Saturday, March 24, 2012
The Photo Bomber strikes again and again
First appearing in Rome a couple of days ago, the Photo Bomber has been striking tourist cameras throughout Florence. The typical motis operandi of the Photo Bomber is to appear like an unsuspecting tourist gasping at the wonders of the city as she strategically maneuvers between the photographer and their subject. The Photo Bomber likes to display a shocked expression as she attempts to fill the viewfinder of the photographer, but with the number of instances authorities believe that this is just a rouse to prevent a confrontation. This reporter has been unable to catch the Photo Bomber in action, but when possible a picture of the subject will be posted to warn others of her presence. Luckily, in this digital age the damage caused by the Photo Bomber is usually quickly erased with a push of the delete button.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Ciao Roma, onto Firenze
Day three saw a slower pace as we did not have any reservations, so we could take our time getting up and going. We did need to go to the termini train station to buy tickets to Florence for the train, so that was on the to do list. We had also written a few postcards and bought some stamps, so we decided to head to the train station, then back to the Vatican so that we could mail the postcards from there. Diana decided she wanted to go with us, so we let Ed sleep in a bit and the three of us were off.
This was Diana's first experience with the termini train station, and I think it is safe to say she was a little overwhelmed. From the number of people fast moving to their destinations, to the warnings we gave her about the pick pockets and their usual scams, her eyes were wide open and she never left our side. But we made it through just fine, and were able to buy the tickets from a vending machine they now had set up in the main square. In fact, there were no people selling tickets anymore, just machines. What a change from when we were here 5 years ago!
We quickly headed back to the metro and were off to St. Peters square. We spent a bit of time leisurely going through the church again, with Tim asking if we wanted to go back up to the top of the dome again. Michelle assumed he was kidding, as even her knees screamed NO!
We headed back and collected Ed and were off for a light breakfast and a visit to the Trevi fountain. We also swung by the Pantheon for a short Rick Steves audio tour and then to another cafe for some cappuccino. I tell you, we all might become addicted to those things! Between that and gelato (which we also enjoyed after the cappuccino), we may all decide to just stay here!
After all that eating it was back to the hotel to grab our bags and off to the train station. Though it was a bit nerve wracking to travel with 4 people and all of our bags, we made it through just fine and were able to get onto our train. The problem was that we wanted to get there early so that we could all sit together. But since it seems like everyone in Italy was headed to Florence on this same train, we ended up squeezing ourselves into two different spaces, sitting two by two. Michelle and Ed were in a compartment with two Italians and a nice lady who lived in Italy but was originally from England. As one of the Italians left, we moved Diana into the compartment, and the nice woman from England let us know she would be getting off soon, so we could all be together in another 2-3 stops.
The second half of the trip was spent all together in a compartment, which made it much more relaxing. Once in Florence we made a long hike to our hotel. The hotel is in the city center, but is a good 20 min walk from the train station. Ed and Diana hung in there like true toopers, though they are taking "a few minutes" to rest before going out for dinner. When we made these reservations we reserved two double rooms, and were surprised that the hotel had a 2 bedroom appartment. The thing that surprised us most was that the cost was twice the cost of reserving two separate rooms. So we booked the two separate rooms for the cheaper rate. Once we arrived though, the owners of the appartment changed their minds and are letting us have the appartment for the same rate! So now we have two very big rooms, access to the internet in our room (versus the lobby) and a living room, clothes washer and kitchen. It is a beautiful place, and it is ours for the next three days. Ahhhhh!
After a rest, we are going to try to eat at Mama Gina's, with the hope that it is still as good as it was 5 years ago! Ciao!
This was Diana's first experience with the termini train station, and I think it is safe to say she was a little overwhelmed. From the number of people fast moving to their destinations, to the warnings we gave her about the pick pockets and their usual scams, her eyes were wide open and she never left our side. But we made it through just fine, and were able to buy the tickets from a vending machine they now had set up in the main square. In fact, there were no people selling tickets anymore, just machines. What a change from when we were here 5 years ago!
We quickly headed back to the metro and were off to St. Peters square. We spent a bit of time leisurely going through the church again, with Tim asking if we wanted to go back up to the top of the dome again. Michelle assumed he was kidding, as even her knees screamed NO!
We headed back and collected Ed and were off for a light breakfast and a visit to the Trevi fountain. We also swung by the Pantheon for a short Rick Steves audio tour and then to another cafe for some cappuccino. I tell you, we all might become addicted to those things! Between that and gelato (which we also enjoyed after the cappuccino), we may all decide to just stay here!
After all that eating it was back to the hotel to grab our bags and off to the train station. Though it was a bit nerve wracking to travel with 4 people and all of our bags, we made it through just fine and were able to get onto our train. The problem was that we wanted to get there early so that we could all sit together. But since it seems like everyone in Italy was headed to Florence on this same train, we ended up squeezing ourselves into two different spaces, sitting two by two. Michelle and Ed were in a compartment with two Italians and a nice lady who lived in Italy but was originally from England. As one of the Italians left, we moved Diana into the compartment, and the nice woman from England let us know she would be getting off soon, so we could all be together in another 2-3 stops.
The second half of the trip was spent all together in a compartment, which made it much more relaxing. Once in Florence we made a long hike to our hotel. The hotel is in the city center, but is a good 20 min walk from the train station. Ed and Diana hung in there like true toopers, though they are taking "a few minutes" to rest before going out for dinner. When we made these reservations we reserved two double rooms, and were surprised that the hotel had a 2 bedroom appartment. The thing that surprised us most was that the cost was twice the cost of reserving two separate rooms. So we booked the two separate rooms for the cheaper rate. Once we arrived though, the owners of the appartment changed their minds and are letting us have the appartment for the same rate! So now we have two very big rooms, access to the internet in our room (versus the lobby) and a living room, clothes washer and kitchen. It is a beautiful place, and it is ours for the next three days. Ahhhhh!
After a rest, we are going to try to eat at Mama Gina's, with the hope that it is still as good as it was 5 years ago! Ciao!
Vatican Shmatican
So for our second day in Rome, we decided to hit the Vatican experience, this time with a tour of the gardens and then entrance into the museum and Sistine chapel. We woke bright and early to make our 9:30 tour time, picking up breakfast at a little cafe (included with the cost of our room). It consisted of a cappuccino or tea and a small breakfast pastry. And it was delicious. Even Diana enjoyed a cappuccino, abet with a healthy dose of sugar. We are pretty sure adding sugar to an Italian coffee is a little like adding casup to french fries, but we do it anyway. These Italians like their coffee strong!
We made it with 20 minutes to spare to the Vatican, and jumped into the tour line. If you ever have the chance to get to Rome and you want to visit the Vatican, pay the extra money for a tour. it allows you to avoid the long lines which wrap all the way around the Vatican walls. But the garden tour is not that impressive. Pretty gardens, to be sure, but you can see better for free by going to the Borghuese gardens.
Many parts of the Vatican museum were different than Tim and Michelle remembered, so it was fun to tour the new exhibits, but it also made the amount of time spent on your feet very long. By the end, we could not wait to get to the Sistine chapel to have a place to sit down. Once there we found a place for Ed and Diana to sit, and let them listen to an audio tour by Rick Steves on the itouch. Tim and I then listened to the same tour on the ipad and relaxed a bit once we were able to find seats as well. Going in the middle of March versus the middle of July was wonderful for crowds. It seemed like there were 1/4 the number of people at the Vatican as the last time we went.
Once out of the Sistine chapel we headed over to St. Peter's basillica. Ed was getting a little tired and said he would rather sit on the steps and rest instead of going in. Tim persuaded him to go in for a minute, and once inside his eyes got wide and he was re-energized to see the space. Mainly because it is so HUGE, and vastly overwhelming the first time you see it. Michelle noticed this time that all of the art in the upper portions of all of the domes were actually mosaics. Which is amazing, because there are at least 6 domes that allow light into the space, not to mention the large center dome. This is the one you can climb, and of course that is on Tim's list of things to do on this trip. So he and Michelle find the entrance, and of course instead of paying the fee to take the elevator half way up, we decide to pay the smaller fee to walk it. All 551 steps! And some of those steps, as you get inside of the dome, are quite steep and slanted towards the curve of the dome, so you climb a step and your right hand is guiding you on the sloped part because you cannot stand up straight. The last set of stairs is so steep that instead of a handrail you have a rope that hangs from the ceiling in the center of the staircase. It was a workout, but oh my were the views worth it. We know our knees and hips will be killing us tomorrow, but we would do it again if given the chance.
After the dome climb it was back down and off to find some food and a nice place to sit. We tried to go to one restaurant but found that it was closed for the afternoon. So we tried the one across the street - Hosteria Pizzeria "Da Vito E Dina" - and found the owner, Vito, to be hilarious. It turns out that restaurant had been reviewed by an LA times writer, and Vito had the original article framed and posted on his wall. Being so early for dinner at 6PM, Vito had to turn on the dining room lights and obviously we had the entire room to ourselves. Tim and Diana each had a sausage and mushroom pizza, Michelle had the mushroom ravioli, and Ed had a salad and bruschetta. All of the food was delicious, and not just because we were starving. :)
After such a long day on our feet we headed back to the hotel around 8:30. Tim crashed while Michelle looked for hotel rooms in Florence for the next 3 nights. She also skyped with Susanne and was able to see Zander. At one point she sang one of his favorite songs and he stared into the camera and laughed the whole time. We have to say, modern technology is amazing. It makes traveling so much easier and almost cures the homesickness that delevops from being away from your loved ones so long. Almost that is.
Well, time for bed. Tomorrow is a light day full of the last visits to sites and then catching a regional train to Florence. We are looking forward to a slower pace of life for a little while. Ciao!
We made it with 20 minutes to spare to the Vatican, and jumped into the tour line. If you ever have the chance to get to Rome and you want to visit the Vatican, pay the extra money for a tour. it allows you to avoid the long lines which wrap all the way around the Vatican walls. But the garden tour is not that impressive. Pretty gardens, to be sure, but you can see better for free by going to the Borghuese gardens.
Many parts of the Vatican museum were different than Tim and Michelle remembered, so it was fun to tour the new exhibits, but it also made the amount of time spent on your feet very long. By the end, we could not wait to get to the Sistine chapel to have a place to sit down. Once there we found a place for Ed and Diana to sit, and let them listen to an audio tour by Rick Steves on the itouch. Tim and I then listened to the same tour on the ipad and relaxed a bit once we were able to find seats as well. Going in the middle of March versus the middle of July was wonderful for crowds. It seemed like there were 1/4 the number of people at the Vatican as the last time we went.
Once out of the Sistine chapel we headed over to St. Peter's basillica. Ed was getting a little tired and said he would rather sit on the steps and rest instead of going in. Tim persuaded him to go in for a minute, and once inside his eyes got wide and he was re-energized to see the space. Mainly because it is so HUGE, and vastly overwhelming the first time you see it. Michelle noticed this time that all of the art in the upper portions of all of the domes were actually mosaics. Which is amazing, because there are at least 6 domes that allow light into the space, not to mention the large center dome. This is the one you can climb, and of course that is on Tim's list of things to do on this trip. So he and Michelle find the entrance, and of course instead of paying the fee to take the elevator half way up, we decide to pay the smaller fee to walk it. All 551 steps! And some of those steps, as you get inside of the dome, are quite steep and slanted towards the curve of the dome, so you climb a step and your right hand is guiding you on the sloped part because you cannot stand up straight. The last set of stairs is so steep that instead of a handrail you have a rope that hangs from the ceiling in the center of the staircase. It was a workout, but oh my were the views worth it. We know our knees and hips will be killing us tomorrow, but we would do it again if given the chance.
After the dome climb it was back down and off to find some food and a nice place to sit. We tried to go to one restaurant but found that it was closed for the afternoon. So we tried the one across the street - Hosteria Pizzeria "Da Vito E Dina" - and found the owner, Vito, to be hilarious. It turns out that restaurant had been reviewed by an LA times writer, and Vito had the original article framed and posted on his wall. Being so early for dinner at 6PM, Vito had to turn on the dining room lights and obviously we had the entire room to ourselves. Tim and Diana each had a sausage and mushroom pizza, Michelle had the mushroom ravioli, and Ed had a salad and bruschetta. All of the food was delicious, and not just because we were starving. :)
After such a long day on our feet we headed back to the hotel around 8:30. Tim crashed while Michelle looked for hotel rooms in Florence for the next 3 nights. She also skyped with Susanne and was able to see Zander. At one point she sang one of his favorite songs and he stared into the camera and laughed the whole time. We have to say, modern technology is amazing. It makes traveling so much easier and almost cures the homesickness that delevops from being away from your loved ones so long. Almost that is.
Well, time for bed. Tomorrow is a light day full of the last visits to sites and then catching a regional train to Florence. We are looking forward to a slower pace of life for a little while. Ciao!
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Day 1 - Part 2
So we left off the last post with the four of us back together on a plane bound for Rome. The only problem was, the girls and their checked luggage were on the plane, and the boys were on the plane, but though they missed their origianl connecting flight, their bags made it through just fine, arriving at 8 am Rome time. So once we landed and retrieved the gals bags, we headed over the customer service to see where we needed to go to find the boys bags. We were told that only bag owners could go into this secure area, so Michelle and Diana camped out at a cafe and waited. And waited. And waited. About an hour and a half later, the boys managed to find their luggage. It was no easy feat either, and the girls were very relieved to see them finally return from their search.
We took a taxi from the airport to the hotel as it was cheaper to do that with 4 people than to take the train. The taxi driver was a pretty funny man, and he made sure to point out the major tourist sights as we drove past them. The rooms are clean and comfortable, which was a relief to see after such a long day. After a few moments to decompress, we were off again.
Our first stop was to the metro to ride out to the Colloseaum, which was a fun experience for Ed and Diana. A lot of people all rushing around underground from here to there. We made sure to stop and explain the system so that (hopefully) it wasn't so overwhelming. When we stepped out of the metro stop, there it was. Using our Roma pass we went right in, and using our ipad and itouch the four of us were able to listen to a podcast from Rick Steves that guided you around the monument and told the history at the same time. Being a teacher, we think Diana especially enjoyed hearing about the history of the place.
Once we were done there, we tried heading over the Palentine Hill and the Forum, but it was too late and everything was closed. So we walked up to dinner near the Piazza Navrona. Of course, before dinner we needed to stop for a little gellato. :) Dinner was a recommendation from the Rick Steves book, since Tim and Michelle had never really had a great meal in their previous trip to Rome. A very good meal of gnocchi for Ed and Michelle, a spicy spaghetti for Tim and an artechoke and linguinni for Diana. We took a slow walk back to the hotel, passing by the Trevi fountain at night (so beautiful!) and called it a day. Tomorrow we are off for a tour to the Vatican, which we are all looking forward to. More to come!
We took a taxi from the airport to the hotel as it was cheaper to do that with 4 people than to take the train. The taxi driver was a pretty funny man, and he made sure to point out the major tourist sights as we drove past them. The rooms are clean and comfortable, which was a relief to see after such a long day. After a few moments to decompress, we were off again.
Our first stop was to the metro to ride out to the Colloseaum, which was a fun experience for Ed and Diana. A lot of people all rushing around underground from here to there. We made sure to stop and explain the system so that (hopefully) it wasn't so overwhelming. When we stepped out of the metro stop, there it was. Using our Roma pass we went right in, and using our ipad and itouch the four of us were able to listen to a podcast from Rick Steves that guided you around the monument and told the history at the same time. Being a teacher, we think Diana especially enjoyed hearing about the history of the place.
Once we were done there, we tried heading over the Palentine Hill and the Forum, but it was too late and everything was closed. So we walked up to dinner near the Piazza Navrona. Of course, before dinner we needed to stop for a little gellato. :) Dinner was a recommendation from the Rick Steves book, since Tim and Michelle had never really had a great meal in their previous trip to Rome. A very good meal of gnocchi for Ed and Michelle, a spicy spaghetti for Tim and an artechoke and linguinni for Diana. We took a slow walk back to the hotel, passing by the Trevi fountain at night (so beautiful!) and called it a day. Tomorrow we are off for a tour to the Vatican, which we are all looking forward to. More to come!
Day 1 - Part 1
On the road again . . .
So here we go again, off on another grand adventure. And today did not fail to provide adventure. But I am getting a little ahead of myself, let's begin at the beginning.
Tim and Michelle headed down with Zander on Monday night, arriving in LA at Tim's parents house around 11:30 pm. Their philosophy on jet lag is that if you just don't sleep the night before your flight, then adjust yourself to the time zone of where you are going and sleep according to those time periods on the plane, you can hit the ground running free from jet lag once you arrive. So true to form, we stayed awake all night and early morning packing and planning with Ed and Diana. Tim's sister Susanne arrived around 5 am for the trip to LAX to catch our 8:30 flight. And here is where all of the real fun began.
Five minutes into the drive to the airport Ed realized that he forgot his glasses at home. Thankfully it was a quick turn around to get back to the house, and a short search quickly revealed them in the bedroom. Then, we were back on the road . . . again.
We arrived at LAX around 6:30 am and said tearful goodbyes. I give you one good guess to see who in our party of four had the "tearful" part. Tim said a few bets have been made (he won't say by whom) on how long Michelle will last before a meltdown. Yeah, it was Michelle, but you can't really count that as a meltdown, she gets at least one freebie.
On the road again . . .
So here we go again, off on another grand adventure. And today did not fail to provide adventure. But I am getting a little ahead of myself, let's begin at the beginning.
Tim and Michelle headed down with Zander on Monday night, arriving in LA at Tim's parents house around 11:30 pm. Their philosophy on jet lag is that if you just don't sleep the night before your flight, then adjust yourself to the time zone of where you are going and sleep according to those time periods on the plane, you can hit the ground running free from jet lag once you arrive. So true to form, we stayed awake all night and early morning packing and planning with Ed and Diana. Tim's sister Susanne arrived around 5 am for the trip to LAX to catch our 8:30 flight. And here is where all of the real fun began.
Five minutes into the drive to the airport Ed realized that he forgot his glasses at home. Thankfully it was a quick turn around to get back to the house, and a short search quickly revealed them in the bedroom. Then, we were back on the road . . . again.
We arrived at LAX around 6:30 am and said tearful goodbyes. I give you one good guess to see who in our party of four had the "tearful" part. Tim said a few bets have been made (he won't say by whom) on how long Michelle will last before a meltdown. Yeah, it was Michelle, but you can't really count that as a meltdown, she gets at least one freebie. :)
We go to check into the kiosk and get our boarding passes next. Tim checks in, passport is scanned an accepted. Michelle checks in, passport is scanned and accepted. Diana goes to check in . . . and can't find her passport. It turns out that when we made copies of them for Susanne to keep in case of an emergency, we forgot to take the passport back out of the scanner. So it is at home, and our flight leaves in 90 minutes. We make a quick call to Susanne to see if she can run back to the house and back out to LAX. She tries her darnedest, but long story short, with the major increase in traffic (remember, it is now around 7:30 am on a Tuesday) she just can't get there in time. So Tim and Ed hop on the plane, and Michelle and Diana are left to wait for the passport and then work with the airline to rebook the tickets. And before all of you start giving the guys grief for leaving their wives, know that it was the wives idea and we pushed them to go. We figured it was easier and cheeper to rebook 2 people versus 4. And off they went, barely making their plane.
The nice thing was, Tim had talked to the booking agents, the TSA workers and the baggage workers about our situation, so once Michelle and Diana got in line to rebook their tickets, they had lots of friends who could commiserate with them and help them get going. Plus, the women just made the decision that they would be happy with whatever happened, and consider this a grand adventure. There was no sense being angry about it, and this was made all the more real by the number of angry people in line who took out their frustration on the ticketing agents. When they reached the front of the line they were told that there were no flights until the next day. Michelle asked her to check any flights that would get them to Rome, no matter the layover location. At the same time, they made sure to say thank you to everyone who had helped earlier in the morning. And wouldn't you know it, the ticketing agent could find us two seats on the next plane (leaving in 3 hours) and we would get to Rome 4 hours behind the guys. When asked how much the transfer cost to the new tickets, they were told it was FREE. We had just watched person after person rebooking missed flights and having to pull out credit cards. And here we were getting the change done for free, even though it was our fault that we missed the flight. The agent had mercy on us and put down that we missed our flight due to "long lines" and which came with a waived fee. Praise the Lord!
The ladies bags were checked, and they hopped on the 11:30 flight to New York. When they exited, they made their way over to terminal 1 from terminal 2, and ran right into Tim! It turns out the original flight was late in leaving, causing Ed and Tim to miss the connecting flight to Rome. So they guys were rebooked on the same flight as Diana and Michelle. Not only that, Tim managed to find out that we were rebooked and worked with the ticketing agents in NY to have us all sit together.
So ends the first part of our first day. More to come later this evening. Trust us, it keeps getting better!
So here we go again, off on another grand adventure. And today did not fail to provide adventure. But I am getting a little ahead of myself, let's begin at the beginning.
Tim and Michelle headed down with Zander on Monday night, arriving in LA at Tim's parents house around 11:30 pm. Their philosophy on jet lag is that if you just don't sleep the night before your flight, then adjust yourself to the time zone of where you are going and sleep according to those time periods on the plane, you can hit the ground running free from jet lag once you arrive. So true to form, we stayed awake all night and early morning packing and planning with Ed and Diana. Tim's sister Susanne arrived around 5 am for the trip to LAX to catch our 8:30 flight. And here is where all of the real fun began.
Five minutes into the drive to the airport Ed realized that he forgot his glasses at home. Thankfully it was a quick turn around to get back to the house, and a short search quickly revealed them in the bedroom. Then, we were back on the road . . . again.
We arrived at LAX around 6:30 am and said tearful goodbyes. I give you one good guess to see who in our party of four had the "tearful" part. Tim said a few bets have been made (he won't say by whom) on how long Michelle will last before a meltdown. Yeah, it was Michelle, but you can't really count that as a meltdown, she gets at least one freebie.
On the road again . . .
So here we go again, off on another grand adventure. And today did not fail to provide adventure. But I am getting a little ahead of myself, let's begin at the beginning.
Tim and Michelle headed down with Zander on Monday night, arriving in LA at Tim's parents house around 11:30 pm. Their philosophy on jet lag is that if you just don't sleep the night before your flight, then adjust yourself to the time zone of where you are going and sleep according to those time periods on the plane, you can hit the ground running free from jet lag once you arrive. So true to form, we stayed awake all night and early morning packing and planning with Ed and Diana. Tim's sister Susanne arrived around 5 am for the trip to LAX to catch our 8:30 flight. And here is where all of the real fun began.
Five minutes into the drive to the airport Ed realized that he forgot his glasses at home. Thankfully it was a quick turn around to get back to the house, and a short search quickly revealed them in the bedroom. Then, we were back on the road . . . again.
We arrived at LAX around 6:30 am and said tearful goodbyes. I give you one good guess to see who in our party of four had the "tearful" part. Tim said a few bets have been made (he won't say by whom) on how long Michelle will last before a meltdown. Yeah, it was Michelle, but you can't really count that as a meltdown, she gets at least one freebie. :)
We go to check into the kiosk and get our boarding passes next. Tim checks in, passport is scanned an accepted. Michelle checks in, passport is scanned and accepted. Diana goes to check in . . . and can't find her passport. It turns out that when we made copies of them for Susanne to keep in case of an emergency, we forgot to take the passport back out of the scanner. So it is at home, and our flight leaves in 90 minutes. We make a quick call to Susanne to see if she can run back to the house and back out to LAX. She tries her darnedest, but long story short, with the major increase in traffic (remember, it is now around 7:30 am on a Tuesday) she just can't get there in time. So Tim and Ed hop on the plane, and Michelle and Diana are left to wait for the passport and then work with the airline to rebook the tickets. And before all of you start giving the guys grief for leaving their wives, know that it was the wives idea and we pushed them to go. We figured it was easier and cheeper to rebook 2 people versus 4. And off they went, barely making their plane.
The nice thing was, Tim had talked to the booking agents, the TSA workers and the baggage workers about our situation, so once Michelle and Diana got in line to rebook their tickets, they had lots of friends who could commiserate with them and help them get going. Plus, the women just made the decision that they would be happy with whatever happened, and consider this a grand adventure. There was no sense being angry about it, and this was made all the more real by the number of angry people in line who took out their frustration on the ticketing agents. When they reached the front of the line they were told that there were no flights until the next day. Michelle asked her to check any flights that would get them to Rome, no matter the layover location. At the same time, they made sure to say thank you to everyone who had helped earlier in the morning. And wouldn't you know it, the ticketing agent could find us two seats on the next plane (leaving in 3 hours) and we would get to Rome 4 hours behind the guys. When asked how much the transfer cost to the new tickets, they were told it was FREE. We had just watched person after person rebooking missed flights and having to pull out credit cards. And here we were getting the change done for free, even though it was our fault that we missed the flight. The agent had mercy on us and put down that we missed our flight due to "long lines" and which came with a waived fee. Praise the Lord!
The ladies bags were checked, and they hopped on the 11:30 flight to New York. When they exited, they made their way over to terminal 1 from terminal 2, and ran right into Tim! It turns out the original flight was late in leaving, causing Ed and Tim to miss the connecting flight to Rome. So they guys were rebooked on the same flight as Diana and Michelle. Not only that, Tim managed to find out that we were rebooked and worked with the ticketing agents in NY to have us all sit together.
So ends the first part of our first day. More to come later this evening. Trust us, it keeps getting better!
Monday, March 19, 2012
And we're off, into the great blue yonder . . .
The countdown is now in the hours, with the last of the packing being thrown together and the house being cleaned (because you know you all hate coming home after vacation to a dirty house!) . We leave here tonight (Monday) to head down to LA, where we will be dropped off at the airport by our wonderful sister Susanne. She is also the crazy lady who will be taking care of Zander for 2 weeks. Yes, you heard that right, we are not taking the wee man. Which, of course, is the hardest thing. Michelle is trying not to even think of what it will be like to see the car pull away with him in it when we are dropped off at the airport. Yup, trying really hard not to think about it.
We will be with Tim's parents for two weeks in Italy. Michelle and Tim will be visiting many of the same places they have been on previous trips, but this time with an eye towards being tour guides and spending more time in some of the places they loved. It will also be fun to re-experience the cities with people who have never seen the sites. In all, we will be spending time in Rome, Florence, Siena, Venice and Milan. We wanted to get up to the Cinque Terre again, but they experienced severe mudslides in October and are still (literally) digging themselves out from under all of the mud.
So with that, we depart. Love to you all and we will see you in Rome!
We will be with Tim's parents for two weeks in Italy. Michelle and Tim will be visiting many of the same places they have been on previous trips, but this time with an eye towards being tour guides and spending more time in some of the places they loved. It will also be fun to re-experience the cities with people who have never seen the sites. In all, we will be spending time in Rome, Florence, Siena, Venice and Milan. We wanted to get up to the Cinque Terre again, but they experienced severe mudslides in October and are still (literally) digging themselves out from under all of the mud.
So with that, we depart. Love to you all and we will see you in Rome!
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Here we go again...
The plans have been made the tickets purchased the Traveling Hardleys are heading to Italy again. This time we have new traveling companions with Tim's parents joining in on the fun. The countdown has started the trip begins in nine days...
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