Home!

We finally made it home. The trip home sucked so fricken bad! James was pretty sick and we had to take a the underground to the train, the train to the airport, 3 buses to get to our plane. 9 and 1/2 hour plane ride to Newark. That plane was late so we missed our plane in Newark. We got tickets for the next plane to austin but that got us home 2 hours later than planned and then that plane was delayed. 4 hours on a plane later we arrive in Austin at about 12. Poor Andrew who was picking us up a the airport had to wait 2 hours for us. Half way through the flight to Newark from Rome James started to feel better and his fever broke which was wonderful but he still didn't feel good. we are so happy to be done with that. I'm glad I wrote down what we did every day because right now its hard to remember. It was a fabulous trip but we are both very glad to be home. Our animals are glad we are home. yay home.

Last day in Italy ! Ciao Italia!

Today was our last day in Italy! and we did nothing! all day nothing! James got sunsick yesterday and has spent the whole day in bed. He did get dressed to go down to breakfast with me but then came back and went right to bed. Poor thing. I went out this morning to get him some big bottles of water. We laid in bed, in and out of sleep. At noon I walked down the street and bought some pizza and a soda and brought it back to the room. I sat out on our little porch and ate my lunch and read while James slept. It was nice. there is a little fountain in the courtyard below and a nice breeze. then i puttered around the hotel room. I took a shower, slept for a while. at about 5 I got up to go on a walk. I was getting restless in the room. As soon as I said I was going to go on a walk it started raining but I wasn't going to let that stop me. I needed to get out. I got my umbrella and walked to St. Peters. Its such a pretty place and to be walking distance from it is awesome. Then I walked around the little neighborhood that we are in looking for some pastry. I ended up just getting some coffee. then I headed back towards the hotel to eat at a restaurant close by because there is a waiter there that has a Texas pin on his shirt. He says he has friends in Texas. So he is nice to us and I knew they wold be nice to me eating alone. I had some ravioli with ricotta and spinach. yum! When I got back to the room I found James still asleep. its the best I think. tomorrow will be a long day and he needs to be as rested as possible. Poor darling. I hope he feels better by tomorrow morning. See everyone soon!

Roaming around Rome

Today we had planned to get up early and get to St. Peters just as it opened. When the alarm went off this morning I just couldn't get myself to get up. I had another hard night of restlessness. James went off without me. He said it was just him, some nuns, altar boys and a whole bunch of priests as they started to do the morning Masses at each of the altars. He came back and we had breakfast and went back to st peters. the coffee SUCKS in Rome! he showed me around and then we went down to the tombs of the popes. saw John Paul the II tomb and St. Peters. all very cool. then we took the underground to the Colosseum and forum. It was a pretty cool building. very big. We didn't go inside cuz the line was long and I didn't feel like spending the money. We wandered around and saw some churches then headed back towards the hotel to find pizza and ice cream. By then i was in great need of a nap. I slept for about an hour and woke up grumpy! i have a heat rash on my chest and I'm having an allergic reaction to something in the air here. I was tired and itchy and I really didn't want to get up. At 6 we were going to church at the american church in rome called Santa Susanna. We got dressed and headed down there. We stopped in a church called Santa Maria della Vittoria where the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa is. That is an awesome statue and Saint Teresa of Avila is the saints name I took as my confirmation name. Very cool. After that we headed to St. Susanna and met the priests. The service was nice. I was glad to hear english. I was glad to understand everything that was going on. After Mass we chatted with Fr. Tom the priest there. He is a Paulist like our priests back home. Nice guy. After mass James was very very tired. It was strange. Going to church perked me up but wore James out. We headed back to the hotel and James is lying down. I hope he feels better soon! It would suck if he got sick right before we headed home. we will take it slow tomorrow and hope he feels better. Soon I'm going out to find food with or without him but its the first of may which is a holiday here so its hard to find food. So far an awesome trip but we are getting pretty tired and are very ready to be home. Cant wait to see home in 2 days! ciao!

Hello Rome!

Today we got up early! 6:00am to get dressed, eat breakfast, pay the hotel, take 2 buses to the train station, wait at the train station for an hour ride the train for 2 hours and finally get to Rome. All on very little sleep because again I did not sleep well. but I did sleep on the train for a while so that was good. once in Rome we jumped on a bus to our hotel. We got the hook up because James knows a priest who frequents this hotel with pilgrims. so we are special guests. We also told them it was our honeymoon so they sent up strawberries and champagne. as most everyone knows, james does not drink so I get to drink all the champagne. woot! we fooled around in the hotel for an hour or 2 and decided to head out to find food and see some sights. We went straight to St. Peters because its very close to our hotel. It was crazy packed so we didn't go in. James took me to see some other churches and sights. I was very tired but we decided to eat out and go see some other things because we are spending so little time here in Rome. We went to the Trevi fountains and threw a coin in backwards and found a restaurant to eat at. I was feeling a bit more peppy after food so we went to see the Pantheon. That is an awesome building. wow. then some ice cream. On the way home we got a little lost, which is easy to do in Rome. So it was about 9pm when we finally got back to the hotel. I am one tired girl. Our hotel has a bathtub which is something our other hotel did not have and I missed and I really wanted a bath. though it seems i have "if you give a mouse a cookie" syndrome and when i saw the bath tub in our room I wanted some bubble bath. luckly on our roamings around Rome we stumbled on a Lush! James bought be a purple lush bomb. mmm! I jumped right in the bath with a glass of champagne and my lush bath bomb. it felt so good to soak and the bathtub is huge and deep! now we are off to get some coffee and a pastry. Rome is a cool place and I like it but I think I like Florence better. I am pretty frickin tired right now and I apologize if none of this makes sense. we are going to get up early and go back to St. Peters to see the inside tomorrow. woo. busy busy. Ciao!

Last day in Firenze

I didn't sleep well again. Too much napping during the day I think. I woke up itching to walk! Croissants again at breakfast make me very happy! and goat cheese, and salami and mozzarella and cookies. mmm I love the breakfast here. We tried to buy train tickets online for tomorrow but we couldn't seem to get it to work. We decided to walk to the train station since I needed to walk. We got our tickets to Rome for tomorrow and our tickets to the airport on monday. It was nice to walk down the hill from Fiesole in the morning. It was cool and breasy. It took a few hours. we got the tickets, then went walked around looking for something to eat and decided to go over the river to a place we had found good pizza before. Pizza, soda and gelato. it was a fun lunch. I had been wanting a scarf since all the cool Italians had one. We found a pretty lavender pashmina for me. We also went into several leather shops. I tried on some sexy red gloves at one store but my fingers were just a little too long for them and they didn't have any that were bigger. Which kind of boggled me because I have frickin tiny hands. For 28 euro I might have bought them too.We wandered on towards the bus stop and found a present for a friend. Then we realized we had missed the bus stop and had gone way past it. we found another stop on our route and went up to Fiesole one last time. We got some bread for dinner and some coffee. Said goodbye to the little town and went back to our hotel room to pack. Tomorrow we leave for Rome for 3 days and on Monday we will be back in Texas. :) I sure am tired tonight. Its been a good time in Florence. A very wonderful honeymoon. I am both very relaxed and exhausted.

chillin like villians

Today I woke up sick. :( I didn't sleep well last night and woke up with a headache and a general sense of malaise. Though I was very excited at breakfast that our B&B lady was serving croissants again so I ate two! I felt I would be no fun at this point(even with the croissant eating) so after breakfast I went back to sleep till about noon. I woke feeling very perky! We decided to take the bus down to S. Miniato al Monte. It was a very very beautiful church with a very beautiful and large cemetery. Here is James being cute on the street level below the church.


We walked around the cemetery for a while. Then caught a bus over to another piazza. it was about 4 at this point and we were hungry. We hunted around and finale this store opened that had some awesome looking food called an alimentari. We got a prosciutto sandwich, a roast beef sandwich (which when he made it poured the roast beef juices on!! mmm) and a spinach pie. it was all very very very good! the bread was super crusty and the meats were awesome. one of the best lunches so far! though its hard to beat the seafood place we went to. Then we walked back towards town, across the bridge. For once James was tired and I was not! first time the whole trip. So we jumped a couple of buses back to Fiesole to get some groceries and gelato. The guy at the gelato store we like is really funny. He is a fairly young and is very proud of his English. He pronounces everything clearly and slowly. Its very cute. today was pretty awesome. now its time to eat some cheese and chill! we are doing a lot of chilling. but usually after a lot of exhausting walking. well earned chilling. :) ciao!

MUSKRATS!

Today after breakfast we went hiking! we hiked up this big hill that Leonardo Davinci took his first flight experiments. It was fun and great view and lots of fun things to see. some ruins, flowers, and lots of butterflies!

We hiked back into town and got some pizza for lunch. We tried some olive, plain tomato, and tomato with artichoke pizza. The olive was my favorite. We stopped and picked up some pastries and had some coffee. mmm we got some sugar cookies, almond custard tarts and some good bread to take home. We ate the cookies as we walked. When we got back to the B&B I took a couple hours to nap. Then we went down the hill to a little town to get some ice cream. After some very tasty gelato James saw this little road off to the side and thought we should take it. It ended up taking us all the way into the northern part of Florence. OOPS! but we stopped at the river and saw a heron, ducks, some pretty big fish, and some muskrats! We saw some muskrat love too but really I had never seen a muskrat before and was pretty frickin excited about it. I think James took video of them swimming! that was a lot of fun! it started to get dark so we headed home and an awesome dinner of Gorgonzola, belle paese, 2 kinds of bread, nectarines, green olives, and sun dried tomatoes. mmmm! so good! I love cheese.

Yesterday a guy on a scooter was coming up beside this bus that was trying to turn. Apparently the guy on the scooter was getting in the bus' way so the bus driver leaned out the window and slapped the guy in the head. The guy had a helmet on but she hit him hard enough that I heard the noise across the street. pretty funny! Italians are scary drivers. I'm still terrified when I get on the bus or walking down town. Now I'm scared they are going to hit me! Otherwise life is awesome in Italy. :) saw a squirrel today to0!