Your Power Color Is Teal

At Your Highest: You feel accomplished and optimistic about the future. At Your Lowest: You feel in a slump and lack creativity. In Love: You tend to be many people's ideal partner. How You're Attractive: You make people feel confident and accepted. Your Eternal Question: "What Impression Am I Giving?"

What's" Your Power Color?

Italy day 5: We had reservations at the Uffizi in the morning, so we headed straight over there. It was absolutely incredible. It was so busy though! I wish that I could've just sat in there all day and looked at all of the art. We saw The Birth of Venus and all the other Botticelli's in the gallery, I think my favorite Boticelli was the Innunciation. I also loved the Madonna and Child by Lippi. The Holy Family by Michelangelo was also a high point. Everything we saw was just incredible. We spent 4 or 5 hours in the gallery. Then it was time to search for something to eat. We finally found a place that looked okay and had some pizza. Italian pizza is soooo good!!! Then we headed to go see Michelangelo's David. WOW! It is just so incredible to see in person. What talent. Unfortunately were weren't allowed to take any photos here or at the Uffizi. After the David we went to Vivoli's and had some incredible Gellato. Then we went and sat in the piazza at Santa Croce while I fixed my shoes (bandaids!). Then we walked across the river Arno and walked up Michelangelo's Hill. It was a nice walk, beautiful all the way up. I kept stopping to take pictures and Bryan kept saying, it just gets better, why stop to take pictures now? He was right too. It was so beautiful! We were there just as the sun was setting and it was breathtaking! The moon was also visible just behind the bronze reproduction of the David. Just gorgeous. Then we walked a bit farther up the hill to a church that Bryan used to go to on Sundays to read and the view was even better and there was hardly anyone else up there. It was nice to finally feel like we weren't in the middle of a crowd. By the time we started to head home we were exhausted and I had definitely worn the wrong shoes ( sandals!) so we caught a bus and hit the hay at our hotel.

Italy Day 4: Woke up way too late! We had bought tickets for the 8 am train but our hotel never gave us our wakeup call!!! Grrrrr. We were not happy. We had to wait until 11am for the next train so we had breakfast at the hotel and organized our bags, then we went to a little supermarket to get some food for the day. That was an interesting experience, I was in the produce section and this little old lady kept glaring at me and I couldn't figure out why, then I noticed that she had a little plastic glove on the hand she was using to pickup her fruit, oops! I guess that's "polite" over there. I felt bad for spreading my cooties all over their fruit. Live and learn. Bryan found a nice lady to ask some questions about some of the cheese and we bought some provolone picante cheese, which with cheese in Italy picante means strong, not hot. It was sooo good. We had it with some prociutto and bread from the bakery. We also bought 3 huge bottles of water. Water was so hard to find sometimes! Then we had to lug it all back to the hotel and then with our bags to the train station. The train ride to Florence was nice, we couldn't see a ton, but what we saw was gorgeous. I was always suprised at how much more mediterranian the surrounding were, I don't know why, but I always figured it was more desert-like in Italy. Well, it's not! We got to Florence and walked to our hotel. After we signed for the room the owner said, "Oh, by the way, you can't bring any food into the hotel, we have a problem with rodents." Nice. The hotel was actually okay and the breakfast in the morning was good, their hot chocholate was to die for! Anyways, after we checked in we took a walk around the city. It was fun to see a bit of the night-life. Florence definitely felt more like what I had imagined Italy to be like. It had much more of an old-world feel. (although it also was very modern and hip) We looked at the markets which were just a couple of blocks from our hotel. Can I just say heaven? I loved almost everything I saw and I'm pretty picky. The leather goods were just beautiful. I got myself a pair of gloves and drooled at everything else we passed. Sigh. It was great.

Italy Day 3:
We woke up in Como and hopped a train to Venice. (by way of Milan) The view on the way was beautiful, particularly around Verona. We stopped in Venizia Mestre, just outside of Venice, to drop off our luggge at our hotel. When we went back to the station they had stopped selling tickets to Venice!!! (less than 10 mins. away) I think it was some problem with their computers, or just that it was soooo busy. We finally found an atm machine and grabbed a taxi. It was refreshing to be in a car and not surrounded by sweating people. In Venice we got another nice suprise, since it was the day of the Historical Regatta none of the Canal "taxis'" were running. So we did the whole thing on foot. What a day! We walked for a while and then had lunch/dinner at an outdoor restaurant on the canal so that we could see the boat races. It was fun to see all of the Gondoliers in period costume. I was amazed at their dexterity in the water. One question I have is why do they row standing up? We saw all of the parade, but decided to go before the races. (we would have had to wait 2.5 hours between the two.) It was fun seeing all of the back alleyways with the little piazzas and small canals everywhere. I saw lots of places that I could have spent forever in just looking. We were absolutely exhausted and majorly dehydrated as they don't have drinking fountains over there. We spent sooo much time trying to find water everyday. Don't know what their deal is. Went and saw the exterior of St. Mark's (it was closed) and the bridge of sighs, so sad. On our way back through Venice we stopped on the Rialto Bridge and bought some Murano Glass. (obviously the store's cheapest items, okay almost) I couldn't believe how much they charged for it all! But I do have to say some of it was just gorgeous. It was a beautiful day in Venice. On our way back to the hotel we stopped for a little to eat at.... you guessed it... McDonald's. I just so badly wanted a drink with ice in it and I finally got one!!! It was such a happy moment. (so sad but true) Back at the hotel we asked for a wakeup call (since none of the hotels have clocks, didn't know that until we were over there) and called our little boy. It made me so homesick to hear his little voice on the other end!! What a cutie.

Italy Day 2: Woke up, had a fabulous breakfast at the hotel (Best Western, it was nice to have some semblance of the US in the midst of Italy) And headed to the Duomo. We had seen the facade (what wasn't covered for restoration work) and the interior on the day before. Beautiful. The art inside was gorgeous and the pillars were huge, reminded me of when I went to the Redwood Forest in Cali. We then started up to the roof of the Duomo. It was this tight, narrow staircase that just kept going! We were very glad that we hadn't attempted it the night before while we were so tired! The roof is incredible! It is so intricate, I think it has almost 2000 statues on the roof/facade. It was amazing to me that someone had designed and created each one of those by hand and none of them were the same. The view was beautiful, and there was a violinist playing beautifully below, the sounds echoed off the church and just made the experience perfect. Then we stopped and got another Panza Rotti (so good) and hopped on the metro, picked up our bags and took the metro to the train. The train station was really cool. It was built by Mussolini, so as you can imagine it was grandiose. There were huge Dolce and Gabana advertisments all over the place. (like billboard sized inside the building) and most of the people were half naked. So then we hopped on the train to go up to Lago di Como, only to find after it was going that we had gotten onto the wrong train! I'm pretty sure they had it mislabled, but my husband is convinced it was his fault. So we had to stay on it until the first stop which Bryan kept a look out for and once stuck his head out the window and lost his favorite Yankees hat. All we could do was laugh about it. So went hopped a train back to Milan Central Station and waited for the next train to Como. We arrived in Como and took the long route to our hotel (not on purpose, but at least it was pretty) Checked in and went to find a boat to Bellagio. Gor-ge-ous!!!

The ride was breathtaking, a pristine lake surrounded by little classic italian villages on it's banks. Bellagio was a wonderful little town, we went and found a cheap and great pizzarea called "The Grotto", excellent pizza and they even gave me some ice when I asked for it. (yeah!!!) Then we walked around the town for a while and looked at all the little shops and I had my first Gelato.(heavenly!) As we waited for the boat to return we sat and watched a band set up right infront of the water. This little city was full of oldtime charm. We caught our boat after dark and rode home with all the lights dancing on the water and a nice cool breeze for the first time on our trip. On our walk home from the lake (about 3 blocks) we saw all sorts of parties underway. It seemed like such a romantic place to spend time with your spouse. I think we definitely need to go back there!

Italy Day 1: What a long day! I had everything packed and ready to go so we got up and left at 7 am. As we were leaving I thought, (and asked others) do you think I'll need my marriage license since my passport is in my maiden name? We all said no since my sister-in-law had just traveled to Ukraine on her maiden name passport. So we get to the airport an hour away and think that it will just be a nice relaxing wait for the plane, wrong. The lady at the desk totally berates me for not having changed the name on my passport and absolutely refused to let me fly unless I had a notarized copy of my marriage license! (yes, I know it's all my fault for not having researched it more thoroughly) We have an hour and a half until the flight leaves.... So my dear mother-in-law and sister-in-law pull a miracle and get the marriage license to us 20 minutes before the plane leaves, talk about stress. The flights were pretty uneventful, except that the Air France employees were sooooo rude! (okay just one of them, the rest were actually really nice) We watched the sunrise in the Paris airport and then landed in Milan around 9 am. (after around 18 hours of traveling) Italy is awesome! We took the train to the metro and the metro to our hotel. (we still had to walk about 6 blocks with all of our luggage.) We were sooo tired, but were determined to stay up as long as we could to lessen the effects of jetlag for the rest of the trip. We tried to go and see Michelangelo's Last Supper, but it was sold out (I guess it always is now that Davinci Code is so popular) But it was a beautiful walk from the metro with lots of beautiful buildings and a fun bookshop right next to the church that Last Supper is in. (it's not the Catholic bookshop, which I'm sure is great, but another one right there. The owner makes all the stationary/blank books by himself) Then we headed to the Sforza Castle and looked around. There was this awesome old guy wearing only boxer shorts and shoes with his head shaved who was sunbathing in the fountain out front. I just wish I had been brave enough to take a picture of him! This was the first place that I saw the street performers. The street performers in Italy for the most part dressup as statues and move when you toss a coin in their hat. They must get soooo hot! They stand still right in the sun all day. (and are usually dressed in plastic that looks metallic.) We were so tired and were just dragging but decided to try and get in as much as possible that first day, so we went and looked at the Duomo (incredible, more on that the second day) and the Galleria (Mall) .
It was awesome, they had all sorts of fun stores with men's ties, women's ties, expensive purses, etc. and then there was a McDonald's. (They were everywhere.) We got DH a shirt and two ties for his medical school interviews. On our way back to the hotel we stopped and got a treat that he used to get while he was on his mission there. It was Panza Rotti ( I think!) It was fried bread stuffed with tomatoes and cheese.... so good! Then we hobbled back to the hotel and slept from 5 pm until 9 am, yeah so we were tired.