Don't judge me for sweating

You'll understand my title later on. :-) For now, let's talk about the Olympics! I can't get enough of it right now and it's interfering with my blogging. But that's OK. Who else is excited?

Michael Phelps and USA's men's 400m relay team is! :-) 

This weekend I went to Hamilton, Texas, with Zach's family and extended family on his mom's side. We had a great time in this 7500 sq. foot ranch house built in the 1930s and 800+ acres of land. We spent our time swimming, laying out, eating, playing ping pong, socializing and watching the Olympics. It was really fun!

We found 2 Paint Horses on the property, and, having a camera on hand and a now-second nature shutter finger set to take photos of Paints... here you go. :-)

The ranch also had a windmill which I thought made for a good photo as well.

Here is the pool!

OK I guess it's about time to talk about Europe! The morning of July 20 is actually when Zach and I took some of the photos of Sorrento. We spent the morning there and headed back out towards our final destination: Rome. 

In case you were wondering how we carried our belongings, I present the Aggie Turtle. That's what I named my pack! It holds a TON of stuff. I also had a regular backpack that I got at Sky Ranch. That's it! All my life for 3 weeks had to fit in those two bags. Are you shocked? Me too. :-) Also, this is our last look at our wonderful hotel in Sorrento.

 Welcome to the photo that inspired my title. Our second day in Italy was HOT. The train from Sorrento to Pompeii to Naples was slow and not air-conditioned. The train liked to take leisurely stops in each of the cities on the way, allowing everyone to get a little warmer. Zach and I took bets on whether or not we'd sweat through our shorts(and capris). We did... but there's nothing you can do about the hear in this part of the country, so don't judge me for sweating. :-) Pompeii is an incredible city of ruins. A random tour guide found us and gave us a 2 hour tour, and it was totally worth it! It would be easy to get lost in the huge expanse of ruins. Above you'll see Mt. Vesuvius and another mountain(I've forgotten the name). They were once one mountain in the first century AD, until the only Volcano on this continent erupted, raining 8 feet of ash down on Pompeii over an 18 hour period, burying the city. I can't imagine being an Italian around 79 AD and not knowing what a volcano is or what was happening. So crazy!

Water still flowed in Pompeii, and Zach sampled it for himself! It was still very warm out. :-)

This little guy was a decoration within the Roman-style baths.

Zach took this photo! I think it's cool how the flowers still grow(or were planted) among the ruins. Either way, it livens up the dust and rock.

Once we arrived in Naples and got on a nice, cool train, we found our train was very full, so the only two seats open together were in the hallway... which of course had no AC. We also couldn't sleep because people walked back and forth so we had to stand up from our foldout seats every time. It was super fun. :-)

 Look how excited I am about our seats.

 Pointing out my spot. It was just one of those things that you had to laugh!

Finally we arrived in Rome!! Our hotel was nice, clean and cool. We cleaned up and set out to find some Roman food. We were overjoyed to find a nice place nearby with pastas and pizzas to suit our fancy. :-)

Sorry this post is a bit short, I guarantee some days later on will be much, much longer!

The Never Ending Journey to Sorrento

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!

Je t'aime Paris

I fried my straightener our very first night in Europe. Boo. That's what I get for not using all the adapter/converter components. This is probably not relevant to  you, but it explains my hair throughout these and future photos. :-)

Have no fear, I have replaced my older CHI with a new one thanks to Zach and his hairdresser friend Les! I am amazed that they cost the exact same as they did 6 years ago when I got my first one.

On to the good stuff. On July 18, Zach and I took a morning train from Angers to Versailles-- the palace of French Royalty(back in the day, of course). You may have seen it in the movie Marie Antoinette.

We stopped to eat lunch in a little park area in front of Versailles. Baguettes avec thon e tomate for myself(tuna sandwich) and chicken salad for zacharoo. I did start to remember some French during our brief stint in France... enough to get around and make a little conversation. I wish I was as fluent as my friend Katie though!

I'm pretty sure this is one of my favorite pics of Zach and I, one of many self-took portraits. This is the gate in front of Versailles!

Gorgeous chandelier in the Hall of Mirrors.

DAMASK! Versailles has many rooms. After wandering around the chateau for a few hours, I think I can say 90% of the rooms had damask wallpaper in some color or another. Pretty cool huh! I took photos of each room, but you get the picture. :-)

This is a new definition of "marble floors"... it looks exactly like marbled meat!

The chapel in Versailles. Isn't it incredible??

This is a random hallway and stairs but the marble was gorgeous.

Garden view from inside the Queens bedroom.

Hall of Mirrors again!

After exploring the Chateau at Versailles, but unfortunately bypassing the gardens, we boarded another train to PARIS! I have to say that I really do love France. It has a special place in my heart. I never really thought I'd ever be back to Paris, though. I remember during my study abroad time in Paris as a single girl, I wished I could return to the City of Lights with the [future]love of my life. But it was just a dream.

Surprise! I *did* go again, and I went with my love Zach. Of course, we had to see Le Tour Eiffel. She was waiting!

I have no words. :-)

Later we met up with my friend Claire for dinner. We originally met in Angers and became closer when she studied at A&M. To my delight, she suggested a place I didn't think we'd get to go because it was far from her apartment. MONTMARTE! Anddd! During Zach's 4 trips to Paris, he'd never gotten to see it! Montmarte is an area in North Paris where Bohemian artists congregated at one time to live. It's near Moulin Rouge, the famous cabaret and directly behind the Basilica of Sacre Couer(Sacred Heart). Above is a photo of Le Chat Noir I believe... if you know me, you know I have an identical poster framed on my wall.

Here's Claire with us as we climbed the many stairs up to Sacre Coeur. 

The hike is definitely worth it. Check out the view of Paris from the top!

At Sacre Coeur, people like to sit on the steps and people watch. Tres French, you know. This guy had mad basketball skillz. 

Sacre Coeur is gorgeous at night too. This is instance #1 of many that I wished I had a tripod. Also, I should have brought a shorter lens... or maybe even a fish-eye. Keep that in mind guys! I think I used my longer lens about 3 times this trip, and wished for a fish-eye multiple times.

Claire had never had escargot! Snails if you were wondering. :-) We went to dinner in Montmarte at a touristy creperie with not-French crepes, but the atmosphere was so great. We went with her sister, Marie and Marie's boyfriend. 

Claire was brave and tried snails for the first time. It's good stuff, I'm telling you!

Here we are at our wonderful dinner!

This is our spastic waiter. He had so much personality. :-) 

We headed home late to Claire's apartment she shared with Marie and Marie's boyfriend near this monument remembering the storming of the Bastille. I was so impressed with how her apartment unfolded out into living space! It was kind of like a Polly Pocket house with Ikea decorating. I loved it!

This concludes our time in France. I know you Francophiles are sad, but there's lots more European gallivanting to come so stay tuned!