I am officially getting old

So much has happened in the past few weeks since we got home from Europe. All these things have stopped me from fully going through all the pictures from the trip. I will get through them all eventually and once I have I will link to the set on Flickr of my favourites. I won't ask you to look through 1200+ pictures.

So let's list it up so I won't forget to tell you something important.

1. I dyed my hair. It's about time I see for myself whether blondes do in fact have a better time. I've wanted to go blonde for a long time now and finally did, the day after getting home. Here is a picture of my freshly-dyed hair and my pretty orange cat:



2. We bought a new lens for the camera. It's a Sigma 10-20mm. We've wanted a wide angle lens for a while and now we have one.



3. We went to Andrew Hayden Park to test out the new lens.



And we saw baby gooses!



4. J's sister received a medal for her work in Afghanistan.



5. Race Weekend. I didn't run for the first time in 4 years, but had fun cheering everyone on.





6. Beach volleyball season started. J played pairs Monday night and we played 4s Tuesday night. I have bruises on my legs and arms and my back hurts from being barefoot, but it was fun. I like our 4s team.



7. S asked me to be a bridesmaid!! It's my first time and I'm so excited! Ask J who's had to put up with me pestering me all the time saying bridesmaid over and over. S hosted the girls at her place for dinner and drinking Wednesday night. L and I got to meet J, the third girl. It was a really good night. And for the record, I think this is a great picture of the three of us.



8. My baseball team hosted a fundraiser at Absolute Comedy. We didn't make a ton of money but it was a good night. It was nice to be out with some coworkers and some friends and some family.



9. The biggest news, which I've been holding in for the past 3 weeks while I finished blogging about the Europe trip is that I went to the optometrist and found out I need glasses. I only need them when I'm at the computer for extended periods of time (i.e. at work) but the whole idea makes me feel really old. When I found out, I immediately called me mom. I didn't even know what to think.

To combat the getting old feeling, I got a pair that are fun and purple. At least I can stay hip and fresh while getting old. What do you think?



10. Hmm, I don't have another point, but I couldn't leave it at only 9. Right, I guess that tells you something about me. Anyways, I feel better now that we're all caught up. Don't you?

Turin and Franfurt and the drive Home

From Florence, we hopped back on the train and headed to La Spezia where we changed trains and headed back to Turin. We found a little hotel in Turin a fair walk from the train station. A walk not a march this time.



We had out last Italian meal at a pizzeria practically next door to the hotel. And spent a lot of the night catching up on the internets that had happened in the previous week.



The next morning we set out to find the best chocolate shop in town, according to the hotel owner's son who spoke English. Turns out, it was a really great place and we all bought a fair amount of chocolate after tasting a whole bunch.



We got to the train station to catch a cab to the airport. The taxi driver's English was better than our Italian, but not by much. We quickly established that we were in town for a wedding and he kept trying to tell us that "matrimony" was no good and seemed happy to hear that none of us got married.

We got to the airport very quickly due to the cabby's crazy fast driving only to find out that our flight to Frankfurt had been cancelled due to a worker's strike in Milan. They got us on a later flight and gave us free lunch. We took our time eating because they give you so much food and took our time going through the airport since we had hours to kill. R bought some internet time so we internetted and read and complained and took random pictures until it was finally time to go.

The flight between Turin and Frankfurt wasn't very long so we were soon landing in Franfurt. I had the aisle seat but am sure we flew over the alps because of this picture J managed to get:



We found a super mega deal online for two executive suites at a fancy hotel. Only the hotel room on my wedding night compared to these rooms. And the view of the Franfurt skyline was amazing.



We headed to the hotel restaurant for food and beer. We were in Germany afterall. The waiter came to our table and we ordered 4 beer. His only question was "small or large?" Don't you just love it! We ordered large ones, obviously.



The other thing about Germany, or maybe it was just this super expensive hotel, was that they have a million and one types of ketchups and sauces that they bring to the table. Wow, selection. I didn't actually like the "house" beer so I ended up with a smooth pilsner that did its job and got me drunk enough that I didn't understand the bathroom doors. In my defense, I was looking for the typical picture of a man and a woman at about eye-level. Instead, silhouettes of a man and a woman took up half the respective doors. Too big picture for me. At least in my state.

The skyline was even more impressive at night:



The next morning we went back to the airport to catch our flight home. Our sound wasn't working so no movies for us on the 8-hour flight and no sleeping to we were zombie-ish and had two hours of driving ahead of us. The drive was uneventful.



The cats were mega happy to see us but the washing machine was groaning with all the loads of laundry it had to do.

My first time in Europe was a lot of fun. My first trip with friends went better than I thought it would. All in all a great trip. Thanks for following along. Back to our normal programming soon enough.

Florence / Firenze

I think Florence might have been my favourite city of all the cities we visited. We arrived after our quick stint in Pisa and marched to the hotel we wanted. I say marched because it was hot and we were cranky (or maybe it was just me) and the walk was brisk and through the crowds and hot and my legs were sore from Cinque Terre and my shoulders were sore from my pack. Yuck.

We found the hotel but were told they were completely booked but the owner took us right over to another, fancier hotel, run by someone who was in some way related to him. This fancy hotel gave us a nice room for the same price as the other place.

We didn't stay long in the hotel because we wanted to see David. You know, the David. Thankfully, he was a short walk from our super hotel and there was no line up. It was weird, entering this gallery / museum, you saw signs everywhere saying absolutely no pictures and they scanned our cameras that we were blatantly holding on the way in, but everyone was taking pictures inside. Anyways, we entered a huge room, the walls covered in massive paintings, but no David. But then you walk down a hallway and bam! There he is. He's directly under a dome of skylights and surrounded by people. He's much much bigger than I imagined. We sat and talked and made fools of ourselves in front of one extremely knowledgable pretty girl but we were all sharing one room so R would have had a hard time convincing her to come home with him anyways. We checked out the whole gallery and the museum of musical instruments as well.

More than David, Florence for me was the canal at night. We spent a long time wandering around downtown Florence and taking pictures of the buildings and the canal that night.



It's extremely pretty at night. We were all trying to get the best shot and I don't know who eventually did but you really must check out all the pictures once I have them available on Flickr.





I was happy that we went back the next day and saw everything in the daylight as well. I feel like I really know what the city looks like now. This is a picture of the only bridge that the Germans didn't destroy in WWII. There is a lot of history surrounding this bridge that I won't get in to, but if you're interested definitely do some reading on Florence.



We were generally just relaxing and having fun in Florence.



That morning in the posh hotel, I came late to breakfast. On the table were the cutest salt and pepper shaker I have ever seen. As we were leaving I took a picture of them when the owner came by and handed me a set. He said that they were his gift to me and that I should write a good review at TripAdvisor.com, which I will do. I fully recommend staying at ____ (once I find the name I will tell you) if you ever visit Florence.



And that was the quickest rambling on Florence you will probably ever hear.

Pisa

We hopped on another train from La Spezia to Pisa.



Pisa has three main things you have to see, all located in the central square.

1. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, obviously



2. The baptistry



3. And the cathedral



The square also has hundreds and hundreds of vendors set up and hundreds of locals approaching you trying to sell you watches and key chains and other touristy stuff. These guys were very persistent but we'd read that if you plain ignored them they would eventually go away. Try having a conversation when these guys are constantly coming up to you, yammering on about their watches or sunglasses. Definitely an interesting thing to do.

After about 45 minutes of looking at the tower and walking around we felt that we'd seen all there was to see. We grabbed lunch (street meat) and picnicked in the tower's shadow. All R could talk about was the tower falling on us.



We headed back to the train station on hopped a train to Florence.

La Spezia and Cinque Terre

We hopped a train in Turin and headed south to La Spezia. It was my first time on a train so I was pretty excited.



La Spezia was much more tropical than Turin, a welcome change in temperature.



We found a little hotel and went out to explore the city. It's a port town so we ended up walking along the water and sitting on cannons and seeing some wildlife.





Truth be told, this little guy scared the crap out of me, but I was starved for some natural anything-that-wasn't-a-big-old-building so it was okay. We were thirsty from all the walking so we stopped and the boys got cappucinos. This is when we discovered that, while the sugar packs were huge, the Italians dumped two in their teeny caps. R was the only one with the guts to try that. The sugar wouldn't even dissolve at that point.

Tropical climate makes my allergy go nuts so I had an interesting time miming sneezing to a woman working at a pharmacia to get myself some Reactine.

I think this was the night we ate at McJohn's, a true American eatery. The food was awful. But really, the only reason we went to La Spezia was so that we'd be close to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is five fishing villages along the West coast of the country that were, in the past, only accessible by boat. Now, 9km of trails connect all 5 and we hopped a train (my second!) to attempt to hike that trail.

Our plans were almost foiled when we failed to get off the train at village #1. But, being troopers, we got off at village #2 and hiked from there to village #4 where we stopped for lunch.

Village #2


Village #4


J's lunch


He is still raving about this seabass. After eating and resting for a bit, we headed off toward village #5. By this time we were all sweaty and maybe a little whiny and definitely tired. Personally, my calves hurt for the rest of the trip. Anyways, we got to village #5 where there was a beach. The beach was rocky and the water was cold by I walked in. I also collected some rocks (I do that whenever we're someplace with rocks) and carried them around with me for the rest of the trip.

After a short break, we headed to catch the train back to village #2 so that we could walk from #2 to #1 to complete the whole hike. The path between #2 and #1 is called lover's lane and is very easy and smooth so it was absolutely no problem after the rugged ups and downs of the rest of the trail.



We collapsed into the train back to La Spezia. Walking through town to our hotel, we stopped to get another memory card for the point-and-shoot and a sweatshirt for me. Then we went back to the hotel for showers. That night we dined in pure Italian style at an outdoor restaurant in a big public square. There was wine and pasta and thankfully only two hamburgers (the boys weren't sure if they ordered one or four hamburgers - they got two) and bread and cappucinos. And a very cute puppy who was playing with a bottle cap and a very cute kid who was kicking a soccer ball with his dad.

We got back to the hotel late and exhausted and slept like babies. La Spezia and Cinque Terre are must-sees for anyone travelling to Italy.

Italy - The Wedding

Quite possibly the post you've been waiting for. C and S's wedding. It was Saturday, May 3rd, at a farm between Turin and Asti. The four of us woke up early, somewhat hungover, and got ready. We practically ran from our apartment to the main square where the convoy was meeting. This was our first time meeting a lot of S's Italian friends. Everyone was all decked out and ready to party.

Five of us crammed in a little Clio, a cute typical European car (i.e. it was a tiny diesel).



We were treated to an hour-long drive through beautiful country side and sometimes through little towns complete with streets hardly wide enough for our little car let alone two cars to pass going in opposite directions.



Since C and S had already been married back in November, this was a fake ceremony with two friends officiating / emceeing. Both sets of parents did readings and C and S both said their vows. Everything was translated from English to Italian and Italian to English.



It was a nice little ceremony. After the ceremony we all drank wine that S's dad had purchased the year she was born - a neat Italian tradition - and ate munchies. S's friends played "Going to the Chapel" for them.



Then there was dinner. A 10 course dinner. I can't even remember everything we ate because it lasted two and a half hours or so.



We were at a table with C's family from Canada so we talked a lot about the weather (obviously) and our trip so far and to come. There were speeches, again translated into the other language, and cake cutting and eating, a rowdy game of ultimate, goat-watching and eventually dancing and drinking and more food.







Congratulations to C and S!

Turin, the first time

Turin, or Torino, is where our friend S is from. It is in the north-western part of Italy, near France. Like Frankfurt, it has a canal.



We spent a lot of time our first two days walking along the canal. From there, you can see lots of stuff. There are castles perched on hill (mountain?) tops.



At one point, we were getting really hot from all the walking and were looking for a gelato place and randomly ran into two hometown people who joined us for gelato and relaxing in a huge park.



Also, a friendly game of frisbee that sometimes included a somewhat possessive dog.



It was nice to be around people who spoke English again. But watching the Italians in the park was neat. There's a very laid back feeling in Italy.

Back to the canal. Unlike the canal here, the canal in Turin turns into a huge outdoor bar scene at night. You can walk from bar to bar with a drink in hand - very cool.



The only problem with drinking all sorts of alcohol is getting to a bathroom. Thankfully we were near Piazza Vittorio which has restaurants and cafes and bars and shops. Think we could find one with a bathroom? Well we did, but it took a while. J had to buy a glass of wine, which he downed. That, combined with all the other drinks at dinner and at the canal, made for a very intoxicated J. And that night we found out just how thin the walls in the apartment were.

Speaking of the apartment, from the balcony we could see the Mole (pronounced Mole-ay). It's a huge dome that can be seen from everywhere in Turin.



On our last day in town we went up to the Mole. There is a museum inside and an elevator suspended only by cables that takes you to the top. We all crammed in the elevator (8 or 9 people at a time, literally pushed up against the glass walls) and stumbled out at the top. It was an open area that you could walk around to take in the view of the city. It was spectacular.



I tried taking pictures that I can stitch together to get a 180 degree view of the city. Now I just have to figure out how to do that!

Here we are, at the top of the Mole, high-fiving the camera.



High fives were a big part of the trip.

That night we had dinner at a little place where no one spoke any English and the menu was in Italian only. We thought we'd picked up enough to get by but were almost completely lost. We ordered the first four pastas and hoped for the best. Take it from me, scampi is not the shrimp we are used to. It is fully shelled and eyed and legged and antenna-ed huge shrimp.



After getting over the gross factor and figuring out how to get the meat out, they were really good. But ug.

Some other interesting shots from Turin, the first time:

The Mole reflected in the glass windows of another building.


Graffiti saying that tv is eating your mind, which we all loved.


For all of the pictures from the trip - and I'm warning you, there are LOTS of pictures - your best bet is to go to my Flickr set. I haven't made the all public yet, but I am slowly getting through them and tagging and adding descriptions.

Up next: the wedding!