"A Feast For the Eyes"

I need to catch up a bit and talk about our wonderful fall break week.

The weekend before was filled with anticipation as we prepared for the arrival of our moms. We picked them up from the airport without trouble, though my mom had a late suitcase, which arrived later at the hotel. Travel was safe despite worries about the travel alert in France and we were impressed with how easily Mom and Mom recovered from jetlag. Monday, after we picked them up we just relaxed in our apartment and caught up with each other. From there it was non-stop, action-packed activity!

But SURPRISE!! Monday was not over yet when we said goodnight to our moms because the buzzer rang in our apartment that evening, and next thing we knew there were two friends outside our door yelling our names! Turns out Marit Langley and Zach Hankel came to visit us while on their fall break from Romania!! We had been trying to plan such a get together the whole time we’ve been here, but we never really got the planning punched out, so they decided to just go looking for us while they were here in hopes that we’d be around and available and it worked! They were standing in our apartment! So we got to take them to gelato and then we spent the rest of the evening re-fueling on some good NWC-style conversation. It was so great to see people from school again and talk to others about their study-abroad experience. We got to learn a bit about Romania as well! Their visit was a great blessing to us.

Tuesday we led them on a tour around the city and they learned how to shop and what to see at the fresh market, saw the sites and our schools, and tried their first Italian gelato! It was nice for them to finally see what they were reading about in our blog and have a better picture of the lovely city we live in.

Wednesday we went to a couple more sites on the south side of the river since we didn’t want to smash absolutely everything into Tuesday. Then we caught a bus to the small town of Greve in Chianti for a classic wine tour! Thanks to Brie and her boyfriend’s plans to do the same, we were able to book this tour easily just the day before because they gave us all their information on how to do so. It was kind of amazing how well everything worked out that day. We got to Greve on a bus that seemed to be acting as a school bus for a bunch of high school kids and upon arrival I remarked how refreshing it was to hear the sound of leaves underfoot. We hadn’t been out of the city in about a month so we were really missing the signs of fall you are enjoying back home. I definitely recommend visiting Italy in the fall. The countryside is incredibly beautiful; all golden and colorful – finally how I pictured Tuscany. Our wine tour was at the Castello di Verazzano which is located at the top of hill; a 30 minute walk from Greve. So we enjoyed ourselves with a bit of a workout climbing up the nearly mountainous hill overlooking the gorgeous land to our castle vineyard tour. Our tour guide was this fantastic British woman who was extremely good at relating really interesting information and cracking witty jokes. We really enjoyed her and our tour was also shared by a few other couples and families from the US and other various European countries. It was fun to spend time with such a mix of people. We found out that the Verazzano family had much more significance for us than we realized. One member of the family became an explorer and was actually the first to discover New York. He’s been honored by a bridge being named after him and a few of the stones from that bridge are on display at the Castle. We never knew! We learned a lot about the wine making process, learned how to taste test wine, and then sampled 4 types as well as a desert wine. It was a little chilly but otherwise a perfectly sunny day in the Tuscan countryside and was one of my favorite experiences so far. We loved the opportunity to experience such a fun thing with our Moms. The other great part is that after the tour we descended the hill to find that the bus we needed to catch back to Florence had just pulled up, so we hopped straight on and headed back home just like that.

Thursday we were off early to catch a train to Venice. We commented that the US should have taken much more advantage of the railway system for passengers because the fast train was an excellent way to travel. When we stepped out of the train station in Venice my breath was immediately taken as I tried to take in the view around me. Venice is unlike any city I’ve seen in Italy and I’m sure there’s no other city like it in the world. The style of buildings is completely different than those of Florence. The water that sometimes reaches right up to the side of buildings is teal, the buildings are white, red, green, orange, and covered in shutters, balconies and flowers. Perhaps it’s because we were traveling after the tourist season, so it wasn’t so crowded or it really is much easier to imagine Venice in antiquity than it is in Florence. In many parts, Venice just seems to maintain its quaintness better than some of the other cities we’ve visited. It’s completely amazing to walk through the streets, none of which are straight many of which are single-file-narrow and require ducking under passageways above. Cody did an amazing job of navigating us through the very literal maze of the city. It was amazing that we would sneak through tiny, empty passageways and then suddenly we’d arrive in a large odd-shaped plaza-all of which contained a well in the middle and then we would cross it to another small street with a seemingly dead-end, Oh wait! nope there’s another passageway at the right, then you’ll emerge and there’s another canal or a beautiful old bridge. You cross the bridges by climbing stairs up one side and down the other because the bridges are all like an upside-down “U” so that gondolas can pass beneath them. And yes, the gondoliers really wear striped shirts and flat hats with ribbons. Honestly, Venice is exactly what you picture - only better :D We didn’t take a gondola ride but we did take the water bus around the sort of marine, industrial, fishing area of the city. That was an interesting experience! We had to comment on how quiet it was there, not only because it wasn’t too busy but because we suddenly realized that there were no sounds of traffic because all the transportation is by water. So there were no cars or scooters to dodge while walking along. This was a significant realization which helped to make our experience in Venice more unique and beautiful. We were a little unsure of our hotel since Venice is supposedly the “New York of Italy”, meaning it’s quite expensive to stay there but Cody’s mom booked a decent deal at a hotel that was conveniently located ½ a block away from the train station. Turns out it was pretty much the most beautiful hotel ever. Our rooms were kind of up in a loft, which was funny. The elevator only took us up so far and then we climbed some wooden steps to a landing with three rooms. I about drooled when we opened the door, I just thought everything was so pretty. We spent Thursday and Friday walking around pretty much the whole city, saw several churches, took lots of pictures, and did some souvenir shopping – saw lots of beautiful Murano glass! (Murano is an Island off of Venice famous for it’s glass blowing) We are so so glad we got to see Venice, if you ever get to Italy, you can’t miss it!

We apparently didn’t have enough traveling or excitement because we booked Saturday full of fun as well. Our favorite church, Santo Spirito, was closed when we wanted to show it earlier that week, so we went right away Saturday morning and it was open! So we got to give our moms a tour. Then we spent the rest of the morning doing some last minute souvenir shopping at the San Lorenzo = street vendors market then made another mad dash to the train/bus station to catch a regional (slower than the fast-trains) train to see a little bit of Cinque Terre! The regional trains are not as fun to travel on simply because they stop at every train station on the way to their destination without any announcement as to where you are stopping and they take much longer. So this travel day was a little stressful because we were never completely certain if we were in the right place at the right time, but again, Cody did an extremely impressive job at getting us to where we needed to be. Without him we wouldn’t have made it anywhere over fall break, he’s so much better at understanding this stuff than I am. You may be wondering what Cinque Terre is, because I had never heard of it before living here either. “Cinque Terre” means “five lands” It’s actually a national park of five small coastal Mediterranean towns. They are all unique for their building structures, which seem to all pile on top of each other because the homes are built up the sides of cliffs that overlook the Mediterranean. All the towns are close enough to walk between them and you’re basically walking along railings and stone passageways carved out of the hills along the Mediterranean on paths such as the Via dell’amore, basically meaning, “Lover’s Lane.” This road connects the first two towns, Riomaggiore and Manarola. We only planned to go for the afternoon, so we were only able to see these two of the five towns but it was totally worth it for the amazing views. They also have quite laborious vineyards as they are planted on steeply terraced land. An older citizen of one of the towns talked to my mom for a bit and explained to her that the grape industry is starting to die out in the area because, “The young men don’t want to climb the hills and pick the grapes anymore. They want to sit at home and work on their computers.” Apparently they prefer technology to keeping their father’s fields. Kinda sad. It was another perfect day because it was really still and quiet, not too full of people, amazing sites, and you could just hear the waves hit the cliffs and then stretch on forever. I really felt like I was in a dream. It didn’t seem real because being there looked and felt so beautiful.

Needless to say, we were pretty wiped out from traveling and walking everywhere the whole week so we slept in on Sunday, had brunch, packed, relaxed, spent some quality time together, and I was able to make a fresh pasta recipe from class that I was dying to try. My “Pumpkin Ravioli” turned out decently and I’m probably going to have to make it a fall special in the coming years. Then we took our moms to the Evangelical church we enjoy, for worship and heard a great testimony from the pastor’s wife. Afterward we grabbed a last gelato and Moms got to meet Brie, Megan and Carmel.

We stood in the rain to catch the earliest bus to the airport on Monday morning, but Sherri and Nancy made it all the way home again safe and sound. We had so much fun getting to host them, and celebrate our birthdays a bit, and we feel so blessed by all the opportunities to travel and show off a little bit of our life here in Italy! We think our moms enjoyed themselves, and we definitely filled the week full of sights. Nancy and I were talking and we decided that Italy is "A feast for the eyes." It's good to appreciate where you are with the people you love. We were still pretty exhausted from the week so we spent the rest of Monday completely veging out – I think we watched five movies. We were wondering if it was going to make us home sick all over again when our moms left, and it was a little hard that our moms didn’t take us back to the US with them but we also realized how much we are enjoying our “First place” together in Italia. It was cool to realize that we loved being in Chianti, Venice, and Cinque Terre but we were also ready to go home. WOAH! “Home” actually meant in our little apartment in Florence where we know where to go and what to see and how to shop and live. Amazing! We are home but we’ll be home soon! After this week, it’s 6 weeks left! Bonkers!

Ciao!

P.S. I gave our moms an assignment to write a little bit of their impressions of Italy for our blog, so you can hear a little bit about their experience from their point of view. I will be posting those soon!