Last I knew, we were in Hong Kong. Now we're sitting - or trying to stretch and sleep on benches in a place called Dubai. It's 2am in the morning, well at least it is somewhere, if not here. It's dark so I can't see anything but a cousin of mine who can actually fly once met an eagle who told him that a falcon friend of his had been to Dubai for competition flying and apparently the place is like a big beach, but without the sea and people live in big cloth houses called 'tents'
Oops - time to get on our flight to Rome. For some strange reason we have to get on a bus first and take a 20 minute tour of the airport. Maybe they are proud of their big airport in Dubai and want everyone to see that not everything is made of cloth. We go very fast from gates B1 to C something, past heaps of others and parked planes all over the place until the bus pulls up at ours all on its own at G7.
Next thing we know, it's dawn and we've landed at a Rome, got on and off a train to Trevestere, hopped on and off a tram and wandered down a narrow cobbled street to our apartment, where no one is waiting for us. Luckily there's something called a 'Ristorante' next door so the family have a late breakfast while they wait.
The "apartmento" is pretty small and very hot. I'm not sure I'll manage in here with all my thick alpine feathers, but opening all the windows gets a breeze going and if you sit just in the right place, you can almost imagine it's a cool breeze - which it isn't as its 37 degrees outside.
The family decide to stretch their legs and visit a flea market which happens each Sunday just down the road. I'm excited about buying fleas as they're much tastier than bird seed, but it turns out that a flea market is a name for lots of small shops that get put up in a street and sell, well, everything! While we are looking at stalls we find our first Nasoni, or Fontanelle - a street fountain which is gushing out water everywhere. The water is super clean and ice cool coming from springs deep underground. There's 2500 of these street fountains in Rome, all giving you free water to rinse your feathers in. And very refreshing it is too.
Sammy is delighted to have Pizza for lunch after which we walk through a maze of tiny streets with big old houses, shuttered windows, warm, ochre coloured walls and the biggest collection of tiny smart cars ever seen, which reminds us of our Toyota IQ at home, which we miss.
Back to the apartment where it is really hot and everyone is a bit jet lagged. Sammy is fast asleep still in his clothes by 6pm, the others follow him soon after.
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