Just got back from a 3 week (MUCH NEEDED) vacay. I have to say it was amazing meeting my family at the Sevilla airport and then embarking on our travels to Italy for the next 10 days. I was so glad that they were all smiling and not pissy because of the long ride they had over because it made me forget how over the day I already was especially since I began my arrival to the airport at 8 that morning and then it started pouring (you will see a pattern soon) as soon as I set foot outside the train station. Then I decide...I've got a little time to kill before I get to the airport, why not get that cup of coffee that I've been craving in the center at the Starbucks. Not only was I completely soaked from the whole experience getting to and from Starbucks and then to the airport but so was my luggage and my boots. Naturally. Oh, and trying to put my luggage on the EA line that connects to the Sevilla airport was a task in an of itself. Oh, thats right; no one in Europe knows how to drive...so I go flying down the middle of the bus with my bags and my scalding hot coffee. I just go to too much trouble for my generic brand standby.
Rome was incredible to see and I have to hand it to my Mom that making arrangements with tour guides was a smart move. From the moment we arrived in Rome we had to fly into the city center for a tour on the Vatican. WOW. That place is epic. It makes it all the more real that a place like that could have its own zipcode. Quite magnificent on its on right and Saint Peter's Square (in which the Vatican looks over) was absolutely gorgeous too. A bit frigid but awesome. By the time you get to the Sistine Chapel all you want to do is just lay on the floor in the very large room and and just look up at the sky and reflect on what you are seeing. Michaelangelo was quite a talent although he had no idea what a female actually looked like. Obviously he only had eyes for Mark's and John's....
We walked around for a bit after the tour and we stood at this "vanishing point" I guess you could call it and if you were looking at a line of 4 columns they would be placed perfectly behind one another and it was super cool.
Later we returned back to our hotel which was in a really nice part of town (a little hard to get to...aka because we didn't know where the heck we were...we later find out we are literally 100 feet away from the Spanish Steps). Had some dinner at a nice restaurant below us. I swear we lucked out wherever we went because everyone just about, spoke English. Emerson was driving me nuts with his Spanish-speaking, not gonna lie about that.
The next morning we got up early and met up for another tour called the 'Angels and Demons' tour based off of the book which I never read, never will read and still haven't even seen the Tom Hanks movie. However, our very excited tour guide, this young guy from Oregon but was raised in Italy and talks faster than most Americans made our 3.5 hour trip into a 5 hour one and it passed by so quickly. We basically followed a route that also looked like a Christian cross --cool stuff. We even got to have a cappuccino and then see the Parthenon for a quick minute. It was way dirtier than I could have ever imagined but when I went inside it was just gorgeous and the oculus was beautiful on that day since the sun was shining.
Later that night we met up with this cool guy from Venezuela and he was like this gothic rocker, which I feel like most guys from South America tend to be, when they are more Americanized. At least that is what I have seen while living in South Florida (have to back myself up...don't want any bad remarks thrown at me ha). But he took us on a nighttime tour of the "haunted Rome", which I'm sure there are these incredible mysteries about Rome...but he didn't really seem to know a whole lot. Anyway, we get to this church where these guys back in the day formed this society/church for the died/dying during the Plague years that were not getting proper burials and were just being thrown in fire pits/rivers/etc. and they cremated the bodies and just gave them the proper burials that the dead deserve. Well, the church is still around today and it is ornate with several cool trinkets such as a chandelier made of skeletal remains. Cool stuff. We went back the next day to check it out and see for ourselves. I really liked the whole vibe of the church, there was just a solitary nun darning socks or something and the candles were lit and it felt like we were the only ones in the entire place. Tori and I agreed that we felt more in that church than we did in the Vatican.
The next day was the most somber day for some reason but we took the metro Line A to the Colosseum and we kinda got there early and we stopped off for a cappuccino at the top of the hill that overlooks the Colosseum and it was the most delicious cap I've ever had and for a nice price of only 1 euro. Can't beat that. We were fortunate enough to have the best continental breakfasts at our hotel, Modern Hotel, and the cleaning lady/cook made the best cappuccino's in the morning. Spoiled, I am aware. So anyway, we meet up with our tour guide with the thickest Italian accent (so I must say I zoned out the entire time) and we ventured around the monstrous edifice and I could almost imagine the chariot races around its inner circle. We finished off at the Roman Forum and it was so cool there; there were aqueducts (only one of which they still use today -- w0w!) and it was like this awesome graveyard of precious monuments and sculptural pieces remaining in Rome's antiquity. That moment will definitely last with me.
3 days in Rome was the perfect amount of time and although it was sad to go because it was quite a blast we headed off 3 hours down the road to Cavrigglia in Il Toscana. We got to the Ipercoop at 9 at night and I'm already kind of freaking because I'm a Florida girl and I'm not used to driving in the snow, and we don't even have chains on...and the car was freaking out while we are just trying to park in the lot. We get hoards of food because we haven't even eaten and we know we won't be eating for quite a bit. Emerson's GPS gets us going the wrong way up the mountain/valley/hill whatever you want to call it and Mom is freaking out, they are both standing out in the snow for like 15 minutes and all I want them to do is shut the door so I don't later die of hypothermia. Well we finally get moving and they decide that its a good idea that we follow the directions of the owners of the house (duh) and turn down the start of the drive. Its the start of a small town too. Bizarre. There are lots of small towns within towns come to find out though that only comprise of 10 houses or something. So we see the neighbors house and we have to keep going, this is where we should have parked the car and grabbed our bags and begun to walk like Cameron Diaz in 'The Holiday'.
We round the first corner (with no chains...eek) and its a little shisty. Then we round the second corner and I swear I was going to meet my maker, man. I'm clutching for dear life and thank goodness Emerson was behind the wheel because we would have been goners for sure. We get out of the car, I'm kissing the ground and we go inside to forget that any of that even happened. I needed a chupito. Come to find out later that the owner didn't even come up to his house because the snowfall was too dangerous. Ha.
Well the thing about the windows and doors in Italy is that they are sealed shut. Pretty cool if you have nothing better to do that have a "snowed in" day and want to sleep in until 1 PM!!!!!! I opened the front door because I couldn't find my phone in the pitch black house and it was like POW POW POW when I opened the door. It was like the sun burst my eyeballs and the sun shining was so brilliant. The view of the Tuscan valley was just breathtaking and a winter wonderland.
The next day we set alarms and hoped that we'd be able to get out of the house with snow still on the ground. Silvano, the owner came to our rescue with chains to get us out. We left for Siena for the day and saw the beautiful Duomo but didn't last too long because it was just so oogly and rainy. Which rain it did, for the remainder of our trip. The second day we went to Venice and that was quite a haul...especially since we left at like 8 am only to be stuck in traffic for 5 hours the way there and then another 4 on the way back. Ridiculous. That was miserable getting there. But once we were there the sun began to set and it was beautiful. The long glass bridge that gets you on the islandic suburbia was quite cool. The windy streets were littered with Italian locals doing last minute Christmas shopping and we got to the waters edge to see St. Peters and the gondolas were all along the edge and it was just so cute a picturesque. Mom decides that she does in fact know where she is in Venice because how could she forget...she was only here yesterday, AKA 10 years ago. She proceeds to get us so completely lost in the pouring rain in back streets and is going so fast that she almost falls off a dock and thank goodness Emerson has another one of his gadgets, the iPhone with GPS on it and we get back to civilization. Nothing else cool happened that night because we were stuck in the worst traffic I've ever seen in my life for the 8 hour ride home.
The next day we went to Florence and the owners told us about free parking at the top of the hill that overlooks the city right by the iron-cast David, and we walked down. Tori told us about Ponte Anciano (is that right?) which is 'The Old Bridge' which is composed of these old houses turned jewelry stores and we walked over that to get to the Firenze center. We went straight to the musuem that is in Firenze (can't remember the name) and walked around in there for a few hours and saw some incredible art pieces. I remember there being a lot of redheads in Firenze. Perhaps because Firenze has the word fire in it. Tori was in love. I noticed a lot of the Italian well, 1. being better looking than those in Spain but, 2. having really creepy blue eyes that looked like they were stalking prey with or something. Maybe its all true.
Then I'm bitchy at this point because I'm starved and I don't think I had a feeding in between meals but we march on to see Michaelangelo's David, which for a hefty price of 10 euros a head it was worth it. I wish we had gone on a Sunday or something, I'm sure its free then. It was quite remarkable that piece of art though. He was incredibly huge (no, not down there. You would have though that Michaelangelo would have appreciated that in a man...) Then it stopped raining for 10 minutes and we sit in the middle of this square, the pigeons are like white on rice when they see Mom pulling out the ingredients of our lunch. Haha, it was pretty ridiculous that we hadn't made our lunch beforehand. Because here is Mom making the sandwiches for us right then and there and she was right, we did look homeless. A for effort though, a picnic would have been a nice thought if it was a. prepared, and b. not raining. We walked around the rest of the afternoon taking in the sites and trying not to be sick of each other yet. Oh, Mom got over her embarrassment when a bus driver and young woman came running into the same square yelling obscenities at one another in Italian over him robbing her of a bus ticket or something. Either way, it made her feel better, and me too. I hate seeing her upset. Side note: she did really well keeping up the entire trip. She told me that she trained walking with Buddha 2 miles in the morning and 2 miles at night. I'm proud.
So on Christmas morning I presented Tori with a photo frame of us and then Mom with a photo of us and a Tous necklace charm (I told her it was very Spanish and it is like the version of Tiffany) and with that being said she only got the charm. I couldn't afford the cadena (chain). But she told me she would wear it as soon as she got back to the states. Oh, I also gave them each a really different scarf when they got off the plane in Sevilla, also stating that it was very Spanish. Tori got a checkered blue and black one, Mom got a wintery scarf and Emerson got the Sevilla FC one. They are significantly better than Cordoba. It would be embarrassing if I had purchased something of the Cordoba FC merchandise because they are D3 and like the worst in the D3. Yikes. I may have to pick something up anyway while I am here...because i hate the shirts that look like the "I <3>
Anyway, Emerson just had to see the leaning tower of Pisa, which I'm glad we got to see. Its pretty cool and I later read on a plane magazine when we were coming back to Spain that there is a second one. Hmph. Stayed there for a minute and drove to Cinque Terre because Mom really wanted to go there. It quite possibly was one of the most beautiful sites I have ever seen. The sun was actually shining that day, even though it was a little hazy. We first stopped at the entrance of the National Park and Tori and I wandered down the road a bit and came across this vacant looking town with frozen over olive vines all over and it was breathtaking the view that they had. Don't slip though, its a long way down. So we start up the road in the car and the road was just endless, hence the name 5 lands. There was this town at the edge of the cliff with crashing waves hitting it and it was absolutely mesmerizing. It looked like a scene from the Little Mermaid. If only it had been clearer we would have been able to see the eastern coast of Spain. Pretty cool. Got lost on the way down, roads were closed because of heavy rainfall, yadda yadda. We eventually made it back!
The next morning we left semi-early, wanted to go to the real outlet mall for real outlet prices since I needed boots since it was freezing and I had lost my 30 euro boots to the rain in Venice and I looked really American with my running shoes on. AKA lame. So we get there only to find out that its closed because its a holiday. Womp. So Mom is on to the next plan. She tells us of the town which I can't recall the name of now that is on the way back to Rome and the towns people once secretly stole Jesus' penis when he was crucified and it was later stolen back from the Vatican in the 70's. Why it took that long I'm not sure. Did they have his penis, I'm not sure of that either. It was very cool. You have to park outside the town because its another one of those that you can't fit a car in it..and we walked in, Tori fell about 7 times in her cowboy boots and I tried really hard not to laugh. But I mean, c'mon it was hilarious. So we are walking through this now artsy hipster village and I am secretly looking for relics but I don't think it housed any more. We stopped off for tea in this tea shop which famously has over 100 types so its even more badass than Teavana. And that capped off our travels to Rome. We even managed to get to the airport on time with being lost and all and the car rental people never mentioned the huge piece of the car scraping the bottom of it when we arrived or when Emerson ran into the pole with the side of the car as we were pulling in to get our parking ticket for the garage. Good stuff.
We got in hella late and slept in a bit and headed for Cordoba. I showed them around the first day and we had tapas right next door while the sun was shining and then we went to Tapagonia (the Argentinian place) for dinner and it was delish. The hot manager didn't look so high that night or maybe he didn't look like he was coming off of the drugs and what I saw was he was in fact high/drunk and he looked better. Either way. The next day we walked around some more. A my birthday present I got a new pair of boots that I report to you are still leak free and quite comfortable and are Spanish and really cool and I know I will have them for a long time. And they also have good grip on the road so I don't have mishaps like Tori. Mom and I really wanted to see Andalucia but Tori and Emerson were being a bit lame, Tori even said she just wanted to sleep because thats what she does when shes home from school and they protested that is was pouring everywhere. What's new right? So we stayed in and watched movies and shows on Ch131 and the rest was history. So we are walking back to the train station to catch a train and Emerson is sick as a dog. As soon as we get to the hotel at like 11 he passed out for the rest of the day. Mom, Tori and I went out to the city center in Sevilla and had a great time together. We had our trusty map and I still couldn't read it but Tori did really well. I wanted us to go to a Flamenco show but when we decided we wanted to it was pouring cats and dogs and to be honest we weren't even close to the city center. We had an okay dinner at the hotel and then these dudes from this Spanish group, but from NY, Xtreme, came to the hotel. I wanted to kill them for keeping me up until 3 in the morning when I had to be up at 5 for my flight to Paris. It was really hard saying goodbye to Mom. I thought it would be hard for me to say bye to Tori until she yelled at me that morning saying something about me promising to be quiet. Yep, she rocks. Oh, while in the shower that night instead of it being a nice relaxing shower I decided skim boarding was way more fun. I literally lost grip underneath me, held onto the glass door on the shower only for it to act as a swinging door and me to eat shit on the tile.
So it was hard for me to say goodbye, I'm crying. No one else is. And then I get to the airport 4 minutes later and that cabbie charges me 23 euro stating it is a flat rate. What the hell?!? I was expecting 10. So I cried some more. I got over it and Vueling let me put my luggage on for free which was nice. And I slept a little on the plane even.
When I got to CDG I was hungry and needed caffeine. I saw a Starbucks sign so I got really happy especially since I hate how small the coffee cups are here in Europe. But not America baby -- go big or go home! Well the escalators are like futuristic and send you in pods to other parts of the airport and I see the sign but have no idea how to get to it. The elevators are not telling me what floor I'm on but I know I need to get to the 2nd one...I can't speak French and I can't find an Information desk...and then I found it! I was so happy! I sat there, wrote a little and then decided it was time to meet Heather, Andres and Rachel at the hotel. I find the Information desk this time and they tell me where to go. I get there and see them waiting for the hotel shuttle; nothing like perfect timing and we settled in for a bit.
To be continued...
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