One Month

Actually, tomorrow it will be 5 weeks. Five whole weeks.

It has been hard to write anything recently. While posting pictures of trips is one thing, writing about much else doesn't really seem worth it. I have been busy these past 5 weeks. Mary Kathryn has kept me busy. We have traveled a lot. Vienna, Salzburg, and Rome- plus the shopping downtown and multiple trips to surrounding wineries. We ate out a lot- just to make sure she had the real Italian experience. I have tons of pictures from the trips...they will be up soon. 

But now, it's just me. Waiting for skype calls or emails and trying to figure out how to spend these next months. Once again 5 weeks. It's crazy that it has even been that long. The majority of the days, I feel like time couldn't move slower, so I don't know how it got to be 5 weeks down. I find myself thankful for the downtime. Some time to just sit and drink coffee...or wine, depending on what time it is...but mainly just a little bit of time to process. I haven't processed much yet...this week my body has been craving the tempo of the past weeks. So staying up late, going to the clinic, house sitting for friends, trying to keep plants alive, dealing with banks and bills, meeting friends out, putting together tricycles have filled the days. But it sometimes scares me, because I don't want this time to slip away...well I would like the time to slip away, I would like to blink and for it to just BE April. But time doesn't work that way. Time will creep away and steal the life that I have between now and then if I let it. 

I wanted to avoid survival mode, but the truth of the matter is that sometimes survival mode is the only mode you can get your body moving in, so I'm taking baby steps :) Trying to think of the little things around here that I want to do...like go to more coffee shops. I always walk around downtown and say, "Oh, I should go there, or try that" Why don't I just do it? So the rest of this month, I"m going to just do it. I'm going to be trying out different coffees and different little coffee and tea shops...or bars as the Italians say.

So here is to baby steps.

Visitors, Visitors, Visitors

The month of June brought lots of visitors to Vicenza. And I wouldn't have had it any other way. The beginning of June, on our trip to Cinque Terre, we met up with the Stegall's and Morris'. We met up in La Spezia, right after they flew into the country. Let's just say that they were champs. James and I trained down from Vernazza to meet at the train station and head to their hotel. They were our first visitors that weren't family and I was beyond excited to see familiar faces. Then the nerves set in...as we waited in the McDonald's at the train station, the anticipation of their arrival was getting to me. It had been SO long, and I was SO ready to see some familiar faces. Let me just say that it is so WEIRD seeing people that you know from home in the middle of a train station. The rest of teh day and night slipped away from us...we walked around La Spezia, drank bottles of wine, ate some tasty food (except for Jess- who got food poisioning), and then James and I hung out with some homeless people for a while because we missed our train. Let's just say that after the night we had been having, we felt quite confident in our Italian.

The next morning- Blake and Lora met us to hike up to Monterosso, while Jessica recovered back in the room...bless. It was beautiful hike and it was just like being back at home. We were so glad to be hiking with other people- sharing the views and the experience made it so much more special.


Sadly, James had to go back to work...so we left with the hopes of having Blake and Lora and Jessica and Blair spend their last night in Italy with us. And it did. Sunday morning, I picked up the world travelers at the airport and came to Vicenza. We spent the afternoon walking around the heat, hiked up Monti Berico, and then came home and laid on the floor. (One of the upsides of having marbles floors- they are so cold!) It is so fun to show people around the little town- it makes it feel even more like home. That night we ate at Aeolia’s and introduced everyone to their famous fagotini- delicious pasta stuffed with pear and ham…to die for. Dinner was wonderful- but it was even better to be sharing it with our friends.

A couple of weeks later Mary Kathryn, Kaylyn, and Elizabeth joined. Mary Kathryn and Kaylyn joined from Florence. Kaylyn only stayed one night before she headed back to Raleigh to start another internship, and MK was here for the rest of the summer!! Elizabeth was ending her European adventure and spent the last week with us. IT was really low key- James was leaving, so we were really limited on where we could travel, but we did make one trip to Jeslo- a nearby beach. It felt so good to just get away for a couple of days and do nothing but sleep, read, and get a tan. The best part of the trip was finding this awesome arcade. There was HUGE Fruit Ninja touch screen that I spent wayyy too much money on J Then there was a silly little horse race game, basketball game, air hockey…we loved it!! It was a great way to conclude our trip.

We also watched a SERIOUS amount of Modern Family….and spent the whole week quoting it. Only slightly embarrassing that we watched ALL 3 seasons back to back. Thank you Apple TV, and Wendy for getting us hooked onto it.

And of course, you can’t visit and not go to a winery- so we spent one afternoon at Villa Scierman- a local favorite. This places it awesome. You can taste all the wine you want for free, then buy a bottle, and drink it outside on the Veranda, or underneath an awning of vines. The villa also sells asigao cheese, bread, prosciutto, and olives. Lets just say we spent several hours there…

Let's just say that James and I seriously have the best family and friends ever.

Cinque Terre

One of the places, I have been most excited about visiting was Cinque Terre. Before we came here, everyone talked about how these 5 cities were the full of charm and beauty, and boy were they telling the truth. Cinque Terre is made of up of 5 little towns along the west coast of Italy- Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso al Mare. All of the towns are connected by trails and trains- the Italians say that if you can hike from the top of the trail to the bottom of the trail with the person you love, then you two are meant to be together forever. Sadly- while James and I were there, it was not possible to hike all of the cities. In October of 2011 there was a massive mudslide that basically took out Vernazza and the trails between Vernazza and then there was work on the trial between Corniglia and Manarola. So sad say that we were not able to hike all of the towns- but the hikes that we were able to complete were awesome!! Absolutely beautiful...and from here, I'll let the pictures do all of the talking:

 Vernazza! Where we stayed

 Seemed like you could see to the edge of the earth

Just eating some fresh fruit at a local stand

Garmisch, Germany

We went on a group trip to Garmisch, Germany...because the boys (Colin, Mason and James) wanted to climb the Zugspitz, which happens to be the tallest mountain in Germany. The deal was, that if the boys were going to climb a mountain then the girls would get massages...which is exactly what we signed ourselves up for on Saturday morning.

We drove up to Garmisch late Thursday night, realized we forgot our passports, and got pulled over by a cop :) Such an eventful night. Luckily, the hotel didn't really care about the passport situation, and the cop gave up when he realized we were Americans.

Even though it was a more than necessary stressful night, getting to sleep in and have a full day Friday was worth it! We got up and went to a little bakery in the morning and wandered downtown to the Friday market- which was awesome, and ate a wonderful traditional German lunch. I was introduced many different types of German sausages, spaztel and of course, beer.

That evening we went to the McFadden's family friends, the Sifer's, house and tasted lots of beers with cheese and salami and fruit! So good. And they were great hosts!! Mrs. Sifer took the girls on a tour of their gorgeous German home and the boys talked Army :) Mr. Sifer's is retired Army and the boys really enjoyed talking with him about everything under the sun. Kaitlin and Mason even knew a lot of the same people as the Sifer's did...the Army is truly a very SMALL world. The Sifer's then took us to dinner at this restaurant that did traditional German dancing throughout the night. It was hysterical and so cool!! I even got my picture with one of the boys!

The next morning, the boys got up EARLY and headed to the mountain. I wish I had written this much earlier and could have James recount all of the details, but I will do my best. Basically the boys had no equipment, at all. And when they started hiking, all of the Germans were mocking them and telling him how stupid they were for not having this equipment- like ice picks and ropes to tie into each other. This of course, just fueled their desire to summit the mountain. It didn't help that the Germans with all of the equipment seemed to be struggling in comparison. Well, I guess the boys got about 3/4th of the way up, when they reached the big glacier that they needed to cross....(this just sounds like a bad idea to me). Then, they some how ran into these "German mountain goats"...basically several men that according to the boys looked like they have been climbing this mountain for years and had the essential equipment, but weren't "decked" out. Anyway, these "mountain goats" advised them to turn around, because they wouldn't be able to climb the glacier in this weather without icepicks or tied into each other. THANK goodness they listened, and headed back down the mountain. Needless to say, we had some grumpy boys on our hands. Meanwhile, Kaitlin, Heidi, and I enjoyed our morning massages and pool time with sweet little Molly.

In the afternoon- Kaitlin and I walked around the town while the boys slept, and got some beautiful pictures!!

Dinner was at this quaint little diner with a totally inappropriate name....but came highly recommended, so we risked it.

One of the best parts of the trip was hiking the Partnach Gorge. It was beautiful!! We hiked it Sunday morning before our drive home.