Howdy folks! I'm sippin some of my favorite beverage this morning--coffee, and I'm ready to talk about my first experience with ITALY. I have discovered that posting lots of pics on blogspot takes a reaaaallly long time. For example, I spent an hour just arranging the photos last night for this post, and it took longer with the previous post! Who am I to complain.... I love looking at my photos again! I hope you will too.
Zach and I had quite the adventure getting to Sorrento. We booked a supercheap flight on Ryanair to Rome from Paris. Awesome right? The catch was that the airport is not anywhere near Paris, even though it said "Paris(Beauvais)" on the ticket. To get there, we had to catch a metro from Claire's at 5:13 AM to get to the bus station on time to take a 1.5 hr bus ride to the airport to leave at 9:30 am. This was our only time slot to go to Rome... the next time would be late that night and would mess everything up. So after getting to bed late(only a short time with friends you know!) we booked it over to the metro stop, only to discover it was closed!!! We heard someone inside so we beggged them to open the gate. The French metro ladies took pity on us and let us in. I was pretty sure i was going to freak out before that though. :-) I think that stop doesn't actually open till 5:30 and we got on the next metro. We made it to the bus station to discover the chaos of a Ryanair-only airport and got on the plane on time. WHEW.
We arrived in Rome and had to get to the train station to go to Sorrento, which is further south than even Naples. To get there, we hopped a shuttle bus to get on a metro for several stops to get to the station. By the time we got to the train station, we were starving, so my very first meal in Rome was from a little vendor just outside. I got what I thought would be good, but it actually was a hamburger on a panini. I was disappointed, but I was the one who ordered it! :-)
After we got our train tickets, we went inside the station and got some drinks at their coffee bar. I got a Coke because in my experience, European Coke is WAY better than American Coke. I don't like our Coke here actually. So my beverage did not disappoint, and it gave us a chance to people-watch, which is one of Zach and my favorite things to do.
My observations of Roman people as opposed to French and Parisians was that they like to dress a little bit more flashy. Both countries are chic, but while French wear conservatively unique clothes and rock them, Italians like to shine. The women wore tighter, shorter and more fitted clothes and sunglasses. Matter of fact, everyone wore sunglasses. I was just struck by their glamour... at the train station! How cool.
We took a 1.5 hour train ride to Naples. I think the train's air conditioning was not up to speed. How do I know this? Besides my own sweating, the older Italian lady across from me was fanning herself vigorously with a piece of paper and complaining about it to the girl next to her. I think, anyways. I didn't learn too much Italian before we went, but some things transcend language barriers.
According to my Rick Steves' guidebook, Naples is notorious for pickpockets and thieves, especially in the train station, and particularly near the circumvesuvius commuter train. Which is of course the train we needed to take. Sigh. So Zach and I decided we'd take a hydrofoil down to Sorrento and bypass all that mess while getting great views of the coast. Unfortunately, they weren't running the boats, so we had to take the train. boo.
The commuter train is about an hour and a half journey to Sorrento with about 30 stops in between, so it never really gets up to speed. It also is fashioned like an above ground metro, in that is has no A/C of any kind, and South Italy is WARM. It's somewhat cool when it's going fast, but like I said--30 stops.
By now, it's about 7pm and we've been traveling since 5 am with all our gear. We arrive in Sorrento and I am just struck by how CUTE a town it is and how PERFECT the light is. I'm really ready for us to find our hotel so I can bust out my nicer camera! We called the hotel and they told us where to go, but it was kind of vague. We asked several people for directions, and it was funny, because this is something the guidebook actually echoed. People loved to tell us where to go, but everyone had conflicting opinions. We wandered around for a while before we finally found our hotel. YAYY! I almost cried when I saw how precious our room was and how nice it was. Score!
You are probably ready for some photos now hmm? We didn't take many pictures during all that transit really, but now you can appreciate--along with me--Sorrento. It was like an oasis at the end of a 12 hour trek.
Zach and I found a little cafe in prime people-watching position and settled in. Here's the view from our seats. I told you the light was good! In the evening they shut the road down to cars and people in Sorrento like to stroll along the street window shopping, just looking good in general. It was fun to observe.
Here I am with my first espresso in Italy. I've had espresso once before, in Paris when I was studying abroad. I remember being excited about how cheap a "cafe´" was, only to discover no amount of sugar and cream could make it palatable. :-) This time, I knew what to expect and enjoyed it very much. Italy has excellent coffee! We'd also had delicious Pizza that kicked Papa John's in the butt and a salad with tuna on top(which we later discovered is very common in Italy).
OK, remember the Nutella jar from my last post> This one blew it out of the water. We went to a gelateria to get some gelato(Italian ice cream) and found this baby. I simply had to take a photo. 5 kilograms!!! OMG!!! 
I had Nutella and coffee gelato... YUMMMM!
We went shopping on the street, and Zach found this little ring. Our night in Sorrento was actually our year and a half anniversary too!
All kinds of interesting people were in Sorrento at night. This guy was a mime, of course.
Here we have an invisible man. He actually could move around and shake your hand and stuff!
The next day we had a delicious breakfast with Hotel Castarita's owner and some other houseguests. It was delicious and homey! We set out to walk around and found the mime in a new costume! Today he was a clown!
Sorrento is a coastal town with a beautiful view! What do you think?
This is the other direction. :-)
House near the water.
More Sorrento. There were so many opportunities to take great photos.
This was in town.
Viva Italia
Here is a view of the main square in Sorrento. The light was strong, so I did some PS work.
I'm not really sure what this is, but we took photos on top of a bridge looking down!
I HAD to get a photo in an ice cream cone chair. We got granitas here just so we wouldn't look so silly taking pics.
This is the inside door to our hotel!
This is a view from inside the bottom floor courtyard.
So concludes our time in Sorrento. Hope you've enjoyed it! Stay tuned for more Italy fun. I may not post anymore this weekend though, because Zach and I are going with his family to a ranch in Hamilton tomorrow morning. Ciao!
Last weekend, Zach and I went to a wedding and a baby shower for some of his friends in the midst of Mr. Ike. We only got constant rain, but we did a lot of driving around in it! This photo is from the wedding reception. I thought it was a really neat way to decorate.
Later that night we went to the baby shower. I should note that the shower was NOT for the same couple as the wedding! It was at a Mexican restaurant. I don't think I've ever been to a co-ed shower with drinking games... One of the games was a chugging contest between all the guys... chugging margaritas out of baby bottles! Here I am pretending to drink the rest of Zach's bottle. :-)
Last Sunday was Zach's dad Dean's birthday. We had a little party for him and I got him a card that made dog sniffing noises when you open it. We showed it to Gideon and he was enthralled, as you can see.
This past week has been so great because I've gotten to spend time with some really good friends. I miss being in college because we don't have the luxury of random all-night hangouts and just the free time to build good friendships. So when I get the chance to spend a few hours with someone, it just really makes my day. And this has been a great week for that! 
Also this week, I got to hang out with my friend 
I took this photo at the barn with my little camera. There are probably about 15 or more peacocks and peahens at Rocky Top, and they roost in these two dead trees at night. It's kind of creepy actually. If any of you are wishing to own a peacock, keep in mind that they like to call out and they kind of sound like a woman shrieking. Not too fun!
So not for an update on Willy. You can skip this if you aren't interested in horse care or founder. I won't tell anyone. :-) Last time I talked about him, I mentioned that he had rubber "lily pads" on his feet. I couldn't find a photo of them online anywhere. He got them taken off yesterday, so I got to take a photo of them.
We wrapped his feet with Elastikon to hold the lily pads in place. The first week Willy was lame, he had nothing special on his feet because I didn't know what was wrong with him and I'd hoped it was a stone bruise or soreness from his new shoes. The vet came out, said he might be foundering but wasn't sure so he didn't take off his shoes. He gave him DMSO by tube to his stomach--which stinks to high heaven, and we gave him 2ccs of Bute every day. After that weekend, the vet came out, saw that he wasn't better and pulled his shoes off and gave him DMSO again. He put those lily pads on with Elastikon and duct tape. I continued to give him Bute and iced his feet for the first few days. It didn't work very well. Willy got into some mud so his bandages disintegrated in less than a week. We took them off, thinking he might be OK last week and he ended up relapsing, becoming very lame again. So another vet from the same practice came out, said he was still foundering and wrapped him up like this--no duct tape--for 3 days to see if his hoof bones and laminae would stabilize. He also gave him DMSO again.
Next, he attached a foam square to the foot so he can form the special rubberlike pads.
He squirted in this mixture that molds to the horse's sole to offer custom support while encouraging the sole to grow thicker and stronger--this is key to helping the horse recover from laminitis(founder). It also has some elements of copper to keep the horse from developing thrush.
