Sunshine and Holly

Viva Italia – Day 5 – Sorrento

By sunshineandholly on January 16, 2012

10/25/2011

Arrivederci Rome!

That morning we slept in, packed up our bags, took a cold shower (hope our next hotel has better hot water and water pressure) and walked about a mile with all of our luggage to the train station. One of our bags was HUGE so I was dreading this part, but it wasn’t too bad. However, today it was hot hot HOT in Rome. Thank goodness I wore a short sleeve shirt – I was so sweaty when we got to the train station. Ew. The station was kind of confusing, but we finally figured out where to go. We were on platform 9 and ¾. 😉 Just kidding. We were on platform 10. The first class cars are nice – way better than the plane. I’m soooo nervous about the small local train we have to take from Naples to Sorrento. I’ve read reviews about how yucky and scary it is and about pick pockets. Hopefully it won’t be any worse than the subway in Rome. (We though we saw a pick pocket in the subway there, but it was just some guy’s friend messing with him!)

One quick story I forgot to write about before –
On our tour of the Colosseum, an older lady thought the tour guide said the ancient Romans played football there. She asked if they played it on the sand. The tour guide has said the shape of the Colosseum is like a modern day football stadium. They didn’t play football back then. Bless her heart! Lol!

And one thing I’ve learned –
Girls: always make friends with the women in line with you for the bathroom. When you get up to the front of the line and there’s no toilet paper, they’ll be nice and let you borrow a tissue they brought with them. Already happened to me twice! Now I’ve learned to carry my own tissues. And don’t forget your euros – it almost always cost money to use the bathrooms.

I’m on a train!

Obligatory stoic picture looking out the window. Too bad we hadn’t left the station yet!

Writing on the train.
(I love that cute, old Italian guy sitting behind me in this pic.)

I’m so clever…

Shakespeare couldn’t have put it better himself!

I’m a word-play genius!

Views

More views

Josh said, “Holly, you’re so beautiful!”

So then I did this!

And I guess I should include one pic of my cute hubby. 🙂

Leave a comment

Viva Italia – Day 4 – Rome

By sunshineandholly on December 28, 2011

Today was great! Early morning tour of the Vatican (thank goodness for Skip-the-Line tours – a MUST here) and the Sistine Chapel (beautiful!).

The God of Wine 🙂

A random toe.

At the Vatican, I took a picture with Diana, the goddess of fertility. I posted the pic on Facebook, tagging my mom and my mother-in-law saying, “I took this picture for you two!” Lol!

The Sistine Chapel really was amazing. My neck hurt after we were done from staring at the ceiling! You couldn’t talk or take pics in the chapel – they even had 2 guards in there that kept chanting, “Noooo phoootooos” and then they’d say, “Shhhhh!” It was pretty funny.

Even though you weren’t supposed to talk in the chapel, our guide was able to point out a few things right before we left. There were 2 places on the ceiling where Michelangelo painted his likeness/face into the mural. One was in the picture of the last judgement – St. Bartholomew was holding his skin (in the bible he was skinned alive) and Michelangelo painted his face on the skin. Creepy! The other spot was in the back on a picture of a guy laying headless on a bed and two women carrying his head in a basket – that head had the face of Michelangelo.
And the BEST part of the Sistine Chapel – the DRAAAAMAAAA that happened! Again, picture us in the chapel – this beautiful, sacred place where people we just staring in awe at the beautiful murals. We were PACKED in like sardines in there – it was crazy crowded. And hard to move around. One of the older, American ladies that was with our tour, apparently got bumped by an Asian woman from another tour. Well the American lady turned around and PUSHED – like SHOVED the Asian lady, almost knocking her over!!! I still can’t believe that happened! I mean, who does that? The Asian lady just stared the American lady down. (Good for her! I might have started a fight if it had been me!) THEN the American lady turned to her husband and started complaining about the “stupid Japanese tourists.” Geez. No wonder everyone hates Americans!!

We couldn’t go to St. Peter’s because the Pope was having mass. Seriously – someone should have told him Holly and Josh were coming so he could have rescheduled!

On the way back from the tour, we got off the bus right at the Trevi Fountain and toured around a bit more on our own. We walked around the outside of the Colosseum again too. Our feet were killing us, so we took a break on some steps overlooking the Colosseum. It was fun sitting there and people watching! Josh and Holly, just sittin’ and relaxin’ in Italy. Normal day, right? Ha!

The place we choose for lunch that day was alright…def not the best meal we had. I had gnocchi with 4 cheese sauce and Josh had spaghetti with seafood. I had caffe after the meal, which was the best part – mmmm!

Just sitting outside a ristorante in Rome, watching people walk by on the street, drinking caffe, with the Italian Flag in the background. You know, a normal day. 🙂

This pic cracks me up! Josh took a bunch of these pics of me looking sideways – we were just trying to take an artistic picture. The lady behind me must have wondered what I kept looking at – so she looked over too!

For dinner, we tried to go somewhere new, but after sitting at a table for 20 minutes we figured maybe the waiter didn’t want to serve us because we were American? We left and went to the same restaurant we went to the first night – yum! At the restaurant, the waiter (which was the same guy we had the 1st time) told us we ordered wine the wrong way (the American way). He said Americans order wine before they order the food. The Italian way is to order food and then pair the wine with what you’ve ordered to eat. We figured he was just trying to talk us into buying a more expensive wine. But he was really nice and fun to talk to, so we let him suggest something. I can’t remember what it was, but it was delish! I had steak with rosemary oil and Josh had some type of pasta…can’t remember more than that.

We had a great time in Rome, despite our dinner adventures on our last night. Off to Sorrento tomorrow!

Leave a comment

family | fun | Uncategorized

Merry Christmas!

By sunshineandholly on December 25, 2011

Leave a comment

car | Uncategorized

Big Red the Reliable

By sunshineandholly on December 20, 2011

I got a flat tire this morning! 🙁

The car in front of me swerved to miss a broke pipe in the road, but I didn’t have time to swerve so I ran over it…and it immediately blew my front tire. Uggg.

So I pulled over in the first place I saw…which just happened to be the parking lot of a sketchy bar. I called AAA to come change my tire, but then I had to tell 3 different AAA employees that I was in the parking lot of a bar. I sounded like a real winner! 😉

Anyway, the guy came in less than 15 minutes and changed out my tire. So I’m good to go now.

I’m so thankful I have AAA service, and that I have a working car. I got flashbacks of all the issues I had with my old car (Myrtle the Turtle) and it makes me remember how blessed I am to have a car that’s reliable. I love Big Red! 🙂

Leave a comment

Thanksgiving 2011!

By sunshineandholly on December 8, 2011

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year! The 4 days off in a row were so nice – especially since after Italy, I have no other vacation time to use.

We kicked off our break with some Italian style pizza. I’ve been craving GOOD Italian food ever since we got back. I was trying not to be one of “those people” who say things like, “Oh, pizza is WAY better in ITALY” and “That’s not AUTHENTIC Italian food.” But…we were def spoiled in Italy because since we got back, pizza and pasta just hasn’t been the same!

Josh got pasta carbonara…surprise, surprise. 🙂

That boy loves his carbonara. 🙂

Thanksgiving day we spent with Josh’s family in Elberton. Pecans are SUPER expensive right now, so all morning we picked up the pecans in his grandparents yard so they could sell them for profit. Josh’s dad even climbed up in the pecan tress to shake some down. Only in the country!!!

I refrained from calling them rednecks. 🙂

Here’s one of the buckets – I think we picked up about 8 – 10 buckets full. Maybe around $1000 worth of pecans!

I made the green bean casserole and a CUTE apple pie…that nobody ate. 🙁 I’m going to tell my self that it was just too pretty and there were so many other desserts, that no one had room for pie.

Also got my hair cut during Thanksgiving break. I tried out Salon 11 in Dunwoody – I was SO impressed! I loved the girl who cut my hair – she was super nice and did a great job. She even showed me how to curl my hair with the straightener.

We also got a Kinect. 🙂

We made some pasta carbonara. It was just as good as what we had in Italy. 🙂

Josh hung up some icicle lights on our house. We def need more outside Christmas decorations.

Speaking of rednecks…look what was hiding on the side of my house!!!!!!!!! Yes, folks, that’s my old oven that I thought my wonderful husband had put out on the street for the trash collectors to dispose of. NOPE! He decided instead to hide it on the side of our house right before we had a bunch of people over for our “kitchen open house” and then forgot about it. Argh. Sometimes…I worry about that boy… I told him that we don’t live out in the country – we can leave junk in our yard!

We also went Christmas shopping for my niece and nephew. She wanted this Barbie (umm…I don’t know any doctors who wear shoes like that!) and he wanted an ice cream play-dough set. Both toys look like so much fun! I told Josh I wanted to play with them too!

Got out my cute table decorations!

I love Christmas!

Lacey and Jack were happy to have us home for 4 days. Love my happy baby girl!

How many days until the Christmas break? 🙂

1 Comment