As kids at home in San Jose return home from their first day of school, a fresh start, a new year, I am catching up on capturing the final two cities and the winding down of our month+ long European Tour. We still have a few days left but I am way behind . . . A woman once called Firenze, also known as Florence, an open air museum because everywhere you stroll, you find something beautiful, historic and artistic. From a replica of La Pieta on a corner of a building, to a quaint, decorative church nestled in between … Continue reading Firenze, an open air museum

Me again! Let’s get right into it shall we? It’s really hot here! Been 100 degrees the last several days and will be tomorrow as well which stinks because we’re going to the Vatican so we have to wear pants… Speaking of the heat, I’m constantly sweaty and sticky which isn’t my favorite feeling in the world. How do these people not shower more than they do? Casa Maria was awesome! It was hard to leave and it was just what we needed after two weeks of go, go, go One thing I know about whoever built Casa Maria is … Continue reading Ramblings -Part tre

. . . We didn’t want to leave ya. As Boyz II Men once sang, “it’s so hard to say goodbye,” to Casa Maria. It was our home away from home for 8 days and was the perfect respite smack dab in the middle of our trip. The kids could run and swim and play to their hearts delight, and some of my most favorite memories of the trip are the 5 of us playing Uno and Scattergories on our covered patio before dinner, sipping vino bianco, of course! We were privileged enough to have a chef on the estate … Continue reading Casa Maria . . .

Joe and I have been longing to see the Cinque Terre, or 5 villages, on the western coast of Italy for 20 years. It was on my bucket when I traveled through Italy while studying abroad in law school back in 2002 but with only a week, I prioritized Rome, Florence and Venice. Also, I wanted to see it with Joe. Awwww. We’ve watched the PBS Rick Steves segment on the Cinque Terre multiple times and knew that we wanted to make it happen on this trip. We also knew that Beebs and Scott wanted to see it too, so … Continue reading The Cinque Terre

Pisa After picking up our +3 we shouted, “jet lag be damned” and headed directly to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower in all her glory. She’s equally beautiful and scary at the same time but so worth the half day trip! It blew our mind that it actually took two centuries to build her and Gus was fascinated by the fact that at soon as they got the foundation set, she was already doomed. I really enjoyed taking photos of her as well as the nearby Baptistry and Duomo. We had a delicious lunch inside with A/C (are we … Continue reading A Leaning Tower & A Medieval Walled City by Tandem Bike

(V.4 because the first three versions wouldn’t load) I’ve never been good at surprises. I know that because my Mom made the slip of tongue that she was throwing a surprise party for my Dad’s 40th Birthday and my innocent, 4-year old self, excited and eager to please, told him! I’ve literally never lived that day down but what was true at 4 is still true today. I love experiencing the happiness and joy of others, of watching them open a gift that I specially selected for them and seeing the look on their face as they do it, of … Continue reading Surprise – v.4

After a week of not eating anything green, Italy has safely delivered us back to better eating and to what Joe aptly pointed out as a slower, more relaxed pace. This leg of the trip, in Lucca, Italy is our longest stop in one city. Thank goodness for the foresight seven months ago when planning that we would need a backyard and pool to help ground us and give us a little taste of home and the space and time to just relax. Planning ideas and experiences on paper and in your head don’t always materialize as you had imagined … Continue reading Let them eat pasta

Hi everyone, Joe here again, back by popular demand! Okay, maybe there was only one person really asking for another blog post from me and maybe that person was my mom…. oh well, here I go anyway… Thankfully almost everyone we spoke to in Germany spoke English. Made me wonder why we’re so bad in the US at teaching/learning a second language. As you know from the previous blog post, I got to drive the Autobahn in a BMW. But to correct Merritt, at one point I got it all the way up to 170…kph. That’s still about 105 mph, … Continue reading Ramblings, part zwei (that’s two in German for those of you who aren’t as fluent as I)

This update is several days late, but you’ll be happy to hear that we did successfully return those fans before we left Paris. Thanks to a French colleague of mine, I was armed with exactly what needed to be said in a text message. So we marched into the Carrefour and I showed the message to the woman at the door. She pointed us to customer service. I showed it to the woman at customer service who thankfully spoke a little English. She told us that we couldn’t return them there, but that we could return them in another area … Continue reading The fan saga