*Sigh. *

It's good to be home. I was in Italy the other day. And the day before that I was in Madagascar.



Sorry, I just had to say that out loud. It's so hard for me to comprehend, even though I was the one that was there. I guess eventually you would just get used to travelling overseas and being in different countries, but it is so new for me.



We had a good trip home. It was LOoooooooooooooNG. We left 'Tana at 6:45 am (went to the airport around 4:00), and arrived in Milan, Italy somewhere around supper time. Talk about smooth. The cart guys were apparently back to work, so there were carts readily available for us to haul our luggage around on (even though Daryl had to run around trying to find someplace to get euros). We called the hotel that we had booked and they said the shuttle was already waiting out front. So we piled in and headed to Best Western! I have to say, I was relieved to hear the nice family on the shuttle speaking English! What a welcome sound. They were from California and we chatted with them for awhile.



When we arrived in our room, we saw that the outdoor pool was closing in half an hour, so we rushed to get down there since that's the part the kids were looking forward to, of course. I decided not to worry about the time, and just enjoy the evening. We had had a bit to eat on the plane (tepid ham and cheese sandwiches!), so we weren't in a hurry for supper. When we got back from swimming, we thought we'd just go to the restaurant in the hotel instead of taking a taxi, etc. We walked in and didn't really notice how fancy it was until we sat down. The tables were already set with fine china. Bad idea. We had given the girls the pre-dinner prep talk about behaving and talking quietly, etc. They did remarkably well... except for Adrienne. Oh my. Daryl and I ordered the buffet (which, by the way, was excellent. And it better would have been for