Cheers

We are sitting in the Edinburgh airport waiting to start the first leg  of our journey home. This goes without saying but are sad to leave as this has been the trip of a lifetime.

Yesterday we ventured out to Scotland's coast, only a short bus ride from the city center. It was far from swimming weather but the sun was out. We mosied along the beach, munching on cheese sandwiches, apples and BBQ Pringles :) After going back into town we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Edinburgh and enjoying the relatively nice weather. There are huge, hilly, green parks here that look up onto the old parts of the city. Beautiful. We dozed, laughed and reminisced while laying under a blue sky and warm sun.

Scotland has been amazing and it is close to the top of the must do list when we come back to Europe. The people here are warm, friendly, inquisitive and ready to point you towards a pint when needed! Even their version of TSA is nicer and more polite than ours, a definite perk :)

So now we spend the next 14 hours in an airport or on a plane. Feeling blue to go home...excited to see friends and family (including a certain kitty Mason)...looking forward to coming back in the not too far future. See you all soon!

Addition: We are now in London. Every flight in Europe seems to be delayed. Our flight to Heathrow was an hour late and our flight home is behind an hour and a half. That makes four delayed flights this trip.

One more picture

We can only post 3 pictures at a time with the wifi connection we have right now. Here's a fourth. It was taken as a part of the underground tour. Perhaps this is what we would have looked like in 16th century Scotland. Yikes.

Scotland, The Last Stop

We landed in Scotland at midnight local time after our discount airline delayed our flight by 30 minutes. We headed through an empty Edinburgh Airport with our bags on our shoulders searching for a cab. When we finally found one and told him the address he knew just where to go. He dropped us off at our B&B, a splurge we decided to make after spending far less than we expected on food. We met the owner and fell asleep.

The next morning we woke up to a hot breakfast, something we haven't had in a while. The breakfast contained: scrambled eggs, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, veggie sausage, and toast. It was very good. After food we got on our way, walking to the city center. Our first stop was The Palace of Holyroodhouse, the summer home of Her Majesty. It was a well put together tour, and a lovely place. We then went into the Scottish Parliament to have a quick look around and while there we stopped for an early lunch.

We then walked "the royal mile," a stretch of road connecting the current palace to the old castle, our next stop. Along the way we stopped by merchants and street performers, churches and pubs. It was a very busy, fun street. Upon reaching Edinburgh Castle we were amazed with its size. The place was huge, it was... a castle. There are many exhibits to be seen, and it took us a good 3 hours to see it all. Crown jewels, stories of plots against the king, and a camp for POWs were among the most interesting. The POW section was made more interesting because it actually housed American prisoners of war from the American Revolution. It was really cool to see etchings of the American flag on a door, made by a solider who had been shipped to prison across an ocean.

With the castle to our backs we headed to our room. We stopped at a grocery store to get dinner, and watched British Wipeout. Hilarious. Around 7 we headed out again for an underground tour. Much of High Street, or the royal mile, is built on top of old homes. We toured a few of them. It was a fun tour. It really would have sucked to live in Edinburgh in the 1500s, with the plague and poop everywhere.

It was ten when we headed back to the room. We stopped in a pub and had a few pints, not realizing what incredible lightweights we are. We stumbled out of the pub, which is next door to our bed and breakfast and went to sleep.

Today, our last full day in Europe, we plan on heading to the beach for a look around. The sun is shining like it has been nearly every place we've been. We're close to the end of our fun packed adventure. I'm sure today will be a beautiful one.

Miss you all, and see you soon.

Lindsay and Steve

Ciao...again

Apologies for another absence over the last couple of days...while we have had a good internet connection at our B&B, there has been an inescapable exhaustion that has rendered us unable to blog :)

Wednesday was our first full day in Rome and we went full force. We did the "Caesar Shuffle" which included visiting the Colosseum, Forum, and Palatine Hill. We also hit up the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. All were great, especially the first three. We were glad to see the last bit as well however these areas were very very touristy and filled with vendors shoving roses and knick knacks in your face...quite annoying.

Yesterday we visited the Vatican which was a site to behold. We spent about four hours touring the museum, square and basilica. Again, breathtaking. We also visited the tombs of the popes, including the grave of John Paul II.

We are now checking out of our hotel with bleary eyes and tired feet...but we will make the best of our last day in Italy until our flight leaves this evening.

Arrividerci Roma!

Roma

Today we made the four hour train trip to Rome from Pistoia. We were sad to leave the quiet and peaceful town we had come to know so well but knew it was time for new experiences. We said goodbye to our host, Federica, hoping one day we will all meet again. We also said ciao  to her angel of a dog, Mario. It has been nice to get a little animal lovin' when we cannot be with our own feline/canine friends :)

This time, we got on the right train and enjoyed the Tuscan countryside on our way to Rome. We read, dozed and were constantly entertained by Italian banter we could not understand. We checked into our B&B which is about a ten minute walk from Vatican City. We strolled around our area of town and stopped at a local butcher where we picked up bread, provolone and gruyere cheese, strawberries, marinated artichoke hearts and of course...beer. Before we had our gourmet picnic dinner we went to see the Vatican lit up a night. It was beautiful and we plan to go back on Thursday to tour the city in its entirety. The rest of our evening consisted of eating a good portion of bread, watching the Italian version of Deal or No Deal (horrible) and washing clothes in the sink...again.

We have promised ourselves to get up early tomorrow and attempt the "Caesar Shuffle" which highlights the larger than life monuments of the Roman era.

Pictures

Now that we have wifi again, here are a few pics we took in Tuscany. From the top, an amazing view of one of the towns in Cinque Terre, our new favorite wine introduced to us by our host in Pistoia and Coke is expensive but oh so good here :)

Italian Trains-2...The Masons-0

This Italian keyboard is unfamilair to me, and the spell check tells me every word is incorrect, so I am sorry if this post is somewhat hard to read. Here we go: Koinè ojsoansò oudanda agjùùàspda and also laudemio riunendo Oulx.

Just kidding.

Today was our last day in the Toscana region of Italia. Tomorrow we leave for Rome. We wanted to do something fun today, so we set out for the "Italian riviera," Cinque Terra. Wow. This seascape was a sight to see. Perhaps the most beautiful piece of earth we have laid eyes on this entire trip. Cinque Terra is a bit of a trip from Pistoia, you travel by train with several stops. Unknowingly, we decided to make it an even longer trip by taking a few wrong trains. 

We had the option of waking up super early and taking the 7 am train, but that did not happen, so we took the 9 am train. Our first stop was about an hour away, which came and went quickly with the help of our books. At the next stop we checked what we thought was the departure board to find our next train. We wondered aloud, "is this train going the wrong way?" Sure enough, we had been looking at the arrivals board. oops. I am very tired as I write this, so I flash forward a few hours to when we reach our destination... wwwhoooossshhh.

Cinque Terra consists of five small towns, we started our journey in the 4th town, Vernazza. It was beautiful. I wish we could upload pictures, but without wifi, we can not. Hopefully tomorrow. We grabbed some pesto pizza (pesto is something they are known for) and headed towards the water. We found a slab of land overlooking the sea. We let our legs hang off the edge, soaked up the sun and enjoyed our lazy lunch. We looked around the town for a bit, then headed to our next stop, Manarola (we skipped one town in the process). From there, we bought some jarred pesto, we also walked the famous Via Dell Amore. The story goes, that in the past, the two small towns people never got to know one and other, so they built a walkway. It was used primarily for young lovers from the different towns to meet. People lock padlocks to chains along the path to signify their bond nowadays.

Riomaggiore is the last town we hit. There we watched the sunset will sipping espresso. Very nice. We missed our train by only a few seconds, and had to wait for 45 minutes. During our wait we found a little market where we bought some bread and cheese for later. Our train finally came, and we were on our way home without a hitch. Or so we thought. Once we were out of the smaller train stations, we bought our main ticket home. We checked he departures list, and yes, we checked the right list, and found a shortcut in our route. We could take a Rome bound train to our next stop. Perfect! We headed towards the back of the train to be away from everyone else. We plopped down in our seats, commenting how nice everything was, and we began to eat. Halfway through our meal a conductor came by to check our tickets. "Wrong tickets," he tells us, "Where are your other tickets?" Other tickets? He tells us we are sitting on a EuroStar high speed train, in first class, and we will need to pay for our seats. Great. We tell him about the mix up, he is very nice, and works with us. He does not charge us for the first class seats, but lets us stay. He did, however, charge us another 30 euro.

The adventure continues! The next station left us with a 20 minute layover in a sketchy place. We were waiting near as many people as we could find when a very large homeless man holding a very large jug of what looked like olive oil came towards us. "UUUUUGGHHHH AAARRRRRGHHGGHHH?" He said. We ran.

And now we are back home, safe and sound. We will head for Rome on the cheap train, no first class EuroStar, in the morning. Thanks again for reading. If none of this made sense, blame it on our exhaustion and the Italian keyboard.

Miss you all,
Ciao!

Buonasera from Pistoia

Ciao to everyone! Our apologies for another temporary blogging absence. Our hosts do have wifi but for some reason it is not working on Steve's phone. However, we are in Tuscany, safe and sound, and it is wonderful. We took the train from Venice to Firenze (Florence) yesterday afternoon. Then we transferred and took another train to Pistoia which is about 40 minutes by train from Firenze. Pistoia is something out of a history book. It still has its original 12th century city wall as well as its city center (cathedral, duomo, the works!) Before exploring the town, we checked in with our hosts, Federica and Filippo. They are wonderfully kind and hospitable people. Filippo is finishing the book he is writing so we have not seen much of him but Federica has been eager to point us in the right direction on what to see and do. We went into town for an 8 pm dinner (normal for Europeans) and split an order of olive and mushroom mac and cheese and a margherita pizza. Yum! Federica and Filippo were hosting a dinner party with two of their friends, Lorenzo and Sara, when we returned. They invited us in to join in a glass of wine (ok, maybe more than one), limoncello and good conversation. Federica was kind enough to translate a heated Italian discussion on the rights and wrongs of nuclear power. Wow :)

This morning, we tried to get up early...not much luck with that but we did try! We took the train into Firenze to see the sights. We waited for an hour to get into Uffizi Museum, which included plenty of pieces from Rafael, da Vinci and Michelangelo. We also visited the Duomo and set out for the Accademia, home of Michelangelo's David. To behold something so old and beloved as this statue was rather humbling. And by the way, it is MUCH bigger in person than either of us were expecting it to be! Throughout the day, we ate---of course! Pizza, gelato (this time chocolate and chocolate mousse) and pastries. We strolled around Firenze and while we are happy to have gone, it left us feeling rather unimpressed. Perhaps if we knew more about Renaissance art it would have captivated us a bit more. It also had a very touristy feel and by the early evening we were ready to head back to our quiet Pistoia. We just returned from another night on the town, although it was much more subdued this evening. Sunday is the day of rest in such a small town and there was a quieted hush over the city. We managed to find an open restaurant where we indulged in mashed potato stuffed ravioli with mushroom sauce and vegetarian pizza. Have I mentioned we love Italy?

Now, let me tell you a bit about our accomodations. Federica has an apartment very close to the city wall I mentioned earlier. Their area of the apartment is on the second floor while ours is on the third. That's right folks...we've been put up in our own, very private section of this house. And the best part? We have a french door that leads to a private rooftop patio where we can see for miles...snow-capped peaks, vineyards and all of Pistoia. Sometimes there just are not words for such a sight so I will leave it at that and let your imaginations run away from you  :)

We originally expected to spend two full days in Firenze but we have changed our plans. Tomorrow we are headed to the coastal region of Cinque Terre. It consists of five small towns, all close to the coast and each with its own style and culture. We will check in tomorrow night and let you know how it goes!

Ciao for now!

Our Last Full Day in Venice

This morning we awoke to find we had provided a hearty American meal for the local mosquitos. Chomp chomp. Aside from being a little itchy, today was a great day. The weather was perfect, and all the sites were open.

We started the day trekking through the streets on our way to a grand church that was closed yesterday, La Salute. After looking through the stunning architecture we wondered around and got lost a few times. Something that has become commonplace here in Venice. Once we found our way again, we stopped for a sandwich and headed towards St. Mark's Square.

Once we arrived in the square we found or way into a museum where we strolled around and took in Venetian art. After the museum came the Doge's Palace, the place where the former rulers of Venice hung out and talked about how cool they were. It was a very impressive palace with large rooms and paintings everywhere. The prison was also very interesting with its dark, cold cells that would have housed many of the Doge's enemies. There is a famous bridge there, too. It's called the bridge of sighs, it connects the sentencing room of the palace to the prison. Legend says the bridge would be the last look of Venice for the prisoners and they would often sigh in sadness. Today, however, the bridge is covered in advertisements, and that made us sigh.

At this point we were pretty tired, so we went back to our room to nap (with the window closed). A few hours later we got up and headed out for dinner. We found a nice pizza place that told us they didn't have tap water, so we'd have to pay for bottled water. Yeah. Luckily the pizza was very good. After that was another round of gelato.

Now we're back at the room, planning our next few days in Florence. Hopefully we'll have decent internet connection. Either way we'll try and keep in touch!

Ciao grazie!

Sunny, Sassy and Saint Patrick

We woke up those morning to beautiful sunshine and sunny skies! We enjoyed another delicious breakfast and hit the ground running. Our first stop was the Accademia, a massive collection of Renaissance art. It was fascinating and very informational. Then we headed over to St. Mark's Square. This turned to hold a giant mass of humanity and we saw our first touristy part of Venice. We toured the inside of the basilica (beautiful) and stopped on the second floor balcony for a look over the square. While this part of the city was a must see, the real feel of Venice seems to be away from this spot...we are grateful to not be staying too close to the craziness :)

After St. Mark's, we strolled along the Grand Canal while munching on yet another slice of pizza. Today was funghi (mushroom) for me and carciofo (artichoke) for Steve. I resisted the temptation many times to buy knockoff designer bags on the street...the main deterrent being it is illegal to do so! We are realizing that part of the fun in visiting Venice is getting lost. It is, after all, an island! You can only get so far before reaching a dead end and finding another route. This is how we spent the rest of the afternoon, finally making our way back to our side of town.

Venice takes on a whole new attitude at night. Tonight was even more exciting as it is both St. Patrick's Day and 150 anniversario dell'Unità d'Italia (the celebration of Italy's unification.) Party central :) We had dinner at a local osteria---mushroom ravioli and gnocchi with a four cheese sauce. Shortly after, scoops of gelato. As if we had anymore room to indulge, we found an Irish pub to celebrate the holiday. We found ourselves in the middle of a Venetian neighborhood, drinking with Italians, Brits, Scots and of course, some Irish who were kind enough to have brought their instruments for some Celtic jigs. Apparently, everyone today really can be Irish!

Éirinn go Brách and Buonanotte

The City of Masks and Rain

Today, our first day in Venice, was a lazy one. It started raining yesterday and has only stopped for a few hours at a time.

We slept in our rather comfy bed most of the morning, listening to the rain pound the Venetian rooftops. When we heard a break in the downpour we hit the streets.

Walking the narrow corridors of Venice is somewhat surreal. I'm not sure it has sunk in that we're actually here.

On our way to our first stop, Scuola San Rocco, we stopped for some pizza slices. After visiting the Scuola and its ajoining church we headed to a pastry shop were we enjoyed Tiramisu and coffee. It was fantastic.

We then headed to the Maria Gloriosa dei Frari church. It was huge and really lovely. Lindsay kept wondering if she could climb the rafters like her favorite video game character. I'm not joking.

After the church we wondered around the streets.  We bought a 2 Euro umbrella (we'll see how long that lasts). Then went into a market. There we bought dinner which consisted of this: bread, fresh provolone, Italian beer, and chocolate. We then spent five full minutes trying to determine which bottle of cleaner contained laundry detergent. Nearly satisfied with our choice, we found a very helpful Italian woman who happened to speak English. She informed us that we had selected disinfectant. Oops. We then headed back to our bed and breakfast. On our way we bought some strawberries. Gourmet, right?

We've eaten, done our laundry in the sink, and have had as much Italian Law and Order (Special Victims Unit) we can handle, so that's it for the day. Hopefully tomorrow will bring some sunshine!

Cin cin!

It's the little things...

For the first time on our trip we have some down time so I thought I would take the opportunity to write with a little more detail than usual. Firstly, we are in Venice and it's great! But more on that later.

Our trip to Paris was not what we expected but so much more. Upon our arrival, our hosts-- Mathilde and Xavier, had prepared homemade quiche for dinner. We stayed up late talking about our travels, how they like living in Paris and many other things. We also quickly became chummy with their two cats, Hubert and Felix, who were sweet as can be and very cunning :) The next morning, we awoke to orange juice, tea, fresh baguettes and chocolate croissants they had picked up from the local bakery. WOW. It turns out we rather enjoy French food after all! Monday was our day planned for Versailles but we found out late the night before it would be closed so our plans quickly changed. Mathilde helped us plan out the entire day and sent us packing with more croissants (which didn't last long.) So Monday turned out to include the Pere Lechaise (grave of Jim Morrison), the Paris Opera, Invalides (where Napoleon is buried) and back to the Arc de Triumph where this time we climbed the stairs to the top and watched the sun set over Paris. We returned to the beautiful apartment on Rue Haxo and had our last dinner in Paris at an amazing Indian restaurant with our hosts. For those of you who know how picky of an eater Steve is, this may be shocking!

Remember earlier when I told you about Versailles being closed? When that was discovered we had decided that we simply would not have time to visit the palace on this trip. However, once again Xavier and Matilde saved the day. Xavier works by Versailles and he drove us there first thing in the morning, picked us up a few hours later and drove us to the airport to catch our flight to Venice. Versailles was exactly what it was built to be---decadent, lavish and reminiscent of a completely different time in French  history.

In review, Paris was wonderful. It is a city unlike any other and we learned quickly that if you make an effort to speak the language, as horrible as you think it may be coming out of your mouth with all the wrong pronunciations, Parisians are gracious and more than willing to help. While seeing the sights was very memorable, our favorite memories of Paris will  always be the kindness, generosity and new friendship of Mathilde and Xavier (Felix and Hubert too!) I think I forgot to mention this...Steve and I ate an exorbitant amount of nutella/banana crepes and tomato mozzarella paninis. Cheap and delicious.

Last night we arrived in Venice after our flight was delayed by about two hours. We are staying in a cozy B&B, not one minute from the Grand Canal. After we checked in last night and got a bite to eat we were locked out...still getting used to the old time doors here :) The inn owner came to let us in with a smile saying it happens all the time! As I'm writing this, it is raining quite hard but our window is open and the church bells are ringing. I believe Venice will hold its own special place in our hearts very soon!

We do have wifi here so we will write when we can :)

Ciao for now!

Au revoir, Paris!

Sorry we haven't been able to post much in Paris. Wifi was even harder to come by.

Paris has been incredible, largely because of our amazing hosts. The buildings were incredible, the weather was perfect, and yes, the people were very nice.

We saw all the major sites, and once we get home we'll go more into depth on each. Our favorite part of Paris was just walking around among the houses. Amazing.

We now sit in the airport on our to Venice. We hope we can check in soon!

Ciao!

Bon Jour from Paris!

We just got back from our first full day in Paris. It is an amazing city---full of life, history and of course Parisians! We are finding that it is difficult to be in a non-English speaking country but not impossible. Our hosts are very patient and willing to help us with our French. They of course speak impeccable English :) We started our day at the Louvre, went on to Notre Dame and then to Luxembourg Garden. We also walked ALL over, hit the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, Sacre Couer and the Moulin Rouge (just the outside, not a show!) Our hosts, Misty and Xavier, met up with us later in the evening and made us homemade crepes for dinner...amazing!

Ciao to London

We're sitting in the train station waiting to board our high speed transport to Paris.

England has been very fun, the people, the buildings, the history. All a great experience. Our couch surfing hosts were a joy. We stayed up very late talking about different cultures and explaining American Football.

We're ready for new adventure, but a little nervous to be in a place where English is not the main language. We'll keep you updated best we can. Hopefully Paris is better about cheap wifi.

Cheers!

Last night in London

We just got home from spending our last evening in the hustle and bustle of London. We have had a wonderful time and are sad to leave. Today we spent a good portion of the afternoon at Hampton Court Palace and then the evening at the Tate Modern. We took tons of pictures with the nighttime skyline of Big Ben, Parliament and St. Paul's Cathedral. In a care we shared a plate of dough balls with Nutella and a cappucinno. Yum! We are now enjoying the company of our hosts, Linda and Renars and another surfer here, Daniele from Germany.


Tomorrow we leave for Paris and say so long to London (for now.) More to come :)

A day at Windsor

Today we checked in with our couchsurfing hosts, Linda and Renars. Linda greeted us with tea and good conversation. We are very excited to get to know them better!

After checking in we headed to Windsor where we are currently enjoying a very American treat...any guesses? Starbucks of course! We spent the entire afternoon touring Windsor Castle. It was an incredible sight and has inspired another screening of The Tudors when we get home!

Steve has not yet lost anymore money but the day is still relatively young :)

New words we have learned---sweeties, way out and take away. We're basically Brits now.

Day Two

Loads of exciting things today, mate! Both of us woke up feeling a bit off. Must have been the jet lag.

First stop today was the Tower of London. Pretty interesting, but not quite what we expected. Solid B.

Next was St. Paul's Cathedral. We walked in on an Ash Wednesday service, no tours were allowed but we were able to walk around the inside a bit. All we can say is wow. Very beautiful, very moving.

Then we headed over to Westminster Abbey and the Parliament. Westminster was incredible and even more so when coupled with the soothing voice of your humble audio guide Jeremy Irons.

All and all it was a great, but very tiring. We just stopped for a portabello burger, and now we retire to our room with dessert.

Day 1.5

Sorry to everyone for the late posting. To our great surprise, London does not have free wifi ANYWHERE! We got into town about 2 pm yesterday afternoon. After checking into our hotel, we took a walk around Kensington and Chelsea. We strolled through Kensington Gardens and saw the Albert Memorial. We grabbed a bite to eat at a local pizzeria :)

Our impressions of London so far...
Most people have been very helpful
The tube is awesome
And we could never afford to live here!

In related news, Steve managed to misplace £20 within our first day.

Waiting

We are all checked in at the airport and waiting for our overnight flight to London. Here's to inflight movies, long card games and adventures to come :)

Packed!

We are packed and ready to go (miracle). Steve had to work today so I am anxiously waiting for him to get home so we can leave for the airport! Still hard to believe our trip is already here...it doesn't seem too long ago that we were saying to each other, "Can you believe we're leaving in 8 months?...3 months?...3 weeks?" I guess time flies when you're having fun :)

I've been a little jittery about all of this...don't get me wrong---I'm very excited! I suppose it's a little fear of the unknown. However, I spoke with my Aunt Mary and Grandma Iris yesterday afternoon. They called to wish us well and tell us to have a very safe and fabulous trip. Grandma assured me she would be asking our guardian angels to go ahead of us and keep us safe :) Funny how grandmothers always know the right thing to say...

Anyways, this will probably be our last post before we arrive in London--although three hours waiting in Sky Harbor may prompt a few more tidbits :)

Cheers!

The New Kid

Tonight we are going to the screening of the 2011 A3F 48 Hour Film Challenge. Steve participates in these usually twice a year and it makes me so happy to see him doing something he enjoys so deeply---not to mention,  I am once again assured that I am married to a bona fied movie star :) Let's hope for the 5th straight win for Luke Hansen Media tonight! Good luck, boys!

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