I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane - September 14, Kirkland

Disclaimer: Since I know several friends and acquaintances are planning to visit Italy in the near future, my posts may include some information about hotels and restaurants that might not be interesting to the non-Italy-traveler. But I hope you still enjoy my postings and become inspired to visit! Because this is one country that needs to be on everyone's passport stamp bucket list.

September 14

This is it. After months of planning and countless hours of scouring TripAdvisor.com, our trip to Italy began on September 14. Since we booked our flight so far ahead, our layover in Philadelphia was shortened from 2.5 to 1.5 hours. Needless to say, we were both eyeing the departures board with pointed interest during our time at SeaTac.

We met our taxi at 6 a.m. and streamed through security easily. So easily that I had about an hour to try (unsuccessfully) to track down an open TravelEx booth and exchange currency. Remind me to write an angry letter to SeaTac, since the service's hours were posted as 6 am - 10 pm. 

After arriving in Philadelphia after about 4.5 hours, we had just enough time to grab a non-airplane-food supper (really unsure why airlines can't just give us all sandwiches instead of those mutant microwave dinners), exchange currency, and start boarding for the 9-hour flight to Italy. 

In front of us in the jet bridge line was the most adorable elderly couple speaking to each other in Italian. I couldn't believe our luck! They were so cute. Brendan tried to help the older man with storing his luggage, but in typical Italian stubborness, he refused and managed to secure the rather large bag by himself. 

Brendan made a great move by upgrading our seats slightly so we snagged a window+aisle pair, where neither of us had to sit immediately adjacent to a stranger. So we settled in, tried to sleep as much as possible, watched Water for Elephants (me) or Thor (Brendan), and officially left the states for Italia! 

 

Since I don't have any photos from September 14, I'm cheating and posting a sneak peak of September 15. (At the Trevi Fountain.)

Bella Italia

We're officially stateside. Our long trip home included every form of transportation: a water taxi in Venice, a 9+ hour plane ride to Philadelphia, a 5+ hour plane ride to Seattle, a train through the SeaTac airport, and a taxi home. 

And the vacation was worth every second of it.  

Most. Amazing. Time. Ever. 

Photos and day-by-day blogs are to follow soon, but here's a quick picture in the meantime: 

In Vernazza on the Mediterranean Sea, my new favorite place on Earth. 

T-minus One Night

We’ve made a lot of decisions about this trip, but one important choice is that we’re going dark. As in no laptops or BlackBerrys. We debated bringing at least one of these electronic safety blankets, but ultimately thought it’d be best to truly “vacation” away from our home lives. 

  

Since my sister is due any day, we made one exception to our “no ties to the US” rule and gave my Mom our hotel contact information. Megan was given explicit instructions NOT to have the baby while we’re in Vernazza since that’ll be the one place where we won’t have phone access. (We’ve rented a room from a local family as is the standard in the village, so we won’t have a main number to share.)

But fear not, blog followers. I’ll journal during the trip and post the entries when we return so you won’t miss any of the fun!

See you when we're back stateside. :)

  

Arrivederci!

Home Sweet Home

Since today is Patriot Day, I wanted to take a step back from all the Italy planning with this post and reflect on the day. 

Where were you on September 11, 2001? I was in astronomy class, a junior in high school. It was first period, and I remember the teacher wheeling in a TV so we could watch the events unfold with the rest of the world. I remember the school’s observatory showing the news all day, and my geometry teacher refusing to cancel class because he wanted us to “stay normal.”

I remember my Mom crying a few days after the attacks when she learned that my grandpa’s cousin was in the second plane that hit the World Trade Center. Dorothy deAraujo is mentioned in several newspaper articles as being the most elderly person on flight 175, but what the articles do not mention is how talented an artist Dorothy was. She painted a piece of Disneyland that hung in my room as a child and I met her briefly when I was a toddler. While I don’t have any memories of the meeting, she’s smiling broadly in the photo with my sister and me, and for some reason that brings me comfort.

I always feel the wave of patriotism around this time of year, and it’s sweeping me up even more as we plan to travel internationally.

I’m so proud of my little blue passport with the eagle on the cover.  And as much I love to travel to places far away, I’m so grateful I can call America home. 

A Thousand Days in Venice... I wish!

To give myself something to do after the majority of planning was complete-- one can only spend so much time blogging!-- I decided curling up with a good book set in Italy would help keep me in an Italian state of mind. 

After perusing lists like this one at Foders.com, I landed on A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena de Blasi. This story follows the author's memoir of falling in love with a Venetian while vacationing, and impulsively leaving her two grown children and home in St. Louis to move to the floating city. 

It was a light read, but full of fun facts about daily life in Venice (yes, as it turns out, people actually do live there!) and treated the reader to a taste of Venetian food, dialect, sights and customs. At the heart of the book was the romance between the author and her new love "the stranger", and how two people from very different worlds found happiness in each other within the damp and grey city of Venice. 

But really, if a stranger professed his love to you and asked you to move here, 

what would you do? ;)

Next on the list is determining books for the 9-hour plane ride from the east coast to Rome. What are your suggestions for good airplane reads? 

Arrivederci! 

Ten Shopping Days Left

We have officially entered T-minus 10 days to Italy. 

Ok, it might not be the same as Christmas, but the sentiment in the above image definitely matches how I feel at this moment. We're in the range that is covered by look-ahead weather forecasts!

September 14 can't come soon enough.

Arrivederci!