Monday, April 9, 2007
Pictures are UP!
I still have tons more to add, but many of the starting off pictures and the Germany pictures are finally up. Click here to see them! I will be adding more soon, and hopefully will have time to better organize them.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
I have not forgotten about the pictures!
Sorry everybody- we took nearly 400 pictures while there, and it is taking a bit longer to sort through than anticipated. However, we are working on it! Check back soon!
Saturday, March 31, 2007
We made it back!
We are back in Wichita! We will be posting pictures over the next few days...I will be sure to link to the entries that have pictures as I do it. I will also be downloading our millions of pictures to Flickr...I will post the link when I do that. (Think Monday. Maybe even Tuesday.)
Jimmy was an amazing house sitter. If anybody in the Wichita area needs a house sitter, I have your guy! E-mail me.
Jimmy was an amazing house sitter. If anybody in the Wichita area needs a house sitter, I have your guy! E-mail me.
Friday, March 30, 2007
On our way home
We are writing this from the Frankfurt airport...we are on our way home. It will be nice to see our pets and have our own beds and toilets that include toilet seats, but we will miss being here. We had a great time! Be sure to check this blog again over the next few days, as we will be adding photos and updating a few things. See everybody later!
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Florence Part II
Today we had a lovely day in Florence. We started by attempting to have breakfast at the Boboli Gardens. We packed up a great picnic of goodies Jeremy bought yesterday at a grocery store. We had meats, cheeses, rolls, fruit...all for under ten euros. Not a bad way to save money. We checked out of our hotel, stashed our luggage at the front desk, and hoofed it all the way to the palace where the garden is...just to find a big sign saying that no food could be brought in. This would not have annoyed us so much except that this picnic was reccomended in our guidebook. Our guidebook is smoking crack. (Later we shall post an entry with that title, listing the crack smoking ways of our guidebook. Although it did have some great advice and other things.) So instead we ate on a concrete slad right beside the palace, while pigeons clammored around us for crumbs. We then went to pick some ice cream, since it is our last day in Italy. We also went to the Accedemia to check out David and other art. We had reservations, but it was still stressful. We had to stand in this huge line, and when the surley guy came out to shout our time, we had to shove our way to the front of the line and pretty much demand entry. After this we had to go through security, where Cathy accidently stole some guy's glasses, thinking they were Kirk's. (Do not worry, he got them back.) It was neat seeing David, but the crowds were overwhelming, and we are here in the off season! What does it look like in the summer?
We zipped over to pick up or clean laundry, ate lunch, and are now awaiting our train. We are taking another night train to Switzerland, and then will be on a train to Frankfort tomorrow morning. We will spend the day in Frankfort, Germany on Friday and be on the plane Saturday morning. Hard to believe that it is nearly over!
We zipped over to pick up or clean laundry, ate lunch, and are now awaiting our train. We are taking another night train to Switzerland, and then will be on a train to Frankfort tomorrow morning. We will spend the day in Frankfort, Germany on Friday and be on the plane Saturday morning. Hard to believe that it is nearly over!
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
The Fire of Firenze! (Florence, Italy!)
We love Florence. We have decided to cancel Milan/Lake Como to spend an extra day here. We got in fairly late last night, and we are staying at a very cute hotel. Our room is actually in an apartment building, and it is a studio with a kitchen. After we type up this entry, we will be heading off to the market to buy some food for our fridge. We are going to have a picnic breakfast tomorrow morning at Giardini Boboli. We also hope to go to the Galleria dell Accademia to see David and all the other tresaures burried within.
Today got off to an interesting start. We decided to stay in Florence, and were able to get our cute room for another night at the same Priceline rate. We had the hotel desk clerk make reservations for us to eat lunch at Ristorante Casa di Dante. We also asked for directions for a drop off laundry. We spent a few hours in Amsterdam doing it ourselves, and it occured to us that it may be worth paying somebody else to do it for us so we could enjoy ourselves since time is at a premium right now. The first place we went that the desk clerk gave us directions to turned out to be a self service laundry. Our guidebook gave us directions for one, which we tried to find. We ended up at a convent, where a very kind nun tried to explain in rapid Italian that we were in the wrong place. She kept gestering to Kirk's red jacket and Jeremy's black one (we got him one at a thrift store in Berlin) and waving her arms. The addresses in Florence are weird. There are two numbers, one red and one black, and we were at the black address. We needed the red address. We found it, dropped off our laundry, and were on our way to lunch!
Lunch was one of the better parts of this trip. Casa di Dante has been open since the 1400's and was a favorite of various artists during the Rennesance. The food was incredible, and we were stuffed at the end. We did the whole traditional Italian thing, which was eating an appitizer, a first course, and a second course. We also had to try the wine! Our appetizer was pears with brie and dandelion leaves. Even Kirk, who is not a fan of brie, enjoyed it, especialy with the dandlion leaves. For our first course, Kirk had a ravioli with this sauce that really looked like nacho cheese, but tasted like heaven. Cathy had a soup with bacon and vegetables, which everybody liked. Jeremy's risotto with gorgonzalla cheese was the hit. Everybody kept sneaking bites off his plate. Our second course was just as good. Kirk had chicken marsala, and Cathy and Jeremy both had a souflee with a cheese sauce. We followed with coffee, and we tried a 1/4 liter of both the red and white wines. Mmmmm...
After we were stuffed to the gills, we went to the Duomo. It was really big, really pretty, and best of all, Free! We also paid a small fee to go look at the ruins of an earlier church, where we got to see the tomb of one of the ex customers of where we ate lunch.
After the Duomo, Jeremy went up the tower and took pictures for all of us. We then went shopping at the markets for gifts and postcards and such. Cathy popped into Gucci to check out the bags-a bargain at about 1300 euros each- but did not find anything she liked. They looked too cheap to her! Most of her bags cost at least 5000 each, you know.
We are off to find food for our breakfast tomorrow, then possibly to Pisa to get a picture of the tower at night. Speaking of pictures, one day we will upload lots of pictures from this trip! We are sad that it has not been as easy to do that as we had hoped.
Tomorrow evening we are starting the journey back to Frankfort so we can come home. We hope to update again, but if we do not, we will see everybody when we get back.
Today got off to an interesting start. We decided to stay in Florence, and were able to get our cute room for another night at the same Priceline rate. We had the hotel desk clerk make reservations for us to eat lunch at Ristorante Casa di Dante. We also asked for directions for a drop off laundry. We spent a few hours in Amsterdam doing it ourselves, and it occured to us that it may be worth paying somebody else to do it for us so we could enjoy ourselves since time is at a premium right now. The first place we went that the desk clerk gave us directions to turned out to be a self service laundry. Our guidebook gave us directions for one, which we tried to find. We ended up at a convent, where a very kind nun tried to explain in rapid Italian that we were in the wrong place. She kept gestering to Kirk's red jacket and Jeremy's black one (we got him one at a thrift store in Berlin) and waving her arms. The addresses in Florence are weird. There are two numbers, one red and one black, and we were at the black address. We needed the red address. We found it, dropped off our laundry, and were on our way to lunch!
Lunch was one of the better parts of this trip. Casa di Dante has been open since the 1400's and was a favorite of various artists during the Rennesance. The food was incredible, and we were stuffed at the end. We did the whole traditional Italian thing, which was eating an appitizer, a first course, and a second course. We also had to try the wine! Our appetizer was pears with brie and dandelion leaves. Even Kirk, who is not a fan of brie, enjoyed it, especialy with the dandlion leaves. For our first course, Kirk had a ravioli with this sauce that really looked like nacho cheese, but tasted like heaven. Cathy had a soup with bacon and vegetables, which everybody liked. Jeremy's risotto with gorgonzalla cheese was the hit. Everybody kept sneaking bites off his plate. Our second course was just as good. Kirk had chicken marsala, and Cathy and Jeremy both had a souflee with a cheese sauce. We followed with coffee, and we tried a 1/4 liter of both the red and white wines. Mmmmm...
After we were stuffed to the gills, we went to the Duomo. It was really big, really pretty, and best of all, Free! We also paid a small fee to go look at the ruins of an earlier church, where we got to see the tomb of one of the ex customers of where we ate lunch.
After the Duomo, Jeremy went up the tower and took pictures for all of us. We then went shopping at the markets for gifts and postcards and such. Cathy popped into Gucci to check out the bags-a bargain at about 1300 euros each- but did not find anything she liked. They looked too cheap to her! Most of her bags cost at least 5000 each, you know.
We are off to find food for our breakfast tomorrow, then possibly to Pisa to get a picture of the tower at night. Speaking of pictures, one day we will upload lots of pictures from this trip! We are sad that it has not been as easy to do that as we had hoped.
Tomorrow evening we are starting the journey back to Frankfort so we can come home. We hope to update again, but if we do not, we will see everybody when we get back.
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