Sisters Go Home

I realized I mentioned something in my last blog that - if youre a religious follower but dont actually know me (is there such a thing??) youre probably surprised at. And thinking "well Id like to hear more about that!" Yes, My sister and I went to Italy in March! And since shes slightly slacking with putting up the thousands of pictures we took and I finally figured out how to transfer pictures from my phone onto my computer, I will reveal to you the shining moments of our week-long, whirlwind of a trip to our homeland! Again, I dont have nearly as many pictures of our trip, so my telling will be much more brief than hers. Besides, shes good at telling stories.

We left on a red eye to Atlanta Friday night (March 22) and arrived eeeeearly Saturday morning. We were forced to leave the gate area of the airport during out 10hr layover, but were restricted to the airport as it was raining and we each had three bags of luggage.

We then arrived in Rome Sunday morning, hopped on a bus to the train station, hopped on a train to Venice, hopped on the vaporetto toward our B&B, and walked the rest of the way.

We spent the afternoon and next morning trying to sightsee and shop, despite the 7 degree weather... in Celsius.

We LOVED our B&B. Seriously, the cutest room with the cutest juliet balcony over a little canal. And we got to lounge in bed with our first Italian style breakfast! And the best cafe lattes we had all trip! This was also where we were introduced to Nutella. (That will be mentioned again... count on it!) We couldnt feel our fingers or toes but we fell in love with Venice.

Monday afternoon, we walked to the vaporetto, hopped on the vaporetto, hopped on a train to Florence, and took a taxi to our next B&B. Our room was delightful! We shared a private garden area with 2 other rooms, but we were the only ones who used it [to get wifi]. Our room was the best, we have no doubt! We hunted for a restaurant, while trying to sight see.

Tuesday morning we discovered the best cafe! We sipped our cafe lattes and enjoyed our breakfast pastries - mine a Nutella croissant and Jordanna something equally delicious. Then we went on a food tour, learning about their coffee customs (which is not as luxurious as we have here in the US), wine and food pairings, gelato, and other delicacies like white truffle. Then we did more sight seeing with some shopping. We also saw the infamous David, by Michaelangelo. Dont worry - we censored ourselves.

THAT NIGHT. We walked to a restaurant Jordanna had been dying to try (credit to her friends who had visited). It was a good 20-25minute walk, but it was well worth it. I had decided not to order anything and Jordanna ordered her pear and cheese pasta she HAD to try. I took one bite and ordered my own. We split the one she had and she ordered another one as well. BEST DINNER. Literally, one of the best meals of my life. I didnt pause to take a picture... Jordanna did though! =)



The next day, we embarked on our huge climb to the famous Pizzalle Michaelangelo. The famous lookout point over Venice. We had quite the workout! But the view was worth it! We didnt have to buy any postcards because we got the exact picture!








We then had to hurry to make to to our cooking class. We tasted the best pesto and the most incredible tomato herb spread. Then headed to the cooking school to make homemade pasta, tiramisu, and the sauces that accompany the pasta. That is a story in itself... For a whole other blog. Long story short, we were originally not liked by the chef because of our tardiness. By the end, we were the favorites.

For the rest of the day, we shopped (with Jordanna purchasing a new luggage addition to contain some our new purchases), did a little more sightseeing, grabbed some dinner, and prepared ourselves to say goodbye to Florence.

Early Thursday morning, we hopped in a taxi, hopped on a train/switched trains to Cinque Terre, hopped in a taxi to our hotel (when we nearly lost our lives), and got lost in the two streets trying to find our hotel. Cinque Terre is a small beach town. We had it all set up to go snorkeling with gear provided by our hotel! I was so excited. But we prepared ourselves for a snorkel fail with the cold weather we experienced all trip. It was gloomy, grey, and raining. All. Afternoon.

Outside the train station in Cinque Terre

We walked around to the shops, trying to find a little cafe to eat in (we had been spoiled in Florence), but it was as though the town was shut down for the rain. They also had a landslide the day before so part of the town was inaccessible. We walked around in the wind, rain slapping us in the face, attempting to capture the once-in-a-lifetime moments with our cameras. After shopping in a little shop, we headed back to the hotel and had a plateful of pasta, complementary with our room. We decided to lay low in our hotel the rest of the night, reconfiguring our over-packed suitcases and listening to the rain hit the cobblestone streets.



Early the next morning, we caught our early taxi and headed back to the train station (with a much smoother driver). We hopped on a train/switched trains to Rome and hopped in a taxi to our hotel. One the way, we drove by the Colosseum (per our request) and jumped out for a quick picture. We were able to drop off our things at the hotel, were given a map of the city, and headed out to sightsee for the last afternoon of our time in Italy.


We took the metro to the Vatican. (Oh, and this was on Good Friday. Oh and the new pope had only been selected 1-2 weeks earlier.) The church in the Vatican was closed. Huge parts were under renovation. But it was amazing, what we were able to see! We were pulled into a store on the way back to the metro, where I got a cute dress and Jordanna purchased the leather jacket she had been searching for.

Once back to our hotel area, we journeyed to the Pantheon and several other well known places for photo ops. Our feet were killin, but we covered a lot of ground! Finally we got some gelato and headed back to the hotel for a break before going to dinner. After a short break, we returned to the streets of Rome to see the Trevi Fountain and find a great spot for dinner. We spent our dinnertime reflecting on the trip - things we loved, things we wished we could do/eat again, things we were surprised by, things we were happy we did. We walked our final Italy walk back to the hotel and spent most of the night repacking our suitcases to fit everything.


We had a 4am date with a taxi driver to head to the airport, which ended up being a Mercedes with a suited driver. We finally got through checkin and security and boarded our plane to Paris. Upon arriving to Paris, we flew through customs and the gate area to find our ginormous plane to LAX. Though we had a 11-12hour flight to get through, we loved our flight experience. We were delayed getting back to San Diego, but finally took off on our puddle jumper and landed in San Diego Easter Eve.

We had the best time. We learned so so much. About each other, about Italy, about traveling [in a foreign country]. I love time spent with my sister. I love getting to experience things with her. It had been a while since we had spent that much time together, but [I think] we both enjoyed every bit of it. (Minus hiking up to the lookout point, maybe.) It was definitely a whirlwind of a trip, but we had a week to go to Italy. It was now or never. We fit in as much as we could. If we didnt do it the way we did, we wouldve been kicking ourselves. Heres to Italia 2013!

Venice!

From the top of the bell tower... 

we braved the immense cold for a fantastic photo op!

Florence

crossing the river

after our AMAZING dinner

Chefs in the making

Thank you sister! Youre the best sister/travel buddy/trip coordinator/"interpretor"! 

This is the Stuff

Ive had a desire to blog for the past few days, but havent had any reason to (ie. I havent had any inspiration, no funny stories, no preponderances, (preponderances??? who am I???), etc..). So, I come to my blog to write something, my fingers hovering over the keys, waiting for some initiation from my brain... nothing. I wait. My fingers remain ready to type, ready to catch anything my mind thinks of.... nothing. Significant fail. So I decided I would post anyways, and force my fingers to type... even if my brain isnt on board with the documenting.

Luckily, you dont have to hear random babblings because finally, something came to me. Earlier this week, my good friends dog was attacked by another dog while out for a walk. Apparently, the attacking dog came tearing out of a house, through a door carelessly left open, and began attacking my friends dear dog. Little Cotton is so sweet that she didnt even defend herself, but she took it. Before you get sad, she is doing good. She had stitches and tubes to drain any fluid buildup on the top of her head, but she is doing really well. I met her for the first time last night and she is just one of the sweetest dogs Ive ever met - and I have met a LOT of dogs... Much like my dogs, she is a people dog, desiring to be pet and loved on.

It kinda hit me recently how inspiring this little girl is. My sweet girl inspires me, too, but thankfully my dogs have never been in a situation where they have been attacked like this. I thought of how often we get attacked, out of nowhere, by the unexpected. Throughout life, we encounter storms - some storms pass, some are harder than others, and some people live in a storm... basically, permanently. Sometimes, you can see the storms coming from a mile away and you have time to prepare for them. Sometimes, you barely have seconds before they attack you from all angles, with no way of escaping. Whats important is how you deal with it and how you recover from it. As Christians, we are blessed to know we have a mighty Savior to surrender to. Surrender our problems, our struggles, our storms. Speaking for myself, being a control-freak, this is probably the most difficult aspect of being a Christian. I want to fix everything myself and typically have an extremely difficult time surrendering everything. Though I will say that rarely do I roll over and take it, which in some cases may be the best thing to do. Anyways. Back to my point.

This blog wasnt necessarily aimed to be about me. It was aimed to be a generalization about how life not only knocks you down, but it attacks you, and how were expected to get back up, dust ourselves off, and keep trekking on. Little Cotton experienced one of the worst forms of attack - a physical attack. But she acts perfectly fine. If it werent for her little tubes and stitches, you wouldnt know she had been so maliciously attacked. Shes inspiring - her happy smile and innocent attitude, refusing to stay down.

(Though this blog wasnt supposed to be about me - heres the 'me' part...) I came home for the weekend, after a long week. Nothing particularly bad happened, it was just long and filled with tests and studying and dumb schoolwork. I needed a bit of a break, so naturally, I headed home. However, upon entering my room, I noticed I had mail on my bed. Not abnormal, but its contents werent of the typical ads and such. This contained a ticket, which I had received a few weeks ago... I know - tragic. Well, this ticket turned out to be way more than I had expected. I became discouraged. Thinking about having to pay the ticket, needing to work to pay off the ticket, as well as, needing money throughout the summer and next year. I need to take classes this summer. I need to get in more observation hours for grad school. Instantly, my mind was taken over with discouraging, frustrating, and stressful thoughts.

Then I thought of little Cotton and her smile, despite tubes, stitches, swelling, pain meds... I couldnt help but shake my head at myself. Trust in the Lord, I told myself. Earlier this week, my friend introduced me to a new song. It is so applicable to my life. And especially with the fact that I just got a ticket.... The song is by Francesca Battistelli, called "This is the Stuff."

"I lost my keys in the great unknown
And call me please 'Cuz I can't find my phone

This is the stuff that drives me crazy
This is the stuff that's getting to me lately
In the middle of my little mess
I forget how big I'm blessed
This is the stuff that gets under my skin
But I gotta trust You know exactly what You're doing
It might not be what I would choose
But this is the stuff You use

45 in a 35
Sirens and fines while I'm running behind

This is the stuff that drives me crazy
This is the stuff that's getting to me lately
In the middle of my little mess
I forget how big I'm blessed
This is the stuff that gets under my skin
But I gotta trust You know exactly what You're doing
It might not be what I would choose
But this is the stuff You use

So break me of impatience
Conquer my frustrations
I've got a new appreciation
It's not the end of the world

This is the stuff that drives me crazy
This is the stuff
Someone save me
In the middle of my little mess
I forget how big I'm blessed
This is the stuff that gets under my skin
And I've gotta trust You know exactly what You're doing
It might not be what I would choose
But this is the stuff You use"

How awesome is that? It proved to be a friendly reminder as I listened to it, just last night. Ultimately, kinda random post... I know. But Ive finally blogged! And - to me - it was worthwhile to mention it all. Hopefully you got a little something out of it, even if it was knowing that you arent alone in your storms.