Holiday Inn and paid him copious amount of Euros for our little unintended excursion.

The next day, our flight back to New York was 9 hours and 20 minutes.

Our portable DVD player battery ran for 3 hours and 0 minutes.

If you rock at math, you’ll easily understand that we found ourselves with 6 hours and 20 minutes to fill with the kids. I’m not really one to talk to strangers on planes but by the end of the flight, in a desperate attempt to just pass the time, I found myself interrogating the lovely Houston couple next to me about their lives.

But finally we landed. And it really felt good to be home.

Now I hear there has been some kind of big, fancy, international sports competition going on. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? I’m totally going to go check it out. Give me a couple days and I promise I will have resurrected my desperate desire to be a professional gymnast.