Florence and Pisa

We spent the second half of our week in Florence with a quick stop in Pisa. Florence is a great city, and we got to see a lot of cool things (and the food there was AMAZING), but after visiting Cinque Terre I think any city would seem slightly dull in comparison. It would be like the Backstreet Boys following the Beatles in a concert -- still okay, but you would really just be hoping the Beatles would come back out and play instead. :)

Probably the most recognizable sight in Florence is the huge Duomo Cathedral, which is absolutely stunning. The outside of it is completely unique and so detailed, it's difficult to even describe. It's hard to get a picture of the whole thing from close up because it is so big, but here are a couple attempts...

The next well-known thing we got to see was the original David statue by Michelangelo, which is located at the Accademia Museum in Florence. We were both blown away by how massive the David was! I pictured him being a normal human size, but I could not have been more wrong! Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside the museum, but there are "fake" David statues all over Florence, so here is one, just to give you an idea.

Florence is actually a much smaller city than I thought it was, and we were able to walk everywhere we went, so we did a lot of wandering. Here is Jord in front of the river that runs through the middle of the city. Leave it to my husband to wear a shirt with a UK flag on it in Italy. :)

In my opinion, the huge highlight in Florence was the food. We had some of the most AMAZING meals while we were there, and it was easy to see how enjoying good food is really a huge part of the Italian culture. I think maybe I was Italian in another life! :)

Also, Florence is known to have the best gelato in the world -- they call it an edible art form -- and it certainly did not disappoint! 

Another neat landmark in Florence is the Ponte Vecchio bridge. This bridge almost looks like an extension of the city since it has buildings and shops built right into it. It is so unique!

Although we've been in Europe for almost 5 months and traveled to quite a few places, I think we finally found the world's smallest car. :)

Our first night in Florence, we decided to hike up to the Piazzale Michelangelo before dinner, which is a hilltop square overlooking all of Florence. The view was beautiful, and it was neat to see how much the Duomo Cathedral stands out in the city's skyline.

We were trying to decide which "dome" was bigger, my head or the Duomo?! :) 

A constant joke between Jordan and I (and a few others) is how big both of our heads are. Yes, I have considered this minor detail in relation to having kids, which just adds one more reason why it scares me to death!!! :)

There was another replica of the David overlooking the square, and the whole city for that matter. It almost seems like the David is Florence's mascot or something. :)

We found someone to take our picture with the view of Florence in the background right before the sun set. 

Our final day in Florence, we were able to go inside the Duomo Cathedral, which was a really awesome experience. The best part was looking up in the huge dome, which is completely covered in biblical paintings.

To see all of our pictures from Florence, click here.

During our time in Florence, we were able to make a quick trip to the city of Pisa. I don't really know why, but I've always wanted to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and since we were so close it seemed silly not to go see it! So we took the quick train trip and walked through the town of Pisa, and got to see the Leaning Tower...

It was actually way cooler to see it in person than both Jordan and I thought it would be. They allow you to climb the Tower all the way to the top, but we opted out of that one -- the Tower is leaning 15 feet off its vertical axis, which just didn't do it for me... no thank you! :)

The Leaning Tower sits right next to a few beautiful religious buildings in Pisa -- they call the whole area the "Field of Miracles." 

I've seen a few of my friends' pictures who have been to Pisa, and I was dying to get a few of the classic "leaning on the Leaning Tower of Pisa" pics. :) It was actually pretty funny because there were dozens of people out in the field in front of the Tower doing this exact same pose! 

So here is Jordan leaning on the Tower...

And here I am leaning against, well, actually pushing over the Tower. :)

This is the beautiful Baptistery building across the field from the Leaning Tower. It was absolutely stunning. You might have noticed that all of the buildings in the Field of Miracles have a similar style and kind of match, which I loved. I think all cities should have matching buildings. :)

Jordan had to go check out the foundation and base of the Tower, of course. :) We actually started to feel bad for the guy who built this since he is famous for building a tower that doesn't stand up straight, which probably didn't do much for his professional reputation!

To see the rest of our pictures from Pisa, click here.

All in all, we had a wonderful vacation in Italy. We had amazing weather the entire time, and the food was absolutely to die for! We have been so impressed with Italy as a whole -- so many neat cities!

We got back to London late Friday afternoon, and have recently started the cleaning and packing process to go home. It has been a little strange to think about leaving our life here, but in the same token we are stoked to see everyone and be back in our real home. :) We fly into Spokane late Wednesday night.

I am going to try to post once more before we leave with a London pros and cons list, and maybe a few other highlights. We'll see... any suggestions?? :)

Cinque Terre... heaven on earth!

We started our mini vacation in Cinque Terre, which is quite possibly heaven on earth. I'm going to warn you ahead of time, I fell in love with Cinque Terre. True, unconditional love. This love led to way too many pictures, of which I had a hard time choosing between, as you can tell. So there is your forewarning, I repeat, a complete obsession with Cinque Terre and way too many pictures of it!

With that said...

I'll give you the quick Rick Steves' rundown of what the Cinque Terre actually is: "The Cinque Terre, a remote chunk of the Italian Riviera, is the traffic-free, lowbrow, under-appreciated alternative to the French Riviera. There's not a museum in sight. Just sun, sea, sand, wine, and pure, unadulterated Italy." Rick Steves just says it so much better than I do! :) Basically, there are 5 little towns all consisting of pastel-colored buildings, built into the cliffside. To get between the towns you can hike, take a train, or take a boat. 

We stayed in Vernazza, which is said to be the jewel of the Cinque Terre, and I would have to agree. :) Jordan booked us a great place to stay, right on the harbor. The hotel he booked was full, so they put us up in an amazing, spacious apartment. Here was the view from our balcony...

Not only was the setting of Cinque Terre incredible, but then you have delicious authentic Italian food to boot! :) We ate at a little outdoor cafe for lunch the first day, and ordered "two glasses of house white wine" which apparently means "a huge liter of house white wine" in Italian. :) We were dying laughing when our waiter brought it to the table.

We found out that pesto originated in the Cinque Terre, so we took full advantage of it! I have never had more fresh or authentic pesto in my whole life. We ordered pesto and tomato bruschetta for an appetizer... it was incredible!

We heard it was worth it to hike the trails between the towns, so we went for it. Little did we know that two of the hikes were 90 minutes long, and mostly uphill. The views were definitely breathtaking. Here is Jord overlooking Vernazza, where we stayed, on our first hike out of town.

The view of Vernazza from a little higher up. And yes, I assure you, this place is real. :)

I loved this shot of Jordan looking out at the ocean. These were the views we got on the hike, so I guess you could say it was worth it. :)

We hiked to the town farthest north the first day, called Monterosso. It is a beautiful little town with big sandy beaches.

I can't even tell you how happy we were to have the town in sight after 90 minutes of steep hiking! :)

Since 4 out of the 5 towns in Cinque Terre are on the water, they all have a small beach town feel to them. Notice how the boats are actually in parking spots on the road?! :)

We decided to splurge a little on our first dinner in Cinque Terre. We found this amazing little restaurant literally on the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean in Vernazza, which served Tuscan style seafood and pastas. We had THE MOST AMAZING appetizer -- specialty cheeses dipped in honey -- and we are officially addicted to it. :) 

Can you even believe this view??!!?! Yes, again, I promise this is real!

The next day we decided to hike to the other 3 towns south of Vernazza. Here is the other side of Vernazza, which, as you can see, forms a natural harbor.

I am not exaggerating when I say that the hiking trails were steep, narrow, and NOT easy! There were a few flat spots, and like I said, at the end of the day, we were both glad we hiked them. 

I have never been to Hawaii, but from some of the pictures I've seen of the remote areas there, I felt like these views had a striking resemblance. The water was SO blue...

We finally reached the first town south of Vernazza, called Corniglia, which is the only one of the 5 towns that is not right on the water. 

Oh, did I mention the weather was amazing?! It was between 75 and 80 degrees each day -- tank top and shorts weather... finally! :)

We made a point to stop in each town and wander a little bit (and sample the gelato...)

The next town we came to was Manarola. Besides Vernazza, this was my favorite! I simply could not get enough of the pastel buildings!!

We managed to find someone to take our picture in front of Manarola. I always get a little snobby about strangers taking our picture because I want it to be just right, but you kind of just have to deal with what you get. :)

Seriously?! The buildings? OBSESSED. I told Jordan I want to build a house like that someday. :) It might stand out just a tad in Spokane...

We wandered through Manarola, and it felt so authentically Italian. I could not get enough!

Finally we reached the last city, Riomaggiore. Again, the Italian charm mixed in with the beach town aura was absolutely perfect.

I found myself taking a lot of pictures of Riomaggiore. I think the way the buildings in this town are stacked one on top of the other all the way up the harbor makes it so unique.

Since Riomaggiore was the last city, we decided to take the boat taxi back to Vernazza, partly to skip the hike back but mostly because we thought it would be cool to see the cities from the water. :)

Here is a wider view of Riomaggiore, taken from the boat taxi...

Manarola, as seen from the ocean...

I love the way Corniglia looks nestled into the mountains from this view...

We made it back to Vernazza, and we were beat, so we spent the next few hours laying on the beach. :) Once we showered and got cleaned up, we decided to get some takeout -- pesto pizza and wine -- and eat dinner on the private terrace our hotel offered to its guests. We didn't really know what the terrace would be like, but how bad could it be, right?!

Absolutely AMAZING! We had the whole terrace and this view all to ourselves...

Once it started to get dark, we walked back to the harbor and this sunset greeted us. It was the perfect ending to one of my all-time favorite days...

So there you have it. My new favorite city, the Cinque Terre. If you haven't been there, go. If you have been there, go again. I don't know that I've ever felt so relaxed and content in my whole life as I did in Cinque Terre. Jordan and I loved our honeymoon, but we both agreed this would be an absolutely incredible honeymoon destination! It is relaxing, romantic, fun, beautiful, charming, sunny, remote... I could go on and on... and I didn't even mention the food. :)

I don't think Jordan and I said a word to each other the whole train ride out of Cinque Terre, we were both so sad to leave. But I know that someday we will go back, maybe for an anniversary trip or something. Yes, Jord, this is me dropping hints! :)

If you've made it this far in the post, I'm impressed! I seriously could not limit down my pictures, so there are two Cinque Terre photo albums. If you want to check them out, click on the links below:

Click here for Cinque Terre photo album 1

Click here for Cinque Terre photo album 2

More posts coming soon on the rest of our trip, Florence and Pisa... stay tuned! :)

Romeo & Juliet, Abbey Road, and May flowers

The last couple weeks have flown by! Jordan finished his internship on Friday, and is officially done with his law program here in London. I'm not sure who is more excited about that, him or me. :) I managed to stay somewhat busy while he was working, but wandering around London is not nearly as fun by yourself! Here are a few highlights of what we've been doing the last couple weeks...

Something I have always wanted to do is to see a play in Shakespeare's Globe Theater. The play season for the Globe starts in May because it is an open air theater, so Jordan booked us tickets to go see Romeo & Juliet. The original Globe Theater burned to the ground in the great London fire in 1666, but they rebuilt it as exact as possible to the original theater, and they still perform all the authentic Shakespeare plays like they did during Shakespeare's time. 

I totally forgot to take a picture of the outside of the Globe Theater, so I kinda "borrowed" this one from the internet so you could see what it looks like. :)

Jordan surprised me and got us AMAZING seats right in the front row of the second level! We had the best view, and it was so incredible to watch Romeo & Juliet just how Shakespeare wrote it and intended it to be watched in his theater!

I was trying to give you an idea of how good our seats were -- you can see the back of Jordan's head in this picture. You'll also notice a ton of people standing on the ground. They sell standing tickets for really cheap, just like they did when Shakespeare was alive! We were both so impressed with how authentic the whole experience was, and how neat it was to watch a play in an open air theater under the stars.

We weren't able to take pictures during the play, but a few of the actors came out beforehand, so I was able to get this shot. 

The next thing to cross of our list was to check out Abbey Road, which probably means nothing to you if you're not a Beatles fan. :) I was raised on the Beatles, and they are one of my all-time favorites, so I was determined to head down there and get some pictures. Jordan wasn't quite as excited as I was, but he was a trooper, nonetheless... :)

I had seen an amazing print for sale in Notting Hill of a totally graffitied Abbey Road street sign, and I was determined to find it and take my own picture. So Jordan and I walked up and down the ENTIRE road, and were a little discouraged when we couldn't find it anywhere. There was an old man who asked us if we needed help, and we told him what we were looking for, and he told us that people steel the Abbey Road signs so often that it probably just wasn't there anymore. Oh well. The picture above wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it will do. :)

We still were able to get some pics of the famous crosswalk that the Beatles walked across for the cover of the Abbey Road album. :) Yep, that's me, walking across it! I'm such a tourist...

We have been spending a lot more time in London's beautiful parks now that the weather is pretty nice. And by "pretty nice" I mean "not raining." It has turned into a great way to spend an afternoon (and not to mention, a cheap thing to do in London) to grab some sandwiches, and head out to the park with our books and our camera.

One of our favorite parks is Regent's Park, which is absolutely gigantic! It has a ton of gorgeous flower gardens, and somehow I managed to get way too many pictures... I think I was just a little over-anxious for spring! :)

So there you have it! I am FINALLY all caught up on the blog!! I do realize I am the only one excited about this, don't worry.

Jordan and I leave for our last trip while we're here tomorrow morning, and we are SO EXCITED!! We will be in Italy until Friday -- we fly into Pisa and will spend a couple hours there, then we head to Cinque Terre for a couple days, and finally we spend a couple days in Florence before we fly back to London. I'm sure I'll have plenty of pictures to post when we get back! :)

Back in London

We made it back to London after our awesome spring break trips, and Jordan started his 3-week internship the very next morning! The firm he was placed at is called SJ Berwin, and is in downtown London right on the Thames River. He ended up liking the internship for the most part, although at the end of each day I mostly got to hear about the little perks involved, such as free lunches, a rooftop garden overlooking the city, an on-site masseuse... you know, the really important things. :) 

The sector he was working in dealt mostly with environmental issues. Quite honestly, I don't know a ton about it (I wish he was posting this instead of me!) So if you're interested, click here to go to SJ Berwin's main website.

Lindsay and I met Jordan down by his office for lunch one day, so I was able to snap a picture of him in his fancy work clothes. Doesn't he look HOT?! :) The building directly to his right across the river with all the windows is SJ Berwin's office building, where he worked.

Lindsay had a whole week left in London once we got back from Italy and Greece! Since she'd already been to London -- she visited me for a few days when I was here in college -- we didn't have to squeeze in many tourist sights, which left a lot of time for our main priority: SHOPPING. :) For those of you who know my sister, you know she can shop with the best of 'em, and she has an amazing wardrobe to prove it! And quite honestly, I had been limiting myself on the shopping end of things throughout my time in London, saving up for when she got here. As you may know, London is ranked with Paris and New York in the top three places to shop in the world, so we went ahead and took full advantage. :) I am not exaggerating when I say we hit every major shopping area (some of them twice or three times), which filled up most of our days.

Don't worry, we did manage to squeeze in a few other activities while Linds was here! We took her to all our favorite restaurants, watched THE MOST exciting soccer game amidst crazy British fans at our favorite pub, went to the theater twice to see two musicals -- Chicago and a new play called Spring Awakening -- both of which were fabulous, went downtown with millions of other people to watch the London Marathon, she treated me to a pedicure for my birthday present, and we did a TON of walking around the city to revisit some of the main sights... 

I know I've already posted a picture of this building, London's City Hall Building, but I liked this one better. Is this not the funkiest, most random building you've ever seen?! I love it.

One of the coolest things we got to do while Lindsay was here was go eat at a place called Dans Le Noir. You may have heard of it before; basically, it is where you eat in complete and total darkness. A dark dinner, for lack of better words. :) The first Dans Le Noir restaurant started in Paris, and they just recently opened one in London. We had a recommendation to do this from some friends back home, and we have been wanting to do it ever since we got here! 

Basically, what happens is they have you choose from a general menu before you go inside the dark room -- you get to choose from 1) meat, 2) seafood, 3) vegetarian, or 4) surprise! Jordan chose meat, I chose seafood, and Lindsay chose surprise. So other than knowing your general category, you have absolutely NO IDEA what your food is going to be! All the servers are blind, and they lead you back into the dark room to your table and get you seated. To be honest, I pictured it being dark but thought you'd still be able to see a little bit. I WAS WRONG. I am not exaggerating the least bit when I say I've never been in a room so completely dark in my entire life!!! I kept waving my hand an inch from my face, and I could not see it! It was absolutely CRAZY!

The whole point of the dining experience is to let your other senses take over. I will admit, it was a little scary for me to have no idea what I was eating! You honestly get the full experience of what it's like to be blind, and all along your waiter gives you tips on how to pour your wine, how to feel if there's any food left on your plate, etc. Needless to say, we had some absolute hysterical moments, and by the end of it our hands were covered in food. :) When you're finished with your three courses, they lead you back out into the lobby, which is lit, and you get to try and guess what your food was! They have a detailed picture and description they show you once you've guessed, so you end up getting to find out exactly what it was. 

We all ended up loving it and having so much fun, and concluded that it was BY FAR one of the most unique and interesting experiences we've ever had! To read more about it, click here to visit the Dans Le Noir website.

It was such a blast to have Lindsay come visit us! Although our tiny flat just kept getting fuller and fuller with all the shopping going on. :) Here's a glimpse into our living situation for the week...

Two hundred square feet, countless shopping bags, all of Lindsay's luggage, a blown-up air mattress... one big happy family! :)

I took Linds to the airport when it came time for her to leave, which was a complete circus... she was nice enough to take a huge bag home for us along with her luggage, and you can only imagine the two of us dragging two humungous, exploding-full, heavy bags down the streets of London to the tube. Oh, did I mention it was raining? And did I mention that I'm not strong? We only had one minor catastrophe where the bags toppled over on the wet sidewalk and I almost wet my pants because we were laughing so hard, but other than that, we made it safe and sound. :) I love my sis, and miss her already!

P.S. I am ALMOST caught up with the blog! Hurray!! One more post, and I'll be there. :)