Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

I plan to do most of the blogging about our trip after the new year when we arrive back in Jordan and I can go through our pictures, but since Charlee is down for a nap, I have some time to do a couple short ones.

While our car (which we're still making payments on  I might add!) sits back in the states, the Nelsons have mastered the art of public transportation!

Since we've left Jordan, we've taken public transportation in the form of  a plane, taxis, the metro, the bus, and trains.  We didn't bring a stroller with us ( the Chariot is too big for trips like this and Charlee is not much up for riding in umbrella strollers anymore), so this was all with two kids in tow.  Sometimes it was difficult, especially when we went to Florence and also had a suitcase to take on the metro and then on to the train.  We handled it like pros though, once we figured out how everything works and received some help from a few kind strangers who helped us understand the foreign language printed on our tickets. 

The girls are becoming really great travellers!  We try to make sure we always have the ipad with movies for long trips (neither of the girls like to sleep very much during travel), snacks, books, and of course toys.  Oh, and we mustn't forget the new American girl dolls Santa brought.  They seem to really enjoy the metro and train, and our 8 year old and 2 year old are great at waving down taxis!

Those of you that know me well, know that I love movies and always relate things to movies.  Here are a few that came up during our travels-

-I thought of Home Alone several times.  In the airport, and then again when we got off of the train from Florence back to Rome and Hailee ran back on the train to get something she had forgotten.  The train was continuing on from Rome and I was sure she was going to end up in another city!
-On the Polar Express the conductor (Tom Hanks) walks around with his hole punch and punches the tickets, and when one of the kid loses their ticket, he escorts them off the train.  I didn't know they really did this! (the hole-punching tickets not escorting off the train)  When we got on the train, no one checked our tickets until halfway tthrough the trip.  I thought this was crazy, but I guess it works.  Anyway, as much stuff as we were lugging around I was sure we were going to misplace our ticket, which of course means you'll be thrown off the train!!  Okay, okay, I knew we wouldn't be thrown off the train, but I kept that ticket in my sight just in case ;)


Can't forget the horse-drawn carriage on Christmas Eve!  More on that later...