I got to go see the Bain’s for Thanksgiving!  I don’t get enough of Parker, Caleb, Maren and Macey during the 50 weeks of the year that I’m not in Arizona/California!  They rode their bikes all around the back yard, park, and up and down the street!  We played games, colored, ate delicious food, and played with Grandpa’s special shoe for his (then) broken foot.  I was happy for the few extra hours I got to spend with them at church.  I was SURE my flight left at 2:20, so I would leave just before church.  Not until Sunday morning did I realize my flight was at 4:30!!  Good thing Eric and Jen are accommodating!  Thank you for your hospitality!

Then I got to go home for Christmas!  Mom had barely put the decorations up.  She ‘tricked’ Dad and said that she got a tree for Christmas.  He boycotted putting it up because she got a fake tree!!  Cecilie and Scott had some friends coming over for Christmas Eve dinner, so we couldn’t look like Scrooge sans tree.  Scott, with his gimp leg, assisted Cecilie in putting the tree up and getting lights strung.  We stayed busy the rest of the week taking the Christmas decorations down, re-landscaping the front and back yard, changing the runner on the stairs, cooking and cleaning!  Luckily we did get some quality time in with Rush and Hailey!  We met them at Fenton’s for some good old fashioned ice cream!  And, we got to go to the Chabot Science Center.  Rush found love with the toys, and was one sad boy when we had to leave.  Hands down to you, Melissa and Jake, for having enough energy to chase after Rush with another kid in hand!  Here is the ONE picture I managed to get my hands on from the last 4 months!

(we spent a small fortune watching pennies wind their way down this exhibit at the science center.  You can see how much Rush loves it in his face!)

Back in Georgia, I have been burning up my credit card getting my room to look like someone lives in it!  I am not quite done, but I’ll put some pictures up soon!  I printed some pictures from our family vacation, and some pictures from National Geographic of places I saw in Europe.  I also discovered Etsy!  Repeat after me: it is a bad idea to shop on Etsy in the wee hours of the night, all alone, and when you don’t have money! But, I found some amazing pillow cases for my bed!  Just a few more things and I’ll be done!  Thank goodness, then I can get back to buying groceries!

We headed straight to our hotel apartment so we could drop off all our loot from each previous cities/countries. Hotels.com didn’t have any hotels available so they found the next best thing, the smallest and most run down apartment in Spain! Only 2 fit in each elevator with all the stuff.

The hotel wasn’t even good for sleeping in. There were 2 twin and one full bed planks to sleep on, and absolutely no air conditioning or celing fans. It was hot and humid as a Georgia summer in there. I was worried I would get bed bugs if I slept on the sheets so I put every piece of clothing I had left and put a shirt over the pillowcase. I even showered with my sandals on! The bathroom was 4x bigger than the kitchen. It wasn’t worth going back to Malaga for (in fact, we spent a few hours walking around trying to find a different hotel!)

We knew we wanted to find a market to shop in (there are a few themes of this trip: markets, taxis, shopping and good food are among them!). We took a bus that had directions to somewhere, so we started there. After walking around while most of the shops were still not open yet, we saw lots of souvenirs that said Torremolina on them, which we thought was weird. So we asked for directions to downtown Malaga and found out we had to get on a half hour train ride to get there! Oops! Once we found Malaga, we found more expensive shopping and a cathedral in the city center.

Then we took a carriage tour around the noteworthy parts of the city. There are some old Arabic ruins on a hillside that we didn’t have enough time to hike around, and a bull fight coliseum. I was sad we weren’t there during the season to see a bull fight and some flamenco dancers! But it was a pretty Spanish city with beautiful weather. By the time we were done, it was time for dinner! Except the restaurants close from 5pm to 8:30-9?!?!?!!! We’d had it with the walking around, so we decided to take the train back to our station and wait for a good restaurant there. Sadly, it wasn’t Spanish, however, it was the most delicious Argentinean Steakhouse! I am not kidding, this was the second, maybe tied for first, most amazing meal! The meat was a little rare, but I actually liked it!!!! It came out on a skillet to keep it warm. Wow, I could have just had the meat and felt fulfilled (I sound like the stereotypical American…)

True to our tiredness, we hailed another taxi, gave him the address and went 2 blocks to our apartment! We were a little embarrassed. It was weird to think about going back to Atlanta because by the time we went to bed, it was 6pm EST, and we woke up at 10:30pm EST to get to the airport! What a whirlwind of an experience! It seems like a dream, but better than any dream I could imagine! Maybe I’ll marry rich and get another ticket out there to get to Prague, France and England (not that they are all close together, but the parts I missed and still want to go to!)

So we took a train ride around the highlights of the area.  We saw Napoleon’s church, birthplace, burial place of family, home growing up, where he was baptized, and the highlight was Napoleon’s statue.

When we got off, we found another statue of Napoleon.  I found a statue guy to take a picture with (in front of the other statue of Napoleon, you must be getting the point about Napoleon by now… he’s all there is to see!)!  He’s like those sliver and gold guys in San Francisco, but it’s like a dirt guy!

We also paid good money to go in and tour the house Napoleon grew up in.  It was a self guided tour translated into about 6 languages but NONE of which were English!  Corsica is a French owned island, and apparently they don’t like intruders.  Needless to say, I didn’t spend much time in that house.

We found a market and saw lots of scary looking and gross smelling cheese, some candy from all over the world, and some handcrafted wood work.  Lina and I both bought olive oil salad bowls, and I can’t wait to have a space of my own and have a dinner with it!  This is the cheese we saw, just add the smell of stinky gym socks and a rotting corpse (mind you that I do love cheese):

Then we had some lunch.  I tried to order everything French (but it didn’t taste extremely authentic).  What the Mackays got was divine!  It was something like a panini with some tasty cheese on the inside, and then had crusty melted cheese on the outside!  I think there may have been ham or some kind of meat inside.  Delicious!

My favorite part was this drink.  I have been craving more ever since!

And then we called it a day!  At 2pm…

I wish I could take a picture of the atmosphere and feel of Florence.  It is majestic, peaceful, ornate, enticing, authentic, relaxing and exciting.  If there were more time I would have loved to go on a tour of the Duomo, and I would have also gone to see the College of Leather.  (I also would have gone to see the David, but I am embarrassed to say I went to Florence and didn’t see the David…)  I just fell in love with Florence from the minute we got off the train!

We walked through the streets and were greeted by Renaissance figures like Donatello

And the street vendors had the most amazing paintings!  I am regretting not buying more (except I still came back with a MUCH lighter wallet…)  And gelato!  Oh the gelato was nothing like it is here!  It is perfect and creamy and thick and cold and savory and sweet all at the same time!  The best part is that it was piled high and waiting to be consumed!

I can see how people who have ample money would want to come to Florence and spend money on the fine Italian leather purses and shoes, and the expensive clothes, and the jewelry.  There were so many specialty shops to walk by and find whatever you wanted.  Here is an example of what you might see:

We walked to this row of jewelry shops that were along a bridge over the canal.  It looked like this on the outside:

And this on the inside:

I couldn’t find anything under 200 euro, so we moved on to an open air market where they had leather galore!  It even smelled good to be standing in the middle of all that leather!

On the way back to the cruise ship, we decided to go to the leaning tower of Pisa.

(DID I MENTION HOW BEAUTIFUL THE WEATHER WAS?!)  I can’t count how many times I’ve heard and learned about this building, and when I actually got there I didn’t remember most of what I knew!  Either way it was amazing to be in the courtyard looking at the tower and think of how amazing it is that this building is still standing with all of its flaws.  I found lots of things to take home from Pisa and Florence like a cute little blue bow tie purse and some artisan jewelry made from FORKS!  It was a dream to be in Florence/Pisa, and left reminiscing taste of gelato!

This was the end of the highlights in destinations.  But I will wrap up the trip with a post about Corsica and Spain!

It would be interesting to have more of the particular Bible stories memorized and be able to relate more of the scenes depicted.  I was completely overwhelmed!  There was a masque going on and we got to hear some singing in the background.  It was peaceful.  St. Peter’s Basilica is guarded by Swiss soldiers, and Michaelangelo was the designer of their uniforms.  They must still wear the original design…

We bought tickets for the red bus tour but it took to long to get going.  So… we took another taxi to the Pantheon.  I forgot all my interesting facts from my Art History class, but it was interesting nonetheless!  We were starving by the time we were through there so we went to the first place we could find.  Somewhere outside to soak up the atmosphere, and somewhere authentic.

BEST MEAL OF MY LIFE!!!!!  I had a simple margarita pizza, but they made the sauce that day from fresh tomatoes!  And the crust was a simple sweet crust baked in a brick oven.  And the cheese!  Oh, the cheese was delicious and soft!  I tasted a little of something specialty that Lina got and it was also delicious!  I don’t know if I will ever recover from this food, it was divine!  In search for the red bus tour (to finally start using our tickets), we roamed (ha) around and walked a million miles to the Trevi Fountain.  It was beautiful, and right in the middle of a bunch of buildings!

That was the most amazing part of Rome to me.  We were walking along looking at the ancient architecture of the business buildings and it seems like every other block there is something from an Art History book!  We stumbled over a few other gems during our 4 hour walking tour, but finally found the bus and headed to the Colosseum!  By the time we got to the Colosseum, we only had 15 minutes to get through the line and see as much as we could.  I was disappointed not to be able to listen to the self guided audio tour, but at least I got to see it!

I wasn’t very excited to leave Rome, Italy to get on a cruise boat.  But, I was glad to have somewhere to rest my feet for a few hours!

We found a little field and some water down the hill from the house

We headed for the Schipol Airport and said our goodbyes to Holland!  If only all airports were as easy to maneuver around as the US ones…  After being charged a LOT of $$ for all our luggage, we made it through security with enough time to shop and look for our gate.  But really, we only had enough time to find our gate!  We all were looking for a different gate!  We went through customs once because we thought we needed to in order to get to the gate.  We all got separated, but I found gate E 17 and sat down to read a book for a minute.  All the people around me were talking about Chicago, and I didn’t realize I was sitting at the gate for Chicago.  Gate E 17 was really SEAT E 17!  I ran through the terminal, and saw the sign for our gate so I went through customs to get there.  Confused yet?  So were we!  We went through the same customs twice!  Finally we found the terminal we were supposed to go through and it was a MILE down the terminal before we got there!  We made it past the final boarding call and luckily made it just in time to fly to Valencia.

At least in the Valencia airport, I understood more than I did the whole time we were in Holland!  We were sure we’d have plenty of time to get on the cruise boat so we asked the taxi driver to help us get somewhere to look around.  He dropped us straight at the dock, because that was the only thing open on Sunday!  We sat around for 4 hours waiting to board because the boat had to make an emergency stop before getting to us.  Thankfully, Lina’s mom supplied her with plenty of candy!

We had one whole day at sea before we got to Italy.  The weather was PERFECT, but I was bored out of my mind with the book I brought!  I had a hard time getting through the day at sea (luckily the second day at sea I had “The Help”).  The cruise entertained us with a belly flop competition!  Too bad Eric wasn’t there, he would have taken them all for sure!  Most guys made a head dive into the pool.

We ate fancy dinners, walked around, sat by the pool, read, and shopped a lot (but didn’t buy anything) while we were on the boat.  FINALLY we got to Italy!

The market sits at the feet of this beautiful cathedral

The outdoor market sold just about everything from produce to animal products to wallets!

There is quite a bit of retail around the corners of this market!  But thankfully it doesn’t open up until around noon, so we didn’t have a chance to spend all our money the first day!  I found another cheese place that I loved and bought a little brick.  He told me vacuum-packed cheese would last two weeks unrefrigerated, but I was a little worried when I got back to the states and saw it was pretty soft and deformed… Hopefully I don’t die when we eat it!  We headed to the Haarlem train station

Just know if you are here and you have to go to the bathroom, it will cost you .5 euro, and you will be looking for the WC (water closet).  Contrary to what I was looking for, the WC is not the train that takes you into Amsterdam!  But, the Dutch like to ride their bikes.  Bishop teases that one of the families he knew in Holland would take vacations as far as they could ride their bikes.  But, immediately after we got off the train, we were flooded with bikes!  They have parking structures for them even!

We walked around Amsterdam, had a delicious lunch outside because we had the most beautiful weather.

And then we took a canal tour.  It was interesting to hear different facts about Amsterdam.  I guess that the Dutch pay taxes based on the amount of their house that is on the street front, so a lot of the houses are very narrow and deep.  There is a different and lower tax (or maybe no tax) for houses on the water.  So, lots of people have house boats (definitely not the luxurious house boats I’ve seen in magazines, much simpler).  The canal tour chalked this up to be the over population and lack of housing in Amsterdam forcing people to find housing on the canals…  It was weird to be traveling through the city on a boat with people in their houseboats watering plants, drinking beer, and going about life as usual!

We also toured the Anne Frank house, which was extremely small and VERY dark, and walked through some more markets and bought some souvenirs as we found our way to the Red Light District and the Heineken museum!  One girl into the Red Light District and I was ready to find something happier so we went to the flower market!  I was in heaven picking out tulip bulbs to bring back!

Light years after walking all through Amsterdam we arrived at the Heineken museum to find we had to pay 16 euros to get in!  Since we wouldn’t even be able to partake of the free samples after the tour, we decided to buy some things in the gift shop and head on our way.  We went back to the market in Haarlem where we started to see it winding down.  We looked for a restaurant and only found LONG waits!  Europeans like to take their time to eat!  I wanted to get something genuine Dutch, but I guess that Dutch food isn’t for the American palate.  Bishop said that while he was there he got a fine meal from a family in their ward of endive wrapped in bacon and cheese to mask the flavor of the endive.  What we had that night wasn’t much more awesome, and it was SO expensive! $$$$  We hurried out from dinner to meet another Dutch family from the Mackay’s ward, the Denhollanders.

They were so fun to talk to!  It felt like old friends catching up.  They were very interested in the prison system in GA (because that’s who I work for…) and wanted to talk all about what to see in Europe.  Sister Denhollander made some delicious apple pie (with raisins) and herbal tea, and brought out some savory Dutch cheese and crackers.  This trip was definitely an overkill of bleu cheese, which I may never be able to eat again.

Where do I even start?  I’m not going to apologize for a few long posts.  We took 800 pictures, I’ll try to condense though.

On a side note, Europeans LOVE their pets!  So much that they have special garbage receptacles to throw away all things pets.

First stop: Zaanse Schans, your traditional old Dutch town.  Full of windmills

And clogs galore!

And Cheese, I LOVE cheese!  My favorite was the pesto, which looks a bit moldy but tastes delicious!  Creamy nutty flavor, divine…

Apparently Holland is known for being overcast and dreary.  I’d never guess that though because it was sunny and beautiful!  I fell in love with Holland.  I’m just a regular little Dutch girl now!

Then we headed to an Indonesian restaurant for an eternal meal.  Europeans don’t believe in rushing meals, that’s only an American mentality.  It’s rude to bring customers their check if they are still chatting (which who stops chatting just because you are ready for the check?!)  We had to ask for the check everywhere we went after an hour of being ignored by the server!  Usually we were lucky to get ONE refill on a drink!

We finished out Day One visiting some friends of the Mackay’s from when they lived in Holland, the Reijnders.  The Dutch always have a treat and a drink for visitors, so they had some shrimp chips (the crunchy ones that are really airy but even more addicting) and some fruit juice.  We had some good conversation, shared some laughs, and as we were getting ready to go, Mark Reijnders wanted to show us his most recent “toy” (not like American toys like boats and 4-wheelers), a BAT FINDER!  We walked all over the neighborhood listening on this device for bats flying unseen above our heads.  Apparently the contraption magnifies the sound bats make so that human ears can hear them.  This way, you can tell different species of bats from each other by the sound they make.  At first we didn’t believe him because we couldn’t hear anything.  Sound interesting?
His face would light up at the faintest sound!  It was like a kid in a candy store!  We sure did enjoy our visit with the Reijnders!  The Dutch also always stand at the door to waive their visitors goodbye, which they definitely did.  (and Bishop says to make sure the guests aren’t coming back

I still have a bad case of the jet lag though, so the next post will come shortly!  Day two was also in Amsterdam, but more eventful than the first day (I know, you can hardly wait…)

Last Saturday they had a Chili Cook Off where people/groups have to enter the contest and come back year after year perfecting their recipe.  I went to find out what all the hubbub was about.  It met my every expectation.  It was booth after booth of people begging and pleading to vote for their chili.  This is a pretty good depiction of what it was like to be there:

You just go by the table and pick up a little cup and try as hard as you can to find its way in your mouth instead of all over your face.  My upper lip was burning by the third sample!

Some booths really got into it.  There was one that had “white trash” chili, they were a little too convincing.  A lot of them had a pirate theme and dressed up like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean.  This one was particularly impressive.  You got to walk in and look at something, I wasn’t daring enough to enter and find out what ‘something’ was though.  The girls out front freaked me out.

Some booths were less creative and enticing…  (they had a bucket of shoe shine to hand out too)

It was a beautiful, perfect summer/fall day.  Weather was nice, and the trees are slightly turning fall colors.  I loved being there!  I can’t wait to find out what else Stone Mountain has in store for me.

and another shot