Roma

Update: I think many of you know this by now, but I started working again. As in a normal Monday - Friday, 9-5 job at adidas (no, I don't work with or near Josh).  Strangely, I do enjoy having structure to my days again and don't completely miss the idle days of housewifery that I enjoyed for the last two and a half years. The actual job part though...meh. At least most of the people I work with are nice. 

Now, back to the fun stuff....

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By far the most time consuming part of putting together these blog posts is the picture selection process. We took so many pictures on our Rome trip, but for some reason I'm not feeling overly excited about any of them. It could be that Rome is one of those incredibly ambient places that is difficult for amateur camera wielders to capture well. The pictures seem so blah compared to how it felt to be there in person. Fortunately, I intend on going back at least once my in this lifetime. I'll see if I do better next time. And Josh did get some great pictures from inside St. Peters.

So if Florence was a bit of a disappointment, then Rome was a wonderful surprise. I had no doubts before this trip that Rome would be an interesting historical treasure and have a great food scene. However, I truly hadn't considered that it would be so beautiful. It's gorgeous and while big, it feels accessible. Bonus points: They also have a burgeoning microbrew scene focusing on IPAs and APAs.

We stayed in a great neighborhood called Trastevere. The tourist word is out on this working class area/artist haven, but it didn't disappoint. It's all cobbled alleyways, laundry drying between buildings, and outdoor cafe and restaurant seating. As we wound our way through the narrow streets we could hear the sounds of families from open windows: children playing, adults laughing, dishes clattering. And the food smells. It smelled so good all the time. But unfortunately, it's the once place we forgot to take pictures of...

Ah well, there are other pictures to enjoy.

The Colosseum

The Roman Forum

The Capitoline Wolf with Romulus and Remus

The Victor Emmanuel Monument, employer of the best job ever: policing the lazy tourists who want to sit on the steps with only a whistle and hand motions.

Trevi Fountain

Keats' grave in the Protestant Cemetery

The Pantheon

Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi in Piazza Navona

Caravaggio paintings in a church....God help me, if I remember which one...

In the Vatican

Sistine Chapel 

The Vatican

Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Theresa

Michelangelo's Pietà

St. Peter's Basillica 

Nom

Are you the Funke everyone's been talking about?

Beer bar

Florence & Siena

Florence

While the first half of the summer clipped by at a quick pace, August and September seemed to drag a bit. We didn't travel much, and most of the things I'm involved with shut down for the summer. I won't admit  to having been bored per-say, but I did feel a bit restless. And homesick.

Actually, I was incredibly homesick. Unfortunately, I've found that it never really goes away. There are periods of dormancy when I might forget about it, but then it flares up at random intervals with varying intensity - slightly uncomfortable to completely disruptive. Like herpes.

Fortunately I'll be receiving a nice and soothing salve in the form of a visit home next month - the first in 20 months! We'll be back for Christmas and New Years this year. I'll be in Redding with my family December 14 - December 27. Josh will be in Salem with his family December 21 - December 27. We'll reunite in Portland December 28 - January 7.

It's a much needed trip home especially in light of the second half of following updates:

1. Josh got a promotion! Same team, but he is now a global project manager. He "really just like(s) having an office. Title. Paycheck." Mm.

2. Two more years abroad! September 1st marked our two year anniversary of living in Germany and it also was the start date of Josh's new position. We originally planned to stay until September 2013, but with the promotion we decided it would be best to hang on an additional year. We'll be here until autumn of 2014. So please, come visit us! Seriously. Please.

Sometimes living in Germany makes me feel sad,
but then I visit "durr"-faced lions in Italy and things start to look up again. 

Anyway, in an effort to pull me out of my late summer funk (or was it to celebrate Josh's birthday month...?), we went on a much anticipated trip to Florence and Rome for the first week of October. Fortunately, it worked.

First up was four nights in Florence with a day trip to Siena. While Florence was not our favorite city, I'm happy that we were able to see the art in the Uffizi Gallery and the large Duomo was more impressive than we expected. Honestly, I think we had really high expectations for Florence and it ended up being one of the most crowded, touristy city experiences we've had so far. It was dirty, the people cranky, and I swear I heard more American English than I did Italian. Which, yeah ok, we were American tourists as well but it was still disappointing. Grabbing a glass of afternoon wine was a chore. Looking back, maybe that is what I was really upset about...

Regardless, I would definitely recommend doing a full day trip there for your Renaissance cultural experience but would advise one to stay in a Tuscan hill town while in the area. Maybe Siena, which was lovely.

Below are some pictures from the first leg of our journey. Next post will be on the city that stole a substantial piece of my heart: Rome.

A Florentine street with a peek at the dom of Duomo .

The Duomo

Tripe. We decided to pass on that gastronomic experience...

Ponte Vecchio

Restoration in action.

Tourists catching a break.

 In Piazza della Signoria

Birds on heads

Outskirts of Florence

Florence

Coffee break in Piazza del Campo, Siena.

Piazza del Campo. A horse race among the 17 neighborhoods 

of the city takes place here twice a year.  

Each neighborhood is represented by a horse/rider and a

mascot such as ram, fish, caterpillar, etc. 

Check out these pictures: Il Palio Horse Race

One of the mascots

Siena Duomo

One of the coolest cathedral interiors I've seen.

Siena