Happy 50 Mom!

The birthday present to my mom from the Achards.


We left it home still wrapped when we left for Italy.
And broke into it tuesday...

 yumm...

It was gone thursday after dinner : ) Delicious!

Firenze > Milano > Bâle > Strasbourg

Sunday morning we woke up, thinking we had overslept. So we rushed downstairs, and discovered another couple standing there, and they told us that there was no breakfast. They were confused because they knew they were supposed to do breakfast each morning, and wondered what was happening. I went back up to the room to finish getting ready, and my mom soon followed. Then my dad came up a few minutes later and told us that there had been a time change! We had gained an hour at midnight. So after getting ready, we went back downstairs and breakfast was ready.

The weather was gross. It was rainy, but thankfully not as cold as the day before. Luckily, we had our reservations at Uffizi, so we didn't have to spend the morning in the rain. So we found our way there again.
Mom had been struggling with our reservations because she wasn't sure if her original order had worked. She had a printout of an email they sent saying that it had processed, but she hadn't received any emails since. So once we got to Uffizi, we found a line for the information desk. We waited in it for about 20-25 minutes, and then once we got up to the desk, they told us we were in the wrong line. So we found the right line, and waited for another 15-20 minutes. We got up to the desk, and my mom handed them the printout. The woman barely glanced at it, and then handed over three tickets. So we found the reservation line and got into the museum. My mom kept saying, "I paid 30 extra euros to wait in line in order to not wait in line." But we only waited a maximum of 30 minutes...when we would have waited 2-3 hours if we didn't have the reservations...in the rain.
Once in Uffizi, we spent the next 3 hours wandering around it. It is the largest gallery in the world. And it's probably the most exhausting. Sorry, no pictures allowed though.
After we finished, we were starving, so we found lunch. We ate at a restaurant that was decorated a bit like something you might find at home (where my parents got into a discussion with the woman about Obama...enough said). They had one, flat screen tv and it was playing a soccer game. There were groups of people all eating lunch and watching the game. I found it more entertaining to watch the people watching the game, than watch the game. Every five or ten minutes you'd hear everyone go "OOooooh!" and smack their foreheads, or shake their heads. It was pretty funny.
After lunch we went back to the market because my dad wanted to get another scarf (one of the things he said he would NEVER wear when we first got here and he saw all the men wearing scarves). On the way, we found another paper store for me to hop into and buy a quill. Then we were sick of the rain, and decided to head back to the villa and relax again before dinner.

We were trudging up the hill in the mud and rain, and we had just reached the gate, where the gravel road ends and becomes flagstones for the courtyard. I was watching where I was walking, since it was muddy and getting dark. But somehow I missed the T-shaped metal gate-stopper sticking out of the ground. The entire toe of my Converse got wedged underneath it...and I went down. When you are falling because your foot got stuck, generally as you fall you are able to free your foot and simply stumble, rather than go all the way to the ground. The entire time I was falling, I was trying to free my foot. To no avail. I fell on my right side, in a very strange way. I twisted my upper body around, and was able to catch myself in a partial push-up position, but my lower body was twisted to the side, with my foot still stuck.
Anyways, I managed to toss my umbrella and turn it completely inside out, scrap up my palms (luckily only one of them bled), bang my knee (which later swelled and turned black and blue), smash my hip (which was very tender and bruised), and tenderize my shoulder. I must say, I felt pretty awesome after that little stunt.

Once back to the room, I got all cleaned up, and got my dirty, wet clothes off to dry before heading out to dinner. My mom completely changed into pajama's, and when my dad asked what time he should make our dinner reservation for, she just kinda looked at him. We didn't end up going out. Instead, we stayed in the room (and were joined at one point by my friend who snuck into our slightly open room and decided to make himself comfortable on my dad's lap), unloaded all the snacks we had packed for the train rides, and played cards. Happy 50th Mom! : )

Monday we woke up to my 7:20 alarm. We went downstairs, with slightly grumbly tummies, and were welcomed by one of the women that works there. She told us she was going to make us cappuccinos and brought out the pastries she was going to be putting out that morning for breakfast. Our stomachs thanked her. Our taxi arrived at 8:00 and trundled us off to the train station (for a steep price of 31 euros...yikes!).
On our train from Firenze to Milano, we ended up sitting next to a younger guy and his mom. Only to discover they were from Virginia! They told us all about their travels, and we told them about ours. When the guy told us that he was going to Paris, I asked what he was going to do there and he just shrugged, saying I have no idea. So I wrote down the major things, helping them to get the best of their time there.
The rest of our travel day went uneventfully.

Strasbourg > Bâle > Milano > Firenze

Four day weekend, two days of which were spent travelling.
Friday we took a train from Strasbourg to Bâle (Basil), from there to Milano (Milan), and then on to Firenze (Florence). With the most beautiful view through Switzerland.

We got into the train station just after 6:00 (18:00). We had some difficulty finding the bus we were supposed to take...and then even more trouble figuring out which stop we were supposed to get off at. After we got off the bus, if I had thought that was going to be the hardest part...I was wrong. We had to hike up a gravel path (uphill) to the villa my mom had booked a room in (keeping in mind we have our luggage with us). We finally got there...only to discover that there wasn't where we were supposed to be. Luckily, we were on the right property, just the wrong building. So we just had to go up a little higher. We finally got checked in and into our room at about...9:30 (21:30). Mom and dad went out for dinner (I was too exhausted and grumpy to hike back down that damn hill for food). So instead I stayed in, took a bath and went to bed.

Saturday we got up and had an awesome breakfast. Afterwards, mom and I were standing in the courtyard in front of the villa, gauging the weather, and I made a friend. He came wandering up and I bent down and was petting him; and when we started to make our way towards the door, he trotted ahead of us and waited till we opened the door to sneak inside. He followed us all the way upstairs to our room, but we closed the door before he came in. He had disappeared once we came out. Oh, by the way, we was a cat. Then we got our bus into Firenze. Once there, we saw a couple of massive Basilicas.

We just kinda wandered around the town, and discovered a huge, sprawling outside market. There was booth after booth of; leather purses, leather jackets, trinkets, scarves, hats, etc. We spent a good amount of time wandering around here. 

After a while we were starving, so we found a really neat restaurant for lunch. I got gnocchi in a delicious tomato sauce, and the best lemonade I've ever had. Once our bellies were satisfied we wandered around some more.

We ended up coming upon the museum that had Michelangelo's David. Now, normally for the museum's in Italy, the lines are just ridiculous. A person would generally spend 2-3 hours waiting in line to get inside the museum. So, instead, what you can do is make a reservation ahead of time online, then you just wait in a really quick line to pick up tickets from your reservation and then you go inside.
But, the line to get in to see David was miraculously short. So we were standing in it, trying to decide if we wanted to go in or not. My dad checked the price to get in, and it was 10 euro a person. So we decided not to go in.

After that, we discovered the Jewelry Bridge. I had heard a woman talking about it earlier in the day, but I didn't think anything of it. I didn't even think it was a landmark. But it's actually really cool. It's a bridge with buildings on both sides, and the shop windows are FILLED with jewelry. The weather that day was very cold and overcast, and so when you looked down the bridge, it practically glowed. I felt blind once we left the bridge from all the bright lights and glittering from window shopping.
We then stumbled upon a massive piazza with statues and a huge building we later discovered was the Uffizi Gallery, which was where my mom had made reservations for Sunday. Good thing too, because even late at night, in November, there was a super long line.
After this, we found our bus and rested at the villa for a bit. Then we wandered into the tiny town we were staying in just outside of Firenze, called Galluzzo. We ate at a pizzeria. Oh. My. Goodness. Best pizza, hands-down. I don't even know how to describe it, other than to quote my dad, "Magical pizza." SuUuper delicious!

We of course tried Gelato!

All over, during our wanderings I kept seeing these stores selling marbleized papers decorated by hand, handmade notebooks, stationary, quills, fountain pens, and wax seals. Of course I had to go in one. I ended up coming out with a wax seal. I had the choice of 1 initial, 2 initials or a symbol. I had to think about it for a bit. If I got 1 initial, then I would obviously get a Z. If I got 2 initials, then I would get a J and a T. If I got a symbol it would be a fleur de lys, but I already have one of those. Not to mention the symbol's were more expensive. In the end, I got a J and T. Perfect for stamping our invitations!