If you've ever read Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET (and let's face it, who hasn't been forced to endure Shakespeare at some point in his or her life?), then you'll remember that the star-crossed lovers were from an Italian village called Verona. Verona, Verona...just a short 40-minute drive from Vicenza, Vicenza, where we spent our awesome Italian week. OK, so it was mostly awesome. Except for the "oh, let's go to Verona today!" decision that was made on Thursday morning sometime around 9 a.m.

After spending Wednesday in bed the whole day (sinus infection---don't 'ya love those?), I knew we had to make the most of our last 48 hours in Italia, so on Thursday morning we made a last-minute decision to head to Verona, home of Romeo and Juliet and a gaggle of ancient Roman ruins that the kiddos were just dying to see.....right. Anyway, I debated and debated on whether or not to take the train (which would have taken an extra 30 minutes because I could only afford the el cheapo slow train) or to brave the lunatic Italian drivers and take the car. I settled for the car. How hard could it be? Famous last words....

It really wasn't so bad getting there. All autobahn. Pretty safe. Finding parking was a challenge, but it only took 25 minutes of Mr. Tom Tom telling me to "make a U-turn whenever possible" because I kept missing my stupid street. I finally found the parking lot I was looking for, the one pretty close to the Roman amphitheater. I loaded up my backpack with necessary baby items, credit cards, euro, and keys, placed it on the passenger's seat next to me, and headed around to the other side to get little Rachel out of the car. As I was positioning her in the baby carrier, I heard a clicking sound, followed by the slamming of a door. Only then did I realize that Grace had locked the car with my backpack safely secured inside. Inside the car, that is. With my keys safely secured inside my bag. Along with my money. And my cell phone.

At this point I did what any level-headed, calm, sophisticated southern girl would do: I yelled a not-so-nice word about 14 times and then sat down to have a good cry. Of course I had to apologize to the children later on for my profane response, but they were more than understanding. To make a long story short (too late), I had to play charades with the parking lot attendent to explain my situation, waited 45 minutes for a locksmith (who showed up armed with the latest coathanger technology), and then waited another hour for same locksmith to call the garage and request a tow truck. Yup. I had to have the van towed to a garage to get my keys out. So, 4 hours and 200 euro later, we hopped back in the car and headed back to Vicenza.

Now I know the real reason Romeo and Juliet killed themselves. Stinkin' Verona.