My last day in Italy

As hard as this trip has been the majority of the time, I do not want to leave. I mean yes, I miss my family terribly and I miss Diet Cokes and normal food. But when I am out on my own in the city, I love it here.

On Tuesday, my friend Monet and I travelled to Florence. Andrew and Patrizia, as a gift to me, bought my train ticket. It was one of those new fast trains! So instead of taking 4 hours to get there, it took us a little over an hour! What a blessing. Andrew found me a cheap, but clean hotel for us to stay in. It was right in the center of Florence. We got there and found a tourist information center close to the train station to get a map. Neither one of us knew where or how to get to the hotel. All we had was an address haha. At this point, I knew I would have slept outside if Monet was not with me. I would have not known there were tourist information places. Much to my surprise, I can read maps. Pretty well I might add. Another reason I would not have made it without Monet, the hotel looked like any other door to an apartment or something. The only way you knew it was the hotel was to look at the name on the buzzer thing! Ok, I will admit, I am the naive American who expected an American hotel. Anyway, we got buzzed in and she showed us to our room. I took a picture, just for you guys.

I felt like I was moving into my dorm at college. Oh and Monet's bed was behind the door!

I had booked us a Wine and Cheese tasting for that evening, so pretty much as soon as we got to the hotel, we decided to go walk toward the wine bar and do some sight seeing.

One of the many bridges crossing the river. Actually just on the other side of this bridge is the best gelato you will EVER have in Italy. Just sayin.

These beautiful statues welcomed you onto the bridge and then there were ones on the other side too.

We finally made it to the wine bar but we were early so we window shopped in the cute little shops around. Finally it was time to go taste some wine! When we got there we were the first of the group. So they sat us down and gave us some wine while we waited! It was some bubbly white wine that was so good! They guy told us that there were 6 of us for the evening. The next couple that came in where from Japan...lets just say, they about spoke as much English as I did Italian. (The wine tour was in English) So that was pretty funny watching this guy try and get an e-mail address from them. He ended up giving up haha. The cheese he brought us was all sheep cheese and it was SO good! The first 3 wines we tasted were white. He told us about the distributor, where the vineyard was located, and how many bottles were produced. You know a good distributor by how many bottles he produces. The smaller the better. One of the wines we had, the wine maker only produced 2000 bottles and thisparticular wine bar bought 1500 each year. That wine was REALLY good! The guy wasn't too fond of white wine so he gave us those first and didn't drink with us haha. But when we got to the reds, you could really tell he loved what he did and really loved the making of wine. He told us about this one distributor who was 89 and still making wine. His hired help would pick only the best grapes and then dump it out in front of him on a table. Then he would weed through and find the best of the best. Ends up he dumps 60% of the grapes and only thinks about 40% of the grapes they bring him is up to par. This guy really loves what he does! Zeno (the wine guide) said that this guy could smell a wine, and tell you what trees and flowers were growing around the vineyard! Now that is talent! The last wine we tasted, he took us down to drink in the cellar.

A couple from the UK took this for us!

After the wine tour we went walking to find a restaurant to eat at. We had our handy dandy Rick Steve's book, but with it being August and that is when EVERYBODY takes their holiday, all the restaurants we wanted were closed. But we did end up finding a wonderful place to eat. I had lasagna...which I love! Stouffers move over.

After dinner we went back to the hotel to ask the hotel lady if she knew anything to do at night. She didn't have anything to tell us so we just went walking. More than once we heard, "Ciao, bella". As we were walking, we heard music. So we ended up in front of the Uffizi museum and there was a guy with an amp and his acoustic guitar just singing! We sat and listened to him until 11:30. It was so fun! We were exhausted by that time so we headed back to the hotel.

Wednesday morning we got up, got an AMAZING pastry and coffee and then went and saw Michaelangleo's David!!!!! I couldn't take pictures but it was ABSOLUTELY beautiful!!! After that we grabbed lunch and headed to the train station. It was a really fast trip but TOTALLY worth it! Florence was probably my favorite place in Italy. It was small enough that you were not overwhelmed to walk everywhere yet there was a TON of things to see.

So...if any of you plan on traveling to Italy, take me because I can do the metro and the train systems like a pro!

Today is my last full day here. Last night we went and ate at a local chinese restaurant, then went for a walk in a nearby town.  I got all my clothes washed and the apartment cleaned. I am going to do a packing dry run to make sure everything fits, watch some American TV streaming through the internet. I don't know what I would have done without internet this whole time! I am so very blessed to have had this experience. Thank you everybody for all your prayers and support. I wouldn't have made it without every single one of you. Tomorrow I will be getting up at 2:30am Italy time, 7:30pm Saturday your time, my plane leaves at 6:30am Sunday Italy time, 11:30pm Saturday your time. I will be stopping in Frankfurt for 4 hours and Washington DC for 3 hours then on home to Bush International. I should be in at 8:35 pm Sunday night!!! That is over 24 hours of traveling! Pray for a better plane than last time, and strength and alertness for me.

Pretty sure this is my last blog. Not sure you all what to know about my times in Houston haha. I would have to change the name to "When in Houston". Thats boring.

Thank you again for everything! I have felt so loved through all your comments. I love you all very much!

Love you-
Kellie

It's all coming to an end

Well, I only have 8 more days here in Italy. When I first came 2 months sounded like FOREVER! I thought this day would never come, but now that its here I can actually say that I am sad. I have met some pretty amazing people and made some lifelong friends.

Last weekend I went to Ostia to stay with my friend Monet and her husband Marco. They are the ones that Andrew and Patrizia had over for dinner because Monet is American. We have hit it off great and I hope to come back and see her sometime! I LOVE Ostia! Its such a hip little town. Every night in the main Piazza, there is live music. Its different genres every night and when we went, it was German classical haha. I couldn't tell it was German, but it was good! Then because it was a Saturday night, along the beach, artists had all these booths set up of their paintings and there was an outdoor bookstore. Too bad I don't read Italian. There were some great prices for books. For dinner Saturday, Monet and I, the two Americans decided it would be a good idea to try and make her Italian husband some pizza. Bad idea haha. First mistake, we made too much dough so it was the thickets pizza ever. Real Italian pizza is thin crust. Second mistake, we didn't let the dough rise enough so it was hard. It was quite comical. Marco was nice about it and ate like 3 or 4 pieces. What a trooper! We still had left over dough so I decided I would make cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and Marco had never had them! They turned out WONDERFUL! I was pretty proud of myself.

Sunday, we went to church and then Marco's mom cooked us lunch. Ok, seriously, I have never had food this good EVER! She made Lasagna! I can't even describe how good it was. One thing I have realized is that us Americans use way too much red sauce! Solution, less red sauce, more cheese! Then she brought out potatoes, salad, and some pretty amazing meat! I was SO SO full by the time we left there! But I will never want to eat Lasagna ever again...except in Italy of course.

So on Sunday, the boys are going to stay with Patriza's parents again and not coming back till after I leave!! Which means that I have to tell them bye tomorrow! I am going to miss them so much! When Andrew and Patrizia are not around they are the best little boys and we have so much fun together! So I have been doing a lot of, "this is the last time" stuff. Last night was the last time I will get to bathe Marco, which is really fun! And the last time I will get to kiss them goodnight. Marco loves the kisses and Alan acts like it bugs him but I know he loves it too!

I had to tell Andrew's parents bye last yesterday too. They are going to a conference in France and will be back the day after I leave! That sucked too.

On Thursday we went to a water park...yeah. It was packed and hot. Not my idea of a day out but I got a great tan and didn't have to babysit so whatever.

So Andrew and Patrizia decided to do something really sweet for me, they booked me a hotel in Florence for Tuesday night! So I will have some fun pictures to post next week.

Love you all and see you soon!

The BEST weekend of my life!

So as I mentioned in the last post that I got to go with the American's to Rome on Saturday night. I walked up to EBEI around 4 PM and we left around 5 PM. We drove to the Metro and then took the Metro into Rome. Because of all my previous Metro travels I felt like a pro. I knew exactly where I was going and I already had a stash of Metro tickets.

I liked this trip to Rome the most because I had already taken all the pictures of the sights so this time I could just walk and enjoy the scenery!

I got to be really good friends with 2 of the girls. One girl, Lauren, was 20 and 2 months before she came to Italy, she had just gotten back from The Philippines for 6 months! She went and worked in a birthing center because she wants to be a midwife. A missionary had set up this birthing center, so it was kind of a mission trip for her. She plans on working on her Doula license when she gets back to Colorado.

Lauren and I

Another girl, Ruth, was a very sweet girl. After talking with her for a little bit we found out that we knew a couple of the same people! For those of you who know the Raber family, her and Luke took Chemistry together and they studied together! What a small world to meet her in Italy!

Ruth and I

There was another girl, Kayla, who come to find out goes to Tabor, which is the school I went to my freshman year!

Ok, this was supposed to be just Kayla and I. We had no idea Emiliano was behind me. And we actually got a picture with just us two, but I just love this one so much!

Then there is Emiliano and Luca. They are guys that I met at the church that Andrew and Patrizia go to. The cool thing about Luca is that when I first met him all he could say to me was, "How...are....you?:" That was a little over a month ago. When we were walking around Rome, he was telling me history of all the sights! Now, he wasn't fluent and I had to help him out some, but seriously...this guy has learned more English than I have learned Italian! And Emiliano and I could communicate a little bit in the beginning but his English has improved SO much! Saturday night we were walking together and he was asking me all these grammar questions. Like, "What is the difference in the way you use the word 'Excuse me' and 'Sorry'. So we worked on that for a while. It was very fun! He really wanted to say things the right way and not just get by. What a cool guy!

Luca on the left, Emiliano on the right. They are best friends!

Then there was Sunday. We went to church and I sat with the Americans...of course! I thought that that was the last time I was going to get to see them, but they said that they were going to go out that night and told me to be there at 5 PM and I could go! Yay! Sunday's are my only definite days off so I was excited to have something to do again. We went to a little town about 5 minutes from where we live called, Monteportzio, and this is where there is beautiful scenery and the pope has a summer home here. Actually this photo...

is of a guard outside the popes summer home and when the guard is standing there that actually means the pope is currently in that house. I shouldn't be so excited about that but I thought it was pretty cool haha!

Then there was dinner, which was by far my favorite part! It was this little hole in the wall REAL Italian restaurant. There was no servers, the owner himself brought out your food. He would come out singing a different song every time! He was a hoot!! There was 5 courses! First was pasta with red sauce and pancetta. Second was pasta with mushrooms...eww...but I ate it. By this time I was STUFFED!!!!! Third course was three different types of meat. One was their equivalent of hamburger which I am not fond of...another was I think lamb, but it tastes like steak so I ate that one. I have no idea what the third piece of meat was and I didn't touch it haha. Fourth course was salad topped with olive oil and salt! Fifth course was the best potatoes I have EVER had!!! They were chopped up and then I think fried in butter or something because they melted in your mouth! Red wine and white wine came with dinner. I wasn't too fond of the white and I usually don't like red but this red wine was SO good! Then they brought out some Spumante wine! OH MY!!! It was so good! I was sitting next to this guy named Chris who was just on Holiday visiting his aunt Hannah who came to dinner with us. He is from Switzerland. But he told me that I needed to be careful with the Spumante because of the bubbles and you can get drunk really fast. So...I only had one glass. But man was it good!

My favorite part of the dinner and probably the whole weekend was when all the Italians and the owner of the place started clapping and singing! Danny, who is the missionary over the English camp that the Americans came to do, said that this was a common song that is sung in places like this. You have to watch this video! I want to marry an Italian and live in Italy just for this haha!

The guy with all the tattoos is the owner of the place. Danny, the missionary, is the guy at the head of the table. He is one cool guy. He was born in Italy but lived in the states for 6 years going to school. His English is SO good! He just has a small Italian accent when talking English. He teaches at EBEI but is also a missionary supported by various churches. One of the churches is the one in Colorado that all these Americans came from. Oh and if I had my pick of which Italian guy to bring home...he would be the one haha. Not that I am bringing an Italian guy home...sorry to get your hopes up for a minute!

This next weekend is when I am going to Ostia to stay Saturday night with Monet and Marco! I am sure I will have stories and pictures to share then!

This weekend was totally worth everything that I have dealt this whole trip! I was blessed to meet some amazing people and hopefully a couple of life"