My Mom and Dad's Visit

Much of what has been captured in this month’s version of Florentine Braheem involves my mother and father whom following our time together in Croatia, traveled with us through Spain and then visited us in Italy for one week.

One of the reasons we were so determined to make it to Madrid on that long travel day, was to surprise them by having Olivia and Trey awake when they arrived at the hotel after midnight. They had not seen their grandchildren in over three months and were so excited to spend time with them. Spain was a major journey with a considerable amount of driving and living out of suit cases, so our arrival in Italy brought some much needed rest to both of my folks.
My dad has been having trouble with his knee and back lately and unfortunately was limited in the sites he was able to see in both Spain and Italy due to the walking requirements in many European Cities. This however did provide for a lot of quality time with Trey and Olivia as they aren’t exactly avid tourists of historical sites at this point! Their time together is best summarized by dozens of games of “Crazy Eights and Fish” which evolved into learning card tricks, playing billiards, shooting craps (j/k) and being silly!
Grandma on the other hand as usual took on her European vacation with reckless abandon. My mom’s philosophy is that she is pretty much “Up for anything”, especially shopping, which she and Anna did a considerable amount of, especially in Florence. Additionally, my mom spent two days on tours of Florence with Anna, Alex and I (We visited The Piti Palace and Fiesole together). Of course neither of my parents missed a chance to help get the kids ready for school each day and help them with their homework when they arrived home from school in the afternoon.

For me personally, the time was way too short. I awoke the day after they left in a funk. I can’t believe how fast the time went by and regret that the time was not longer. The saving grace is that in just over a month I will get to see them again for the holidays when we return home to California. There have been so many lessons that we have already learned here in Italy, perhaps none that is more important that the value of family. One of the highlights for me was waking up at 2:30 in the morning with my dad to watch the Monday night NFL game on satellite (We get one game a week in the middle of the night here in Italy) and it happened to be our Pittsburgh Steelers that were on!

Rather than try to summarize their feelings and experiences, it would be much better for them to speak for themselves:

An Interview with Jim and Lucy:

Q – What did it feel like when you saw the kids that night in Madrid after a long day of travel?

LA – “It was just so weird because I was standing at the desk, checking into the hotel and something grabbed my leg. I was in shock, it was really hard to describe. What a great surprise.”
JA – “Oh man, first of all I didn’t expect to see them at 1:00 am in the morning and after traveling nearly 10,000 miles it was simply terrific to see them. What a shock.”

Q – The blog has included a cast of characters in the past few months (People like Simone, Stella, Alex etc…what were your impressions of these Italian Friends of the Braheem Family?

LA – “Oh, well, I’ll tell you. Simone is just a prince of a young man. He’s very special and not the kind of a young man you find every day. I can see now why you feel so confident in having him take care of your kids even at his young age. What a nice young man.”
“Stella (Laugh) is exactly how you described her. She’ crazy, but such a nice lady. I wish I could have communicated better with her as she has so much to say. She is such a special lady. You are lucky to have her. I love her energy. She doesn’t let anything get in her way of being happy.”
“Alex, oh gosh, what a charming young lady with so much knowledge and passion for sharing it. She makes you happy because she is happy. I really liked being with her so much.”
JA - “Really good personalities and very friendly people. Even though I couldn’t verbally communicate with them, they made me feel at home. It makes me feel so much better to know that they have friends in Italy that they can count on and have to help you. It makes me feel good for the kids that you have made friends.”

Q – As you ready to depart for home, what will be a few of your fondest memories that you will take with you?

LA- “Just spending time with you guys and the kids. Sleeping with my grandkids every night, helping them with their homework every day (Tears rolling down her face when saying this). Also this place. You guys try to describe this place (The castle) and nothing you can say or show in pictures will ever do it justice. It’s simply amazing. I love looking out the windows and seeing so many beautiful things.”
JA – “Croatia for sure. Getting to meet my wife’s relatives and seeing where my mother and father en law are from was amazing. It was really hard for me to leave as I know that I may never see them again, but I’m really happy that I got a chance to meet them.”
“I really enjoyed seeing the kid’s school. Knowing that they are in a good school and that they are happy there was nice to see.”
“You know what, I can’t really say that much about Spain. Its not that I didn’t like it, but Italy has it hands down over Spain.”

Q – Tim and Anna talk a lot about the food in Italy in their blog, did it live up to their lofting billing?

LA – “Oh My God, its just going to be so boring eating at home. Even the best of restaurants won’t be as good as the simplest of restaurants here. You can’t even come close to the quality at home versus here.”
JA – “Without a doubt! Tim told me that we have yet to find a bad meal and I didn’t find one either! We sure went to a lot of different places looking!”

Q - What surprised you the most about Italy and Spain?

LA – “Well, one thing that surprised me about both countries is how much they smoke and how little they care about non-smokers. Also the crazy drivers. Its like your playing bumper cars when driving in Italy. The roads are nuts.”
“It surprised me how people just stood around and ate their lunch standing up in Spain (Tapas) I have never seen that before.”
JA – “I was surprised about how different the food was in Spain from Mexico. I guess that since they speak the same language that I thought that the food would be more similar but it was totally different.”
“In Italy, I could not believe how well my son was able to navigate around the city through the amazing array of narrow roads and streets and how well he knows the roads already.”

Q - What did you like the least or created the biggest disappointment in your European Journey?

LA – “I guess what I least liked was that there wasn’t the enthusiasm in the people in Spain that there is in Italy. The people are more formal in Spain and more warm in Italy. Italy has it hands down over Spain.”
JA – “What I liked the least was having to say goodbye to people.”