When in Rome...

Veronica: "Oh, well, when in Rome."
Ron: "Yes? Please go on."
Veronica: "Uh, do as the Romans do? It's an old expression."
Ron: "Oh! I've never heard of it."
Veronica: "Oh."
Ron: "It's wonderful, though."

So...you get the gist of me & Scott's convos for the day! ;) Ron Burgundy really has an influence on our lives.

Well, we started out very early this morning, at the train station. So yeah, it was rough. We did really well again with finding our hotel walking from the station. We're now masters of finding stuff in Italy, we need a new challenge. Pssshaw. Hotel Golden is fabulous! We got here super early so the front desk guy was not really ready for us, but he was so nice and gave us breakfast and let us leave our bags and helped us out a ton.

First stop? Duh, Il Colleseo! We even watched Gladiator to prep for it before we left, even though I got bored halfway through bc there was too much killing and stuff. The real thing was awesome! We especially enjoyed the RS audio guide (obvs) and the enormity of it. The structure was so impressive - it took them years and years to build and it was BC then too! And over the years after it ceased to be used to have slaves and prisoners fight to the death, people used to come and pilfer some of the stones so there's big holes in the structure.


As you can see...we started out thinking - oh crap, another cloudy and possibly rainy day and ended up w/ a gorgeous blue sky. Who knew!



We stopped at Trevi Fountain on the way too. It wasn't as big as I though t it was going to be... I think I saw too many ppl's pictures! :-)


Again, they make you buy a dual ticket w/ the Colleseum for that and Pallantine Hill. It was kinda of booooring, in our opinion. The Roman Forum was so much cooler, we were totally enthralled by it! :) It was just so freaking cool to walk throughout the remains of one of the greatest civilizations ... The Roman Empire was big from 500 BC to 500 AD... the "piazza" or square set up of towns & cities originated in this very place. And Julius Cesar was killed here - like you know, "et tu Brutus!?" Yeah, him! Crazy!

The remains of a HUGE church - this was just the one side. It was really freaking big.
The Arch of Settimo Severo in the Roman Forum.


Check out the water fountain! Do as the Romans do...even if it seems like it's weird. The water was delicious though.

After doing all the ruins and stuff we were pretty beat and decided we needed...um, showers. We hightailed it back to the hotel and recooperated a little, which made all the difference. For dinner, we went on a leisurely walk to the Spanish Steps, which were cool, but the main tower thing is in scaffolding, which stinks. It seems like a part of all of the big sights we want to see has scaffolding on it!! Ok, enough whining. On to the wine.

For dinner, we had FABULOUS food. It was a wine bar in the Spanish Steps neighborhood and O.M.G it was fantastic. MMMMmmm. I had Ricotta and Spinach Crepes followed by Tomato and Mozzarella Caprese salad. And wine. Scott hit up some gnocchi and veal and was also pretty satisfied. It was an adorable authentic Italian place and I'd eat there everyday if I could.

We're trying to figure out the climate here... it's not humid like it was in Florence... and it'll go from being almost HOT (we got sunburn on our faces a little today!) to chilly if you're in the shade. Weird. Rome is a lot different too, it's definitely a much bigger and more bustling city than the other two we've visited so far. It's so exciting to see the actual pieces of history and all of these famous sights right here in Rome we will get to visit! Tomorrow we're doing a walking tour (self guided, thanks to Let's Go Western Europe 2002! I ripped out the pages w/ the walking tour, I'm so bad...) and we'll get to see some parts of the city we didn't get to today. I might also attempt a run in the Borghese Gardens too (like Central Park kinda...)

Venizia

After falling asleep while Scott watched Wedding Crashers in Italian, I somehow woke up rejuvinated and ready to go see Venice. With my fingers crossed that it wouldn't downpour all day. The sky wasn't looking good though, which kinda bummed us out too bc a sunny, blue sky is the most magnificent backdrop to see cities ...and also to get killer pictures!

First thing, we went out to St. Mark's square and did the Rick Steve's audio guide. Very cool, we learned a lot. For instance, each of the 3 sides of the square were built in a different century and therefore a different style. Napolean did the middle one linking the two.

Um, so St. Mark's is pigeon city. Which is disgusting. Scott and I have never had any tolerance for pigeons...they're like flying rats. We were continually surprised and amazed at the amount of folks that not only seemed to think feeding them and having the pigeons *on them* was ok, but also to subject their children to this. BARF!


So, to enter Doge's Palace, which we were really excited about, they make you buy a dual ticket for that and the Correr Museum. Well, part of me wishes we could have totally just not done the museum, we were just not in the mood. There were a few nice sculptures in the beginning and a very good cup of cappuccino at the end, but the whole middle was Bor-Ring. That's Jamie Steve's rec - skip it.

We also went into St. Mark's Basillica. It's a very different church bc it is really eclectic in its influences. It has Islamic & Middle Eastern elements, Turkis & Byzantine elements and Greek stuff to it. It's very different. But oh-so-lovely. :) Here's a night-vish shot.



Inside was great - all different types of marble in and outside from all of the places the Venetian empire had conquered. The artwork on the ceiling was all mosaic and very ornate and gold encrusted. There was a bejeweled altarpiece that had an insane amount of big rubies and sapphires, etc and...GOLD obvs. Very cool! They like to show off, those Venetians.

We really enjoyed St Mark's Square. There were a lot of overpriced cafes on the perimeter that had orchestras playing and stuff, very romantic and charming.

Lunch was yummy! We followed a suggestion from Rick, and again, he delivers! Scott and I love some tomato & mozzarella sandwiches!


In the afternoon we walked around a lot. We had much more success navigating the city by just kind of lazily floating along the roads and following the random signs sporadically placed throughout saying "San Marco -->" or "Rialto <--". We found the Friari Church pretty easily, given how difficult it was the night before. Friari Church was pretty cool too! Then the real miracle happened...the SUN came out! For like 20 min! We managed to get up on the Rialto bridge during it too, which is one of the few bridges that runs across the Grand Canal. It was so pretty... We then hit the Doge's Palace, which was traditionally where the Doge or Mayor of Venice lived. It was ornate and old, filled w/ riches and paintings. :)

And it connects to the prison and has the Bridge of Sighs in btwn.


We were getting tired, but this day had the new challenge for us of no option of going back to our room to rejuvinate and rest. We HAD to stay out on the town. So, we found a little trattoria and got a bottle of cabernet and got to work. After a nice dinner and another bottle of wine, we were ready to head to the train station.

We had originally said we'd walk again, but for some reason we weren't quite feeling like it and thought - let's do the vaporettos! :) We're so glad we did - Venice is a totally different city from the water and by being cheapies, we totally missed it! And the best part is bc the ticket machine was broken when we went to buy our tickets, it was a free ride. We met a Canadian grad student who studied in Venice for a semester and his mom, and had some lively conversation on the way to the train station too. Very enjoyable!

Overall, Venice was lovely. It's really hard to compare it to anything because it's totally its own. No bikes, mopeds or cars...just walking. The churches and big buildings were built on millions (yes millions) of trees made into pilings...and the fact that the city is still here at all is kind of a miracle. Exploring it was so much fun, like looking at a decaying iconic city up close.

Oh, and I know you're wondering, here's where we slept - on the train to Roma overnight!

Day 5 – Bye Bye Florence, Hello Venice

So, this morning I did a farewell run in Florence. It was so much nicer than when I went in the afternoon the other day. The streets were totally empty except for the city buses and some bikers. Not overrun w/ tourists so that was a big plus. And I got to see all the sights I’ve come to love one last time. It was lovely.

Scott had his presentation this morning and I snuck into the conference to watch. He did a really good job! We made some plans with Amy O and her boyfriend – we’re meeting for dinner in Rome by the Trevi Fountain. I feel so grand saying that!

We left for Venice shortly after that. The train ride was pretty uneventful and we got to see a little bit more of the Tuscan countryside which was right out of a postcard. Absolutely lovely. The clouds got a little thicker when we started to near Venice, and I’m sad to say…we got rained on. With our backpacks. (sigh) On the train we discovered that the transportation I’d assumed we would take – a water bus or vaporetto – is wicked expensive. Way to read the fine print, Jamie! It would be 12 euro for us. So we decided to walk, being the adventurous young people that we are.

Let me start off by saying Venice is WEIRD! It’s gorgeous and really breathtaking, but it’s so weird! No cars are allowed on the island, which is actually a big relief since the driving was kind of erratic and worrisome in Florence. Many times Scott and I said to each other “I don’t know why anyone would want to rent a car in Italy…” Anyway, we had a map of the streets and half followed that and half followed internal compasses and instincts. We had to pay .50 cents to cross the Grand Canal on a service gondola, which was really interesting…

Then…it started raining. Like really steadily raining on us. It was not as good as it could be. We were alright. The streets are pretty much sidewalk sized, so when they’re packed w/ tourists and everyone whips out the umbrellas it gets very annoying to walk (or maybe the annoying thing was that we were soaked and carrying 40lb backpacks? IDK) By some dumb luck right when we were totally convinced we had taken the wrong street, out of the corner of my eye I look down an alley and there is our hotel. It was amazing! See...how did we not see this?? ;)

The hotel is cute – The Locanda al Leon! Our room is very comfortable and we were just thankful to take off our wet shoes and get some dry clothes on. It looks as if it might have let up raining a little so we’ll venture out for some gelato and sightseeing in a little I think!

So, I’m trying very hard to give Venice a fair shot – the rain is the real issue at this point but like always, we’ll make it work and motor through!

n
...

(after walking around for dinner & dessert)…so, whoever designed this city was messed up. It’s really hard to find the thing you’re looking for. And by hard I mean like impossible. We wrestled with trying to find a few restaurants in the Rialto Bridge area that were in the guide books…yeah, we looked for like 1 hour and said screw it. A lesson we learned today, don’t put off getting food. It’s better to snack now and be in good spirits than to hold out and be hungry and crabby. We ended up getting pizza at some place where a bunch of non-Italians were working. Eh well, it was good and to our hungry,wet and weary selves, it was great!

We found our way back to Piazza San Marco and it luckily stopped raining after dinner. It was fabulous in the evening all lit up! Scott took some great night-vision (or night-vish, as I say) shots which capture the essence!

St. Mark's Square!

To end the night, we stopped by this wonderful little pastry shop by our hotel and got a bottle of Cabernet (we’re not in Tuscany anymore, Toto.) and 2 yummy biscuit chocolate things. Yuuummmm! Buona notte!

Day 4 - Jamie & Scott Day

Posted from Rome - courtesy of Hotel Golden's very impressivo internet connection :)

Today, Scott totally ditched the conference. It was fun – we had the whole day to sightsee together and walk around, a little preview for what the rest of the trip will be like. We started off with the Uffizi Gallery, which is widely reputed as one of the best art galleries in the world (and if you don’t believe me, ask the hundreds of ppl who were in line who didn’t book a ticket online like we did!) Once again, we listened to the Rick Steve’s mp3 audio guide on our iPods and learned a lot and saw the important things. (These audio guides are new this year, and he has them out for Italy and Paris, I highly recommend them if you’re traveling there. We’re totally psyched that we downloaded them for a bunch of sights in Venice and Rome for later on in our trip. They’re free too, another fave of ours.)

We learned a lot about Renaissance art as compared to that of the Middle Ages. It’s a lot different – 3-dimensional, lifelike and not embossed in gold all the time. The MA was lame! ;) My favorite was Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (where she’s standing in a ½ clam shell). It’s so beautiful. Scott’s favorite was one by da Vinci where it depicts the angel telling Mary she’s about to have a baby. He liked it bc you can see how LDV used math and lines and angles to make the painting balanced and easy to look at. Even though he was primarily an engineer and a thinker, he painted “on the side”. And he was really good too… It was especially nice to see the Renaissance art as coming out of the Middle Ages art – much more “enlightened”.

Oh, funny story. I was telling Scott about how there were was this room at L’Accademia gallery where it was all these busts – like 100’s of them and it was neat and he looks at me and is like…”you mean…boobs?” Hahaha, no sweetie, though that would be awesome too I guess. I just had to laugh. In his defense, there are a lot of naked statues in Florence. A lot.

After about 2 hours in the gallery we headed outside. Again today it was overcast and not sunny & gorgeous. Don’t they know we’re on our vacation??! We headed to see the inside of the Duomo together. We then had a quick lunch in the café that’s attached to our hotel and regrouped a little. That’s something that’s a little surprising and challenging with this trip… I forgot how Euro-tripping tires you out so much! All the walking and taking in ridiculously old art really wears on you (I know, don’t you feel sorry for me??), and we’re trying to space it all out enough to still be in decent moods and be excited about what we’re seeing and do enough to feel like we’re not wasting our trip over here.

We walked around the market area a little today too. It’s nice here – lots of ppl have little stands with local goods – leather, cashmere and t-shirts, etc but I must say, they don’t pressure you and stuff (ahem, take notes, Mexico). Though multiple guys at leather stands have said to Scott “You come here, I have your size.” LOL… I purchased a cashmere scarf and a pashmina and I’m in LOVE with them already. So super soft and really, ridiculously cheap even with the sad euro/dollar exchange rate.

This afternoon, we hiked up to Piazzale Michelangelo together. We almost didn’t do it bc the day was so nasty and cloudy, and we were like “the pictures are gonna be lame”. Then we wisely decided we’re not doing stuff on the vacation to take the picture and go home, we’re doing it to DO IT! To see it and take it all in, etc. So we went. Andiamo! And it was fabulous, though not quite as lovely as the first day when I ran up to the same lookout and it was sunny and warm. Eh well.

We just got done with our cheap dinner at the hotel bar. They have “Happy Hours” from 5-8 where you get a glass of wine and a buffet of TONS of pizza and pasta. So we just loaded up and called it dinner and 2 glasses of wine! Works for me! I helped Scott hone his presentation and his 30-second “schpeal” for the first session preview of all the day’s talks where everyone gets to present a preview of his or her presentation in 30 seconds. It’s probably about as nerdy as it sounds…

Tomorrow we leave for Venice via the train! Scott has his presentation tomorrow morning before we go and I’m gonna be in the cheering section. Tonight we’re preparing for that and re-rolling our clothes and packing them up in our packs. Fun stuff. We’ll hit the road (er…tracks) around lunchtime after Scott’s talk and hopefully get to do a little sightseeing and walking around in Venice. I’ve been posting blog entries from the conference building where we have access to free wireless, and we’re not sure what we’ll have access to in Venice and Rome (Saturday – Tuesday).

Day 3

Today was pretty relaxing! We had the breakfast by the Duomo that we missed yesterday, which was lovely. It was kind of overcast and threatening all day, so we took the umbrellas and jackets and sneakers. But luckily we didn't *really* get down-poured on at all.

We started off with a leisurely stroll where I played tour guide and tried to remember all I could to tell Scott about the stuff we were seeing that I saw on my tour the day before. We went into the Santa Croce church and museum and it was really cool! There were a ton of crypts of famous Florentines. Lesson learned: ALWAYS take the Rick Steve's Guidebook along. We totally missed that Michelangelo and Galelio are buried there. Incidentally, Scott kept taking pictures of all these Roman Numeral signs bc he was going to "figure out when they died" back home, and he took one of Galelio! Good Call Scott! Dante Alligheri and Machiavelli are also there. The church also has lots of frescos, which are kind of like big murals that took months and months to make. It's really amazing that some of them are in such good shape bc they're so old.

After the church, we strolled around again and found some yummy lunch. Afterwards, Scott headed back to the conference and I to the Accedemia to see the REAL David statue.

L'Accademia was pretty small. I didn't 100% know if I was going to want to see it, so I did not reserve tickets ahead of time. Well, that was kind of a mistake - I waited in line for 1 hour! It was painful, only bc I had some sort of high school student field trip RIGHT behind me. They were just as loud and obnox as US HS students, if not more so. Luckily I brought a book along so I could tune them out a little. The museum itself was great though. I downloaded a few Rick Steves (free) mp3 itunes podcasts, which is like a free tour from Rick. It rocked.

The coolest part of the Accademia was seeing the David (which is HUUUGE) and it's at the end of a hall that's peppered with some other sculptures that Michelangelo was working on that were never finished. Just seeing the amount of time and work that goes into making a statue out of marble is pretty daunting.

For dinner we headed off in a different direction, after consulting all kinds of guidebooks and maps, we decided - eh, it's too hard to find these places! We headed toward the Palazzo Vecchio and went down a back alley and crossed our fingers. OMG. It was soooo yummy. It was a lot more authentic than the places we've eaten so far, and since we were sitting beside real Italians I felt a little weird taking a pic of my food. I started out with the special of the day, Tortelli something, with "truffle" sauce. I kept seeing this around and thought I should try it. Seriously weird but soo good! It has chocolate in the sauce, and garlic. It sounds gross, I know. But it was fabulous. We also had some roasted chicken Scott described as the best chicken he's ever had. We had a bottle of the house wine too, and it was also (surprise!) really good!!

We DID follow the advice of the Rick Steves guide book on a good place to get gelato bc there are seriously soo many to choose from, and we were curious as to what "top of the line" gelato is like. So we went to a place called Grom which is close to the Duomo and gave them a try. It was awesome, we're so going back there tonight. I got dark chocolate and stracciatella (chocolate chips) and Scott got something that was vanilla w/ chocolate and biscuits in it - YUM! Then we ate it on the steps of the Duomo! It was a fabulous evening...

Day 2 - Jamie does Florence, Scott does Conference.

I LOVE Florence. Love love love it. I don't know why, but I think of all the big 3 cities we're hitting on this trip I was the least excited for Florence. I just thought it looked cool but like nothing special and I might be bored while Scott was in the conference the whole time I had to sightsee on my own. Not so. Florence is amazing and Rome and Venice are going to have to be pretty darn awesome to beat this as my favorite Italian city and possibly my favorite European city (yeah, I said it.)

So this morning we actually overslept a little...woops! Our internal clocks are way off... It wasn't a big deal, we just missed the leisurely breakfast we wanted on the terrace overlooking the Duomo. It'll still be there tomorrow though.

Scott was off to the conference and I had reserved a tour with The Original and Best Walking Tours company online on the basis of some reviews I read on TripAdvisor. So.Worth.It. It was amazing. Esp after aimlessly wandering around yesterday for awhile, I can honestly say I would never have picked up like 1/10 of what I learned on this tour. Even if I will probably only remember like one third. I suck at fractions anyway. I saw so much, and this post will eventually have some kick butt pictures.
Piazza Della Reppublica

We went inside the Duomo, which was once the largest church in the world, and is now the 4th largest church. It's cool, I will have seen 3 of the biggest 4 churches in the world after this trip! St Peter's in Rome, (the second is a catholic church just built on the Ivory Coast), St Paul's in London and then the Duomo. It's so gorgeous.

The tour also took me to the Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in the city. It was built in 1300 something... and it's the only bridge that wasn't bombed during WWII. It has all these little houses on it, very different looking. And lots of expensive jewelry. And people ...everywhere. :)



We also saw the Palazzo Vecchio, which means Old Palace but now has evolved to mean City Hall in Italian vernacular. There's lots of naked dude statues all over the place. There's a copy of The David statue among others. It's quite grandiose, and of course, beautiful and breathtaking.



One of my favorite parts of the tour and this whole day was just wandering through the *adorable* city streets and side streets. It's a gorgeous place.

After the tour concluded, I felt very acclimated to the city and inspired to go for a run in Florence. There's a lookout point I've read about and got to see from the Ponte Vecchio called Piazalle Michelangelo. It's across the river and up a pretty sizable hill, but affords a fabulous view of the city. I took a few unintentional detours due to poorly marked streets, but got there in the end! It was fabulous, and a really fun and different way to see the city.

I tried to finish it up with a Gatorade like I always do at home, and the place I visited close to the hotel and the Duomo wanted to charge me 3 euro! That's like $5! Um, no. Lesson learned - things are wicked expensive by big tourist attractions. I picked up a Gatorade (which had a flavor NOTHING like the US version! LOL!) for €1.60.

I met up with Scott after the conference ended. It's only about a 10 min walk from the hotel along the Via Faenza. We think it's Italian for "Ripped Up" bc the street is all demolished. Hey, it's funny to us and helps us remember where we are :) We also got to meet up with Amy Ogan, a fellow 1999 Etown grad!

Later that night, we had a reception with the conference which I got to go to as well. Free food, wine and gelato! Not too shabby. Oh, and the one thing I might love even more than chianti is gelato. MMMmmmmm!

We made it! Buongiorno!

Picture: Just a block away from our hotel! :) The Duomo!

I'm blogging in Italy! Woot! I think what I'm going to do is post my blog entries as I get a chance to write them and add pictures once we get home.

We arrived in Italy yesterday around 8am local time. It was a pretty smooth flight, though I didn't sleep very much. As always, if it's a moving vehicle and he's not driving, Scott's sleeping.

On very minimal sleep, we managed to figure out the Italian Rail system and not get robbed and not kill one another! Woohoo! The 2 semesters of college Italian are not coming back as quickly as I'd hoped...mi dispiace. (That means 'I'm sorry', and this is a key example where only knowing like 5 phrases kind of makes you sound like a doofus 9 times out of 10. Eh well.) Luckily, most Italians will speak English to you. I usually approach them with a very American Buongiorno! and they answer me in English. All good.

Our Hotel in Florence is called Vivahotel Laurus al Duomo and it's really nice! We have a view of the Duomo from our window too, (insert dreamy sigh).

Scott and I, inspired by what little of Florence we got to see from the train station to our hotel and some super-human burst of energy, went BACK out and hiked 416 steps up the Giomo's tower which is adjacent to the Duomo and got a great view of the city. It was really tight, I'd guess no more than 2 feet at some points so we got pretty up close and personal with some random tourists!
The Duomo from the front w/ the tower we climbed to the side.
View from almost the top...


View from the top :)

The way down was the hardest part, it was really steep and super crowded.

We also explored the city a lot on foot. I think from what I've seen so far, Firenze is a city where following directions is a dream... it's more about observing landmarks and keeping oriented. Streets are not well marked and oh yeah, Italians like to just barrel into you and plow you over without any acknowledgment or 'scuzi'. I've never experienced this before. Like you know when you're walking on a sidewalk and someone is coming in the opposite direction you get over to one side and they do too? Nope, not in Italy (well, at least not so far). So, I'm okay with it if they are!

We had a pretty good dinner at a place called Lorenzo di Medici Pizzeria. It was obv marketed to tourists bc the menu had English on it. All advice and restaurant recs I've gotten so far have said 'go off the beaten path, the less English, the more authentic and better the food.' We will, just not on 3 hours of sleep. That was a promise we made. And there was vino and it was bennissimo.

We got a good night's sleep too, which was pretty key. A long day but a great one!

All our bags are packed, we're ready to go!

Yes, we fit all our stuff for our 10 day Italy trip in 2 backpacks. And there's even a little room in Scott's. Wooooooot!

Ciao!

We're off tomorrow afternoon! We got all our stuff stuffed into our super cool backpacks so we're traveling light :). I just downloaded some free Rick Steves audio tours of the Uffizi, Sistine Chapel and a whole bunch of other sites in Rome, Florence and Venice.

So, I'm going to try to update the blog from Italy, but no promises bc I don't know what internet access will be like.

Yay! We're so excited!

Crazy Week!

We're leaving Saturday for Italy! It's nice that we have a whole week to tie up loose ends and get everything together, but it's flying by so that kinda stinks (but at the same time is awesome...) I realize I haven't blogged in a while so I wanted to check in and let you guys know what's up.

This week so far...

Monday - I went to the bank with the intention of ordering Euros so we could take along all of our cash ahead of time, thinking banks have the best exchange rate. I almost fell out of my chair when he told me the exchange rate - $1.57 to 1 Euro. OUCH! Oh, and what made it (not) better was that the guy exclaimed "Wow, that's the highest I've ever seen it!" When I studied abroad in 2002, the rate was nearly $1 to 1Euro. So needless to say I didn't order the euros. Get this - the bank guy suggested I go to the airport exchange counter. They always say airports are the highest but he says they're usu the same... weird.

Scott and I are also now obsessed with Arrested Development - you can watch the ENTIRE series on hulu.com. Seriously, it's an awesome website.

Tuesday - Scott started off w/ an interview here in NC which went really well. He'll have a follow up interview the day after we get back. We're really crossing our fingers it's "The One."

We also made a trip to the mall together and got him some new glasses. His last contact for his left eye (which, as luck would have it, is the worse prescription that needs to be special ordered) ripped on Monday and of course, it's impossible to order them in under 2 weeks. So, Plan B, let's get some new glasses. I mean, the boy's gotta SEE Italy! And, of course, it was time to update those frames. What would all those fashionable Italian men think? So we got him some super-duper light weight Nike glasses which have a magnetic sunglasses attachment. At first I was like - attachable sunglasses? Like Dwayne Wayne?But I assure you, they're waaaay more fashionable than those! If only I could find a nice plaid cardigan sweater 2 sizes too big... hmmmm...Here they are. I tried and tried, folks. This is the best I could get out of him.

I also got this adorable dress for sightseeing and dinners out. It was on sale!

Wednesday - So, another thing I'm trying to do this week is have a "big" running week so that if I have to scale back a little next week while I'm in Italy it'll be alright. I'm under the gun a little bc I set a goal for myself with Nike + that I'd do 100 miles in 8 weeks, and while I'm not exactly sure when the 8 week deadline is, I know in my head that I set the deadline to be around the Italy trip. So yeah. I need to log 6 more miles before we leave and then I'll be victorious.

In other news, our cars are coated with pollen. Achoo.

Thursday - OMG, it's Thursday already.

You might also be asking yourself, "Where are all the recipes??" Well, we're trying something this week. It's called eating cheaply/Jamie didn't buy anything last week. So since the trip is gonna be expensive and we're going to have the most wonderful food and lots of wine, we agreed that we could rough it this week and eat stuff that we already have. That is, stuff in the pantry and fridge that we've had for a while. So, eggs and toast, peanut butter & jelly and frozen meals have been the most of it. So far, the great dinner experiment isn't really doing it for us. We're huuuuungry and quite honestly, I can *feel* the difference since I haven't really eaten meat for about a week.

To make it up to my husband who has (pretty much) been a good sport through all of that, I'll be making dinner tonight. It's still under the "use what we've got" philosophy and I think I'll be authoring the recipe myself. If it turns out alright, I'll post it.