Chapter 7. Italy

OHHH how easy it is to eat WAY to much Italian food when in Italia 😉 The pasta, pizza, cheese and wine has all gone down way to easy that we are all feeling stuffed all the time.

* Our first stop in Rome was pretty amazing, the culture and history. The Colosseum was everyones highlight, we had a seasoned old retired teacher who showed us around with animated enthusiasm making the visit super memorable. Of course the boys loved all the stories about the weapons and blood. Vatican city was beautiful but Everett told me “Mom I like future things not all this old stuff all the time, can we see something else now?”.. Haha ~ love his honesty.
* As you know I wear contacts and while we were in Greece I bought some new solution for them. The first morning in Rome I opened the new bottle, cleaned my lenses to immediately feel the burn, my eyeball swelled right up and I looked awful. Needless to say the shop keeper sold me some wrong stuff, thankfully my eye has recovered and I can see once again 😉

* As always we seem to have some sort of episode/hiccup/craziness event that happens since we started this journey … We boarded the train from Rome to Florence with no drama (yay) As we were approaching the Florence train station we got caught in a pedestrian jam of people boarding the train and trying to get off. By the time we got to the exit, the hydraulics shifted the doors closed and with frantic pushing of all available buttons and some screams the doors remained shut and the train pulled way from the station with us standing inside … just like you would see in a movie! At that moment I was unsure, do you laugh or cry?
It was not only us that were trapped and missed our stop, another group from Colombia could not get out as well.

* So to make lemonade out of lemons we got off at the next station and made the most of our quick visit snapping pictures at the Tower of Pisa and laughing at how crazy things can change so fast, but you just roll with it.

* Made our way back to Florence to stuff ourselves with the famous All’ antico Vinaio sandwiches multiple times a day. I am not kidding when I say we will be rolling down the street soon.

* Italia hiccup number 2. The morning of our departure to Venice we had plenty of time to go grab yet another sandwich (not kidding we ate so many) before heading to the train station. Em suggested we take a taxi but that is ridculous when we could walk the 30 min with our bags. (Em says we always have to do the walk of shame with our bags..haha) On our 30 min walk we encountered a freak hail storm and took refuge in a phone booth (what are the odds)

* Finally made it to the Florence train station after Trent and I had a domestic on the street (ask me later about that 😉 to find out we had the train time wrong… OMG … It did not ever occur me when I booked the train that the time was 1:45AM and NOT 1:45PM… Here we go again… another story for the memory bank! Needless to stay another interesting mistake, we quickly had to roll with the punches, transfer 4 different trains, buy new tickets and after many hours we made it to Venice. Venice is beautiful and freezing at a bombing 6ºC. We are all freezing but eating like kings 😀

* Oh ya also Everett did a starfish falling on the train planting himself on the floor, poor kids.. but so funny.

The journey continues….

PISA & FLORENCE

VENICE