Ciao Bella!

Hello friends! I am back from the lovely country of Italy and have fully recovered after jet lag, time changes, and adjusting to work (after being on vacation for 10 days).

So, where do I begin? It was a RAD trip. Rad. We had such a great time. I will try and summarize as best as I can. Well, we first flew into Turin (or as they call it: Torino) and my youngest sis, Emily, met us at the airport. We stayed in this cute apartment with a kitchen so we could cook a lot of our own meals. Turin is right below France and Switzerland in northern Italy so on a clear day you could totally see the Alps. Because Turin is not a "tourist" city, no one knows any English which I thought was great. Refreshing. Authentic Italians!! =) Emily has been taking Italian for 3 months and is pretty much fluent so it was so fun listening to her speak with people.

The Winter Olympics in February will be taking place in Torino, so it was fun to walk around the city and see all the preparations taking place. We saw the main piazza where they will hold opening ceremonies. They are trying to make it look all nice with flowers and benches, etc. but right to the side of the square there is an outdoor vendor selling Orlando Bloom calendars. Gotta love it! I can go across the globe and still find an Orlando Bloom calendar. Er...not that I was LOOKING for one, but...um...moving on.

In Torino, we went to a Cinema museum which is the tallest museum in Europe (you can take an elevator to the top and look all around), visited an English speaking church on Sunday, went to their Egyptian museum (2nd best in the world after Cairo's - I saw a full-on mummy), visited all the cathedrals, and even saw the Shroud of Turin. Basically they say this "shroud" is the cloth Jesus was buried in when he was brought down from the cross. It is kept locked away in this one church but they have a replica out for people to look at and you can see an outline of a man with blood on his forehead, wrists, side, and feet. Even if it's not Jesus, it was really interesting to look at.

After 3 or 4 days in Turin, we took a train to Florence! (Firenze) One of my favorite cities in the entire world! I love love love Firenze. We did so much there. We went to the Uffizi gallery and saw art from Botticelli (including the "Birth of Venus" coming out of her clam shell), Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, etc. We indeed ate gelato even though it was FREEZING the whole time we were there and people looked at us like we were crazy, we saw Michaelangelo's David (I could talk forever about how beautiful this statue is), walked to the Ponte Vecchio, went shopping at all the outdoor markets, and on Thanksgiving Day, sisters Liz, Emily, and I climbed 463 steps to get to the top of the Duomo (Dome) Cathedral. So fun!

Things I love about Italy: the people (so friendly), the art (the Renaissance started in Florence), the food!, the little cars (I called them "Urkel cars" like the car Urkel drove on Family Matters) and scooters, the language which sounds so fun to me, the architecture including all the beautiful churches, cathedrals, and castles, the history of Italy, and so much more.

To cap off an already fab trip, we woke up the last morning there...and it was snowing. Snowing in Italy! It was very surreal. We looked out our veranda and saw snow on all the rooftops and on top of the Duomo. What a perfect way to end vacation.

I love my fam. It was so good to be there. I can't wait to go back.