Happy Holidays!

It's definitely been awhile.

I've been keeping myself busy. After Thanksgiving I headed down to Orlando for work. After working was over, I got to play at Harry Potter World and Disney World. There's something about Disney World that makes you feel like a kid again. I can't wait to have little stinkers of my own to take down there and meet Mickey and ride the rides.

After my work week, I flew from Orlando to Charlotte. Where I met my friend's from college for the ACC Championship game. It was an amazing weekend. We stayed with my old roommate Avery and it was just like college all over again...from what I remember. It definitely was THAT much fun!

The past few weeks have been filled with Christmas shopping, wrapping, decorating and going to see "A Christmas Carol" at Ford's Theater. I've definitely been getting into the Christmas spirit.

Christmas is my favorite holiday of all time. I love the being with my family and close friends, the food, the snow, the decorations and of course I don't mind the gifts either.

I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas from my pals Mickey and Minnie :)

Thankful Thursday: Thanksgiving Edition

On this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for: (in no particular order)

My Pop. 99 years and 9 months. God-fearing, hardworking, lovable, funny. My inspiration.
My Momma. Best friend. My  hero.
My Dad. My rock.

My boyfriend. My love.

My nephews. Teach me new things every time I'm with them. Let me experience the world through their eyes.
My extended family. Who love me like I'm their own.

My high school friends. My first understanding of true friendship.
My college friends, who have become my "adult" friends. My confidantes. My grounding force.
My Riva friends. My world travelers. No matter how long it's been since we've seen each other, it's always the same.
My faith. My health. My job.

Happy Thanksgiving!

European Tour: Europe with Family - Riva and Bellinzona

After leaving Venice, we got on the train and headed towards Switzerland. I got off at the Riva stop and my parents continued on to Lugano, where they were staying. The next morning, I walked back to the train station to meet them and bring them to Riva.

Lake Lugano in the background

Me and my parents :)

I gave them the tour around Riva itself, showed them the 3 bars, ristorante, pharmacy, bank and stopped at the lake for a photo shoot. The lake is Lake Lugano, where we went during the warmer months to hang out and swim after class. They have a swing set and slide in the little "park" there.

After the park, we headed to the Casa where I showed them around, and we had another photo shoot in the garden. After being at the Casa for awhile, we walked back to the train station.

Bellinzona

This is when my dad had his infamous temper tantrum. He went to go buy the tickets for the train, but it wouldn't accept his credit card. It kept asking for a PIN, and my dad kept screaming at the machine that he didn't have a PIN. Then he didn't have enough Swiss Francs on him to pay for it all in cash, so I had to run back to the Casa (literally, run) and get my debit card to try it. I thought he was going to have a heart attack because his blood pressure was so high. After I bought the tickets, we got on the train and headed to Bellinzona.

With Bellinzona's castle's in the background

Castlegrande

At Castlegrande

Bellinzona is known for it's castles, there are 3 of them. Castlegrande, Sasso Corbaro, and Montebello.  We walked around the castles for a bit, inspecting the outside of the castles and enjoying the view. We then went inside to go through the museum and see the medieval artifacts and learn how Bellinzona has grown. It was cool to learn about how they dug through the Alps (Bellinzona sits at the foot of the Alps) in order to make the tunnel.

After touring the castles, we went down to the village to eat at a local cafe and get some really good pizza and wine.

Train ride back to Lugano

After lunch, we got back on the train to head towards Lugano. There were people smoking weed in the compartment in front of us, and I think we all might have gotten a contact high because we started giggling and could not stop. Uncle Joe went to stick his head out of the window to get a picture of the countryside and almost got in taken off as we whizzed into a tunnel...which set off more giggles.

After our train ride, we got back into Lugano, where we walked around the Casino and the Lake for a little bit and then went to dinner.

After dinner, it was time to say good-bye. My parents and Aunt and Uncle were off to Milan the next day and I had to start classes again. I had an amazing time with them, and got to experience some amazing stuff (thanks Dad for spoiling us!) and was sad to see them go. I just kept in mind that I would be back stateside in a few short weeks...

To be continued...Next Up: European Tour: The Casa

You should see the other guy...

In general, I bruise easily. I've woken up with a bruise on my arm or leg. And not remembering running headlong into something, know that I must have hit something somewhere along the way.

On Monday I went to the doctor, long and short of it, I needed to get blood drawn. I go in there and the lady is basically mute. She points at a chair, I go to sit in it. Her companion that's working at the computer in this cramped room says "no, put your stuff there. sit there" and points at another chair. Ok, obviously that mumble she did meant all that...obviously. I sit down, she puts the stretchy band around the top of my arm and says "prick" as she drives the needle into me. As she takes 4 (overkill, no?) tubes of blood, she is NOT gentle when she is transferring the tubes.

My elbow joint swelled up that night. Couldn't straighten my arm out. Yesterday my bruise looked like that up there. You can see the red mark where the needle was...and then you can see the abuse my poor arm took. I'm not a big fan of needles, but I deal. I can't imagine this lady being helpful to anyone with a needle phobia. Maybe they should train her on her bedside manner...

European Tour: Europe with Family - Venice

A two hour train ride from Florence, our next stop was Venice. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel, which was right off of San Marco's Square, and then headed to San Marco's Square. As I talked about in a previous post, Venice floods sometimes and one of the first places to flood is San Marco's Square. This time, there was evidence of the flooding. The puddles behind them in the picture aren't from rain, but from the standing water that was in the Square earlier.

Uncle Joe, Aunt Sue and parents in San Marco's Square

The first thing my mom wanted to check off her "bucket list" was feeding the pigeons. So she bought feed from the cart and the pigeons went to town. There she is, getting pecked on for food. Fortunately she didn't get pooped on, miraculously.

Mom, feeding the birds

The one-legged pigeon

With San Marco's behind us

As mom was finishing up feeding the pigeons, I noticed one pigeon who only had 1 leg. I felt sorry for it, snapped a picture of it (obviously) and let out an "Aww, look at that one" as I pointed it out to everyone else. As they were turning to see it, it literally dropped dead. We all laughed uncertainly, thinking that it was playing dead or something. But Dad nudged it with his toe and it was really dead. The animal lover in me felt so guilty...like I somehow had managed to kill the pigeon with just my glance. And seeing as how I almost killed someone's relative earlier in the trip (the candle incident as it's referred to in my family), it just wasn't working well for me. So Rest In Peace, you poor little bird :(

Typical scene on our sight-seeing tour

After San Marco's Square, we walked around for a little bit longer. My dad was in charge (as he was the whole time) of telling us what to do and when to do it. As you can see in the picture to the left...Dad is reading the map, the rest of us are waiting for him to tell us what to do and my mom was taking pictures of everything she could think of.

On the taxi boat to Murano

The next plan was to head over to Murano, to see the glass being blown and then made into something cool. We took the little "taxi" boats over to Murano, and walked around for a little bit after getting a demonstration.This is when my parents saw a fishbowl that was all glass and blown by the artists from that shop. I'll give it to them, it's a pretty cool decoration, its very intricate in it's design and looks like all the fish swimming in the bowl are real but they're indeed glass. I FREAKED out when they told me the price (isn't it supposed to be the other way around) and secretly wondered if they just traded the rest of my college education for a fishbowl...

Us, with the shop's cat

While we were waiting for the administrative part of the process to get going, Mom and I decided to walk around some more. We happened to come across the shop's pet cat. As I've explained before, I'm a HUGE animal lover and while both my parents enjoy animals, my mom has a soft spot for them...especially cats. So Mom and I spent a better half of an hour petting and playing with the kitty while my dad negotiated prices and shipping and all the fun stuff.

View from our room

After ordering the fishbowl, we got back on a water taxi and headed back to the main island of Venice. We walked around a little more, taking in the sights and then went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Our hotel had two entrances/exits. One was from the street and you can access it by foot, the other was from the water. Gondola's or little water taxi's could pull up behind the hotel and deposit you and your belongings. One of the main disadvantage to taking a boat in Venice is you have to know when the tides are changing. If it is high tide, boats can't get under bridges and other things...so you're blocked in until the tide goes down. Just another thing to think about when you travel by water all the time.

Mom, Me, Aunt Sue and Uncle Joe on the gondola

Me at the Doge's Palace

After dinner, we decided to check the "take a ride in a gondola" off our bucket list. Once the gondolier got us all situated according to our weights and balanced the boat...we were off. Dad had to sit in the very front of the boat by himself (the same place I got put when I rode with my friends in the earlier trip), and he's responsible for the pictures that were taken...so needless to say, they're kind of blurry. There are many things my dad is very good at, taking really good pictures is not one of them. I'm trying to train him better...It was getting dark outside so most of the pictures from the ride didn't turn out well, but we did get some with the famous Rialto Bridge in the background. We circled around the whole island of Venice, navigating the canal waters.

Uncle Joe and  Aunt Sue

The next day we made a stop at the Doge's Palace before we had to get on the train to Switzerland. The Doge of Venice was the ruler of Venice at one point in time, and much like you were expect from a royal, his palace was lavish.

After our visit to the Doge's Palace, we went back to the hotel to finish packing and check out so we could head to Switzerland. We found Aunt Sue and Uncle Joe in the hotel bar, cheersing to Venice and Italy in general...a good way to leave the city. We got in a water taxi that would take us back to the "mainland" so we get to the train station. The last picture really shows just how small the water taxis are, Uncle Joe and my dad look super uncomfortable squished into the little boat. And keep in mind, there were 3 others of us, as well as all our luggage. It would've been nice if it wasn't raining, we could've stood out on the deck of the boat, but no such luck. We all crammed into the little inside of the boat...but it was definitely a fitting ending for our trip to Venice.

Crammed into the little water taxi

 To be continued...Next Up: European Tour: Europe with Family - Riva and Bellinzona

Thankful Thursday: Happy Veteran's Day

I'm grateful for and proud of the two most important men in my life.

My Dad

My Boyfriend

Thanks to my Dad and Kenny, and all the other men and women who serve or served their country so bravely and selflessly.

European Tour: Europe with Family - Florence

As we all know, they don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Europe...but seeing as how we were Americans, we got a few days off for "Thanksgiving Break." My family took that opportunity to come visit me.

My mom doesn't handle airplanes and flying very well. And at this point in time, she hadn't gotten on an airplane in a very long time. But this was her motivation to get on one, come see her favorite child...in Europe. It was definitely a no-brainer. So my mom, dad and Aunt Sue and Uncle Joe headed over to Italy for a visit. They flew into Rome and did their touristy thing there while I was still in class.

I met up with them in Florence after my midterm.Which was a journey in itself..it's supposed to be a 3 hour and 15 minute train ride from Riva to Florence. However, a person got hit while standing on the train tracks so we had to divert and it ended up taking 6 hours. Thank God for the nice man on the train who realized I understood none of the what the conductor was saying over the loud speaker and translated for me. After my 6 hour adventure, my dad met me at the train station and took me to our hotel. My parents got a room that had the master suite, a kitchen/dining/living room and then a room with a bathroom for me...definitely a big step up from the way I had been traveling with my group in Riva.

We went to a restaurant that their tour guide had recommended...where some people proceeded to drink the very good wine, and lots of it. After singing and dancing through the streets on our way back to the hotel...in our made up Italian no less, we all headed to bed because it was late.

Dad and Me

The next day we were up bright and early (on my Dad's schedule), ate breakfast in the hotel (traditional European breakfast) and then bundled up to head out. In the picture above, Dad and I are standing right outside of our hotel. The Arno River is right behind the wall we're standing in front of and that's the Ponte Vecchio to the right. We walked across the Ponte Vecchio, shopping and heading into shops that caught our fancy along the way. 

Pointing out the Hotel

With Mom and Aunt Sue

Once we got to the other side, Mom made me do the touristy thing and point out where our hotel was...the things I do to please my mother. We spent most of the day just lollygagging around Florence. They had done all the "touristy" stuff (The David, Il Duomo, etc.) the day before with a tour guide and I had already been to Florence with the group. So, there weren't any particular things we were dying to see...we made our way around Florence, stopping shops and buying things as we saw them.

Us at Lunch

We stopped at a local restaurant for lunch, I had a really good pizza...hard to mess up pizza when you're in Italy though. After lunch, we headed over to Santa Croce...another church. In every church that Uncle Joe went in during the trip, he would light a candle and pray that Navy would beat Notre Dame. I'm not exaggerating, in all of the 10 churches he went in, he lit one. And Navy ended up winning the next football season and the years since, so something must have worked. I wanted to light a candle, so I took an unused one and went to light it with an existing one (the way you're supposed to), the candle fell out of its holder and extinguished the lit candle. I hurriedly re-lit that candle, but felt guilty for giving someone's grandma a heart attack. But no worries, I re-lit her candle, so she should be good to go, just a minor scare.

Dad and Uncle Joe with Neptune

After lunch, we continued our tour de Florence on foot. Dad and Uncle Joe had to stop at the statue of Neptune...being in the Navy and all, they were really tight with the God of the Sea, at least, I think that was the reasoning they gave me...?

We also stopped by the fountain of the "Porcellino." Which is a statue of a wild boar. Legend has it that if you rub the snout of the boar, you are destined to come back to Florence. We all rubbed the snout, so it looks like Florence is on my places to visit again.

After our afternoon adventures, we went back to the hotel to rest for a little bit and get ready to go to dinner...once again the tourist of Europe has a motto of "walk, eat, walk, eat" and we were definitely sticking to that.

Aunt Sue with our wine bottle :)

Ponte Vecchio shop

Dinner that night was at a restaurant that was near our hotel. We were some of the only people in there. I managed to knock my full glass of red wine everywhere (I should learn to talk without my hands) but other than that it was a quiet and awesome meal. After dinner, I showed them the place we went to on our earlier trip for Gelato. Once again, the gelato was delicious.

We walked back across the Ponte Vecchio and went to the hotel to rest up for our trip to Venice the next morning.

To be continued...Next Up: European Tour: Europe with Family - Venice

Run, Forrest, Run

This weekend Kenny came up to run in the Marine Corps Marathon. He started training 15 weeks before the marathon, his longest run being 21 miles. 

He and his friend Rob came up on Thursday night. I picked them up from the airport and we went over to Burke because they were both staying @ the Prindle's. On Friday morning, the guys, Christy and I drove into DC to drive the route a little bit. Our intention was to drive the whole thing, but after it took 1.5 hours to drive 6 miles (for being a Navigator by profession, Kenny wasn't being a very helpful navigator), I threw in the towel. We drove to the Convention Center where they had to register, get their packets, shirts, etc. After that the next day and a half was spent relaxing.

Sunday morning, Rob and Kenny were down at the race by 6 am. Richie, Christy and I left Burke around 7:30 and drove to my townhouse in Arlington. Parked there, walked to the Ballston metro and took that to the Smithsonian metro stop. We walked from there to the Lincoln Memorial (it's farther than it appears) to see them @ mile 10. We each handed Kenny, Rob and their friend Tim an open banana and gatorade. We then walked the few feet to Mile 16, where we waited for awhile to see them again. We handed Kenny (the other 2 didn't see us) another banana and gatorade and then made the trek back to the Smithsonian station. 

We met up with Natalie (her cousin was also running), saw them @ Mile 19 and then hopped on the Metro to go to the finish line. We got off @ the Rosslyn station to see them, and because of the powers that be, weren't able to actually see them cross the finish line. We did make it down to the area where they were and were able to give them congratulatory hugs.

I didn't manage to get any pictures of him running since I was focusing on handing off the food and drink. But we did a photo-shoot after the race. 

The BFF's

Rob and Kenny

Kenny and his parents

Kenny with people from his squadron

I'm so proud of Kenny, accomplishing a marathon is no easy feat. He did however say that this was his first and his last...better him than me.

European Tour: Milan, Italy

As many people know soccer, or futbol as the Europeans call it, is a big deal in Europe. It's kind of like American football in America...but even bigger. So, we decided it would be a good experience to go and see some European futbol live.

Katie and Me at dinner

Megan and Kathryn at Dinner

We chose the A.C. Milan vs. A.C. Roma game on November 11th. We took the hour long train ride down from Riva and made our way to a Pub for some dinner and drinks before the game. It was a Pub that was dedicated to Rugby, so there were games on and people getting rowdy already when we got there. From what I remember, it was good food, good drink and great company :)

After finishing dinner, we headed towards the stadium. The long road to the stadium is filled with vendors selling shirts, scarfs, noise makers, etc. Katie got an AC Milan jersey...the rest of us attempted to stay neutral. The crowd was already forming into packs, AC Milan fans and AC Roma fans. The police were out in full force, and we were just preparing ourselves. At this point, it was kind of like attending a Virginia Tech/UVA game...intense rivalry, people yelling profanity at the other side...nothing we hadn't seen before. Half of our group had bought tickets after us, so they were in a different section. We took a group picture before we broke off from them.

Group, before the game

Standing by our seats

Us, with the usher

We broke off from Katie, Jamie and Molly and headed towards our seats. Which, might I add, were actually really good seats. We were right behind a goal, so we got to see both teams play offense and defense. The usher in our section became our fast friend. He loved that we were American. He loved that we were girls. He loved that we were American girls at an AC Milan futbol game. He kept trying to converse with us...him, in broken English, us in broken Italian. He took the picture to the left for us...and then cornered someone to take the below picture with us. He gave me his email address and asked me to send it to him. Which is just a tad creepy, and I managed to lose him email address (whoops) so that never actually happened. But at least we have the documentation of our fan :)

After our photo-shoot the game started. As I have stated in previous posts, I love soccer. I used to play it as a kid, and watching it is very exciting. So, even though the action on the field was amazing to watch, the action in the stands just boggled my mind. Their fans are crazy with a capital C. They are loud (can ALMOST compare to Lane Stadium loud), they are fanatical and knowledgeable and most importantly, they light FIRES in the stand. That's not a smoke signal you're seeing, that is the actual fire the fans lit in the stands. And no one panics, they just cheer more for the fire...it was definitely one of the most nutso sports experiences I've ever had.

Yes, that is a real fire, purposefully lit...in the stands.

AC Roma ended up winning, our "hometown" team defeated...we attempted to make our way back to the train station. I say attempted because when you got to the exit of the stadium, cops lined the road. If you were an AC Milan fan, you went right...an AC Roma fan, you went left. No mixing, AT ALL. That didn't stop people from screaming over the line of cops...profanities, something about someone's mother, you get the deal.

We ended the night with a McDonald's run, and then got back on the train where we all took an hour nap on the way back to Riva.

Definitely a sporting event I will not soon forget, I'm glad I got to experience Futbol the European way.

To be continued...Next Up: European Tour: Europe with Family - Florence