A few people have asked for our phone number here in Spain.....it's +34 691 153 710. We are 6 hours ahead of eastern time in the US.
Hope all are fine and dandy!
D&J
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Estamos viviendo en Menorca por seis meses.
Yes, we are living in Menorca now for 6 months! Well, it's now about 5.5 really. Today is Wednesday the 26th of December. We have the possibility of getting on line quickly this afternoon, so I thought I would dash off a blog entry, and take my USB key with us and see if I could give you all an update.
Well, we finally arrived very late on Friday evening. We wandered Madrid for the day and then headed back to the airport for our 8pm flight. We had a delay until 10pm, which meant we arrived at Mahon airport around 11.30pm. Amazingly all the bags made it in one piece which was such a relief. When you go away for two weeks, if you lose a bag it's a problem, but you can buy toiletries, a few clothes etc. We had so much important stuff packed across all of our bags that it would have been a major headache if anyone had gone astray. I think I had mentioned in a previous post that we had taken the plunge and decided to rent a car for a few days while we got sorted out. A nice man from Owners Cars was waiting for us at the airport, and within a few minutes we were winging our way to S'Algar.
When we arrived we had a little present outside our front door. Our friend Denise had left a sack of wood, firelighters and kindling for us, together with a beautiful Poinsettia, which is now our official Christmas tree. The apartment was cool, but not as freezing as we had feared. We tumbled into bed under some heavy blankets and slept. It had been a long day!
The next morning we had so much to do! Denise had left a note for us saying that she and her friend John were heading into San Luis, the nearest big town at 10.30am if we wanted to join them. We did, so we met up with them amidst lots of hugs and handshakes and headed off, following Johns' ancient yellow Renault in our rental Corsa. It was great to finally be here! We had coffee and Tortilla (a Spanish egg and potato dish) for breakfast and then just sat and chatted for an hour or so, after which we headed off to the scooter shop in San Luis to start our information gathering. I won't bore you with all the gory details, but after visiting many shops over a period of 2 days we still don't have it sorted. The island is much more expensive than the mainland, and scooters proved to be no exception. Being the off season there is a lack of second-hand bikes available and the new ones are much more expensive than we had planned. We still have to make a final decision, but it looks like we will be buying one new 125cc scooter. We have asked about resale value for it at the end of 6 months and everyone seems to think that we will be able to get a really good price for it, and have no problem selling it at the beginning of the holiday season. We have to make our decision and swing into action on Thursday. The car goes back on Saturday evening and it takes 5 days for them to have the scooter ready for us. So we will be transport less for a few days it seems as we can't afford to extend the car rental to cover the gap. So it will be walkies for both us if we need to go anywhere!
Internet access has been the next pressing issue as you know. We have checked out a number of options, including 3g service for our laptops, but the contract lengths and prices are not manageable for us it seems. We did find an internet cafe in Mahon that says we can use our laptops there for 1e an hour. This sounds too good to be true, so we are going to give it a trial run on Thursday afternoon. There is also an internet cafe in San Luis we have to look at as well.
We spent most of Sunday re-arranging the apartment to be more practical. It has only ever been used as a summer home, so it needed a good clean and we opted to move the furniture around to position it better. Sunday was also the day of our first fire! Denise came round and showed us how to set one. Sunday evening we tried and had limited success. We did, however, succeed in filling the room with smoke. Monday was a little better, so we are hopeful that we will get the hang of it eventually!
Yesterday, Christmas Day, dawned with lots of sun and beautiful blue skies. We made a quick trip to San Luis to have a drink with Sarah and John, some friends of ours who live in Pou Nou (just outside of San Luis), made arrangements to meet up with them on Wednesday at 12pm, and then headed back to S'Algar for lunch. We were meeting Denise and John at 1pm, and then heading up to spend the day with David and Jenny Nuttall. We had a super day! Wine, food, and good company made for an excellent event. I have never really spent much time with Jenny and David, but that didn't stop us all getting to know each other a lot better and a good time was had by all! We left around 10pm last night, so it must have been good!
So that brings you up to speed. We are doing fine so far, with progress being made on all of our challenges. The next few days should see more things being sorted out! James wants to start working on his stuff at the beginning of the New Year, and my classes start on January 14th. I have started to pick up my Spanish books again, so hopefully that will improve quickly! James, of course, is the star of S'Algar with his Spanish.....a tough act to follow!
We hope that all of you are having a super holiday and are safe and well. You have our Spanish number if you need us. We'll be back on line as soon as we can!
Lots of love,
David & James.
Well, we finally arrived very late on Friday evening. We wandered Madrid for the day and then headed back to the airport for our 8pm flight. We had a delay until 10pm, which meant we arrived at Mahon airport around 11.30pm. Amazingly all the bags made it in one piece which was such a relief. When you go away for two weeks, if you lose a bag it's a problem, but you can buy toiletries, a few clothes etc. We had so much important stuff packed across all of our bags that it would have been a major headache if anyone had gone astray. I think I had mentioned in a previous post that we had taken the plunge and decided to rent a car for a few days while we got sorted out. A nice man from Owners Cars was waiting for us at the airport, and within a few minutes we were winging our way to S'Algar.
When we arrived we had a little present outside our front door. Our friend Denise had left a sack of wood, firelighters and kindling for us, together with a beautiful Poinsettia, which is now our official Christmas tree. The apartment was cool, but not as freezing as we had feared. We tumbled into bed under some heavy blankets and slept. It had been a long day!
The next morning we had so much to do! Denise had left a note for us saying that she and her friend John were heading into San Luis, the nearest big town at 10.30am if we wanted to join them. We did, so we met up with them amidst lots of hugs and handshakes and headed off, following Johns' ancient yellow Renault in our rental Corsa. It was great to finally be here! We had coffee and Tortilla (a Spanish egg and potato dish) for breakfast and then just sat and chatted for an hour or so, after which we headed off to the scooter shop in San Luis to start our information gathering. I won't bore you with all the gory details, but after visiting many shops over a period of 2 days we still don't have it sorted. The island is much more expensive than the mainland, and scooters proved to be no exception. Being the off season there is a lack of second-hand bikes available and the new ones are much more expensive than we had planned. We still have to make a final decision, but it looks like we will be buying one new 125cc scooter. We have asked about resale value for it at the end of 6 months and everyone seems to think that we will be able to get a really good price for it, and have no problem selling it at the beginning of the holiday season. We have to make our decision and swing into action on Thursday. The car goes back on Saturday evening and it takes 5 days for them to have the scooter ready for us. So we will be transport less for a few days it seems as we can't afford to extend the car rental to cover the gap. So it will be walkies for both us if we need to go anywhere!
Internet access has been the next pressing issue as you know. We have checked out a number of options, including 3g service for our laptops, but the contract lengths and prices are not manageable for us it seems. We did find an internet cafe in Mahon that says we can use our laptops there for 1e an hour. This sounds too good to be true, so we are going to give it a trial run on Thursday afternoon. There is also an internet cafe in San Luis we have to look at as well.
We spent most of Sunday re-arranging the apartment to be more practical. It has only ever been used as a summer home, so it needed a good clean and we opted to move the furniture around to position it better. Sunday was also the day of our first fire! Denise came round and showed us how to set one. Sunday evening we tried and had limited success. We did, however, succeed in filling the room with smoke. Monday was a little better, so we are hopeful that we will get the hang of it eventually!
Yesterday, Christmas Day, dawned with lots of sun and beautiful blue skies. We made a quick trip to San Luis to have a drink with Sarah and John, some friends of ours who live in Pou Nou (just outside of San Luis), made arrangements to meet up with them on Wednesday at 12pm, and then headed back to S'Algar for lunch. We were meeting Denise and John at 1pm, and then heading up to spend the day with David and Jenny Nuttall. We had a super day! Wine, food, and good company made for an excellent event. I have never really spent much time with Jenny and David, but that didn't stop us all getting to know each other a lot better and a good time was had by all! We left around 10pm last night, so it must have been good!
So that brings you up to speed. We are doing fine so far, with progress being made on all of our challenges. The next few days should see more things being sorted out! James wants to start working on his stuff at the beginning of the New Year, and my classes start on January 14th. I have started to pick up my Spanish books again, so hopefully that will improve quickly! James, of course, is the star of S'Algar with his Spanish.....a tough act to follow!
We hope that all of you are having a super holiday and are safe and well. You have our Spanish number if you need us. We'll be back on line as soon as we can!
Lots of love,
David & James.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Hola desde Madrid!
This is a quick update blog. We have arrived in Madrid and its Friday. To bring you up to speed....
Thursday was our last day in Rome. We didn't have a particular agenda, just a few pieces of art we wanted to see. The rest of the day was just spent wandering, wandering, and wandering! We had a great day, especially as for the first time the weather changed. It was above freezing! We finished the day back at our favourite wine bar, and then back to our favourite pasta bar for dinner. All in all a swell time! Back at the hotel at 10pm, we did all of our packing ready for our early morning start today.
The alarm went off at 4.45am this morning, and with a quick shower we left the hotel and arrived at Termini, the train station at 5.20am. One hour later we were in the check in line for our Iberia flight to Madrid. Uneventful, crowded, noisy flight, but we got here safely. Our transfer flight to Menorca is not until 8.20pm this evening, so we have jumped on the Metro and come into downtown Madrid, James' favourite city in the whole world. We are just going to spend the afternoon wandering again before heading back to the airport around 6 or so.
Last night we made the last minute decision to rent a car for 8 days in Menorca. When I spoke with our friend Denise yesterday, it seems that the authorities decided not to run an off season bus from S'Algar to San Luis, the nearest town. That would have given us a 45 minute walk to San Luis to get the bus to Mahon, the capital. So we decided to rent a car so we can get our transport situation sorted without having 1.5 hours of walking each day! We got a good deal as it is off season, so we will see how it all goes.
So that’s it! We will be on the island from around 9.30pm this evening. I have no idea when we will be back on line....once we get that and transport sorted (and some heat in the apartment) we will let you all know!
Hope all are fine and dandy!
D&J
Thursday was our last day in Rome. We didn't have a particular agenda, just a few pieces of art we wanted to see. The rest of the day was just spent wandering, wandering, and wandering! We had a great day, especially as for the first time the weather changed. It was above freezing! We finished the day back at our favourite wine bar, and then back to our favourite pasta bar for dinner. All in all a swell time! Back at the hotel at 10pm, we did all of our packing ready for our early morning start today.
The alarm went off at 4.45am this morning, and with a quick shower we left the hotel and arrived at Termini, the train station at 5.20am. One hour later we were in the check in line for our Iberia flight to Madrid. Uneventful, crowded, noisy flight, but we got here safely. Our transfer flight to Menorca is not until 8.20pm this evening, so we have jumped on the Metro and come into downtown Madrid, James' favourite city in the whole world. We are just going to spend the afternoon wandering again before heading back to the airport around 6 or so.
Last night we made the last minute decision to rent a car for 8 days in Menorca. When I spoke with our friend Denise yesterday, it seems that the authorities decided not to run an off season bus from S'Algar to San Luis, the nearest town. That would have given us a 45 minute walk to San Luis to get the bus to Mahon, the capital. So we decided to rent a car so we can get our transport situation sorted without having 1.5 hours of walking each day! We got a good deal as it is off season, so we will see how it all goes.
So that’s it! We will be on the island from around 9.30pm this evening. I have no idea when we will be back on line....once we get that and transport sorted (and some heat in the apartment) we will let you all know!
Hope all are fine and dandy!
D&J
Arrivederci....Florence!
Well, it's 10.15pm on Wednesday evening and we are back on the EuroStar to Rome. Both of us are really, really tired. We had a fairly easy day of it, but I think perhaps the schedule has caught up with us a little! Added to the fact that I am now in my 5th day of some kind of cold/sore throat/Tina Turner voice thing....ah well!
The last post was James musing on what was happening in the Wine Bar and Florence in general. Now it's my turn to update on what we did today. The day got off to a slow start for us. We set the alarm for 8am this time around, and didn't get up till 8.30am. We checked out of the hotel around 9.45am, saying goodbye to the irrepressibly cheery Marco at the Hotel Dali. Off in search of coffee and breakfast again. We ended up in a little cafe called "Jolly Cafe". While I wouldn't necessarily describe it as particularly jolly, they did serve me the campest ever cappuccino. I think I should try to serve on of these when I am back at Starbucks....they took a glass, filled it with water and then dumped the water out. Into the glass they then shook mocha powder, followed by espresso and steamed milk. The caps that I have been having have been more like an extra foamy latte from Buckies, certainly not the half milk half foam standard that we have to follow. In this "jolly" cappuccino on top of the foam went a little bit of whip, some chopped almonds and a sprinkling of mocha powder again. It was really quite delicious. James had his default Americano, and we both munched a croissant.
Having done this we decided to head to the Academy to see the statue of David, which has always been one of James' ambitions. Stopping along the way to buy a few postcards, we arrived at the gallery to find it fairly quiet outside. We forked over our 6.5e and headed inside. Prior to seeing David, the first gallery was full of late Byzantine up to early Renaissance art. It was quite odd to see such a huge span of work all in one room, but interesting all the same. However it wasn't really what we were all about, so we soon headed off to the main gallery. Some of you may have read my friend Ilona's comments about the run up to David having some additional Michelangelo statues there. True to her word, they were all lining the corridor and were quite spectacular. They are unfinished works that were destined to be used in a tomb, and it is really quite eerie to see these figures emerging from huge slabs of marble. It certainly provides quite a contrast to the main event of seeing Mighty Man himself.
There in the middle of the room, underneath a huge dome was Michelangelo’s David. He is really very impressive and totally dominates the space around him. Size is really what it seems to be all about, and there is no ignoring the fact that he is there! The power that is contained within the work is amazing. I quickly read through the notes that I had brought with me and then we spent some time wandering around the piece looking in more detail. Michelangelo seems to exaggerate certain parts of the body in his works, and this was no exception. The feet were huge, as were the hands. They were a little out of proportion really, but somehow they seem to work. There was also one other part of the statue that totally stood out, and that was the fact that it has the biggest balls in possibly the history of sculpture! Not sure what that is all about, but they are totally there!
After David we checked out the last few rooms, which contained yet more Byzantine work (does it never end?). Then we headed back out into the Florence daylight once more. We had nothing specific on our agenda for the day after seeing Big Balls, so, as James has already said, we just wandered our way around Florence. We were both feeling pretty tired, so it was to be a pleasant afternoon with many stops to sit down. We looked in shops, went into book stores, had a coffee and eventually ended up back at the Wine Bar with another bottle of Chianti. As James said, there was some book reading going on, which may have been quite interesting, but we couldn't understand a word of it. Consequently it was a little like someone performing magic tricks on the radio...somewhat lacking. I peeked over the railing from where we were sitting and the people also looked bored to tears as well. I was tempted to rush into the room and do my "Ursula the Usherette" impression and start shouting "Popcorn, candy, sodas" but decided against it! The picture accompanying this post is of the book readers. The chap in the middle looks like a little like Remington from Starbucks! After a while, and the end of the wine, we left, stopped off at our chosen eatery for dinner and headed back to the train station. Onto the train, and that brings all of you, dear readers, up to date!
Tomorrow we pack in the morning and then we will have a leisurely final day in Rome. Friday morning we head out to Menorca. We have a ghastly 8am flight from Rome airport, which means leaving the hotel around 5am to get the train to the airport. Then we have a long layover in Madrid before arriving in Menorca around 9.30pm or so. What fun!
I will try and post this tomorrow somehow. We will though be in Rome, land of the place that seems to hate USB sticks, so I am not quite sure how that will happen. It will possibly be the last post for a few days, as we will need to get ourselves sorted in Menorca over the weekend. Once we are back on line, I’ll post again!
Hope all are well,
Luv D&J
The last post was James musing on what was happening in the Wine Bar and Florence in general. Now it's my turn to update on what we did today. The day got off to a slow start for us. We set the alarm for 8am this time around, and didn't get up till 8.30am. We checked out of the hotel around 9.45am, saying goodbye to the irrepressibly cheery Marco at the Hotel Dali. Off in search of coffee and breakfast again. We ended up in a little cafe called "Jolly Cafe". While I wouldn't necessarily describe it as particularly jolly, they did serve me the campest ever cappuccino. I think I should try to serve on of these when I am back at Starbucks....they took a glass, filled it with water and then dumped the water out. Into the glass they then shook mocha powder, followed by espresso and steamed milk. The caps that I have been having have been more like an extra foamy latte from Buckies, certainly not the half milk half foam standard that we have to follow. In this "jolly" cappuccino on top of the foam went a little bit of whip, some chopped almonds and a sprinkling of mocha powder again. It was really quite delicious. James had his default Americano, and we both munched a croissant.
Having done this we decided to head to the Academy to see the statue of David, which has always been one of James' ambitions. Stopping along the way to buy a few postcards, we arrived at the gallery to find it fairly quiet outside. We forked over our 6.5e and headed inside. Prior to seeing David, the first gallery was full of late Byzantine up to early Renaissance art. It was quite odd to see such a huge span of work all in one room, but interesting all the same. However it wasn't really what we were all about, so we soon headed off to the main gallery. Some of you may have read my friend Ilona's comments about the run up to David having some additional Michelangelo statues there. True to her word, they were all lining the corridor and were quite spectacular. They are unfinished works that were destined to be used in a tomb, and it is really quite eerie to see these figures emerging from huge slabs of marble. It certainly provides quite a contrast to the main event of seeing Mighty Man himself.
There in the middle of the room, underneath a huge dome was Michelangelo’s David. He is really very impressive and totally dominates the space around him. Size is really what it seems to be all about, and there is no ignoring the fact that he is there! The power that is contained within the work is amazing. I quickly read through the notes that I had brought with me and then we spent some time wandering around the piece looking in more detail. Michelangelo seems to exaggerate certain parts of the body in his works, and this was no exception. The feet were huge, as were the hands. They were a little out of proportion really, but somehow they seem to work. There was also one other part of the statue that totally stood out, and that was the fact that it has the biggest balls in possibly the history of sculpture! Not sure what that is all about, but they are totally there!
After David we checked out the last few rooms, which contained yet more Byzantine work (does it never end?). Then we headed back out into the Florence daylight once more. We had nothing specific on our agenda for the day after seeing Big Balls, so, as James has already said, we just wandered our way around Florence. We were both feeling pretty tired, so it was to be a pleasant afternoon with many stops to sit down. We looked in shops, went into book stores, had a coffee and eventually ended up back at the Wine Bar with another bottle of Chianti. As James said, there was some book reading going on, which may have been quite interesting, but we couldn't understand a word of it. Consequently it was a little like someone performing magic tricks on the radio...somewhat lacking. I peeked over the railing from where we were sitting and the people also looked bored to tears as well. I was tempted to rush into the room and do my "Ursula the Usherette" impression and start shouting "Popcorn, candy, sodas" but decided against it! The picture accompanying this post is of the book readers. The chap in the middle looks like a little like Remington from Starbucks! After a while, and the end of the wine, we left, stopped off at our chosen eatery for dinner and headed back to the train station. Onto the train, and that brings all of you, dear readers, up to date!
Tomorrow we pack in the morning and then we will have a leisurely final day in Rome. Friday morning we head out to Menorca. We have a ghastly 8am flight from Rome airport, which means leaving the hotel around 5am to get the train to the airport. Then we have a long layover in Madrid before arriving in Menorca around 9.30pm or so. What fun!
I will try and post this tomorrow somehow. We will though be in Rome, land of the place that seems to hate USB sticks, so I am not quite sure how that will happen. It will possibly be the last post for a few days, as we will need to get ourselves sorted in Menorca over the weekend. Once we are back on line, I’ll post again!
Hope all are well,
Luv D&J
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Firenze, vino e mangiare!
Taking advantage of the few minutes before we have to leave the wine bar to head out to dinner on our last evening in Florence, here I am (James) posting a few (very wise) words from Tuscany.
As David has said in his numerous (and somewhat lengthy!) posts, we've been having a super time. Most of our days have been spent in churches, art museums, wine bars, and restaurants. But today we just walked and walked (and walked.....and walked) throughout the center of Florence just taking in the views. Lots of window-shopping! In another life, I suppose, we might have made some significant purchases, but in this one we just enjoyed looking in the shops of Ermenegildo Zegna, Gucci, Versace....e tutti l'italiani famosi della moda!
OK, David is so weird! Even as I'm writing this post, he's taking a photo of me in the wine bar. I mean, really! How interesting can a photo of me blogging be to the rest of the world. But I suppose that's the cross I bear for being partnered with a photographer. (Oh, I see that the influence of Italy is already weighing heavily on me.....I'm using religious metaphors now in my speech.)
This is really quite a surreal experience at the moment. This wine bar/book store is having an event at the moment where a famous Italian author is doing a reading from one of his recent books. It's very odd...it's a romance language, and it seems as though I should be understanding it, but it's nearly incomprehensible to me. I can pick up words now and then, but as far as the sense of it all....forget it. So I guess the best I can do while I'm here is to focus on looking at all the beautiful people.
That's all for the moment.
Ciao, bello! (or bella!)
James
As David has said in his numerous (and somewhat lengthy!) posts, we've been having a super time. Most of our days have been spent in churches, art museums, wine bars, and restaurants. But today we just walked and walked (and walked.....and walked) throughout the center of Florence just taking in the views. Lots of window-shopping! In another life, I suppose, we might have made some significant purchases, but in this one we just enjoyed looking in the shops of Ermenegildo Zegna, Gucci, Versace....e tutti l'italiani famosi della moda!
OK, David is so weird! Even as I'm writing this post, he's taking a photo of me in the wine bar. I mean, really! How interesting can a photo of me blogging be to the rest of the world. But I suppose that's the cross I bear for being partnered with a photographer. (Oh, I see that the influence of Italy is already weighing heavily on me.....I'm using religious metaphors now in my speech.)
This is really quite a surreal experience at the moment. This wine bar/book store is having an event at the moment where a famous Italian author is doing a reading from one of his recent books. It's very odd...it's a romance language, and it seems as though I should be understanding it, but it's nearly incomprehensible to me. I can pick up words now and then, but as far as the sense of it all....forget it. So I guess the best I can do while I'm here is to focus on looking at all the beautiful people.
That's all for the moment.
Ciao, bello! (or bella!)
James
Inside the Duomo
Well, as promised, here is James inside the Duomo to give you an idea of the scale of the place. If you look carefully, that is James sitting on the bench! My lens is wide enough to get the entire thin, but the ceiling above him goes into an arch, and then the vaulted ceiling is above that. So in other words if you double this height again, that is how the inside of the Duomo is.
So when Lisa and Joel visit Florence someday, Joel you won't have to duck.....
Love D&J
So when Lisa and Joel visit Florence someday, Joel you won't have to duck.....
Love D&J
Los Dos Dias en Florencia!
Well, not Italian, but I was feeling the need to write another language. So that will have to suffice!
Well, by the time you read this you will likely have read all the other posts! Yes, we found an internet cafe that didn't want to charge me a fortune to plug my USB stick into! So you have had pictures and words to look at. Now if I could just get the scratch and sniff blog up and running you could find what it is like after wearing the same pair of socks for 3 days...
So we arrived in Florence on the EuroStar. The ride was uneventful, after the first few moments anyway. You have to have a reserved seat on the EuroStar, and we did. Lo and behold, there were people in our seats when we arrived on the train. Seems that somehow some double booking had happened and a number of had the same seats. It was all sorted out amicably and we settled into the journey to Florence. We had a little heart stopping moment when the person sitting next to me told me that it was not going to Florence but to Venice. I pointed out that the first stop was Florence, but not until after a jolt of adrenaline gave me a buzz, as the train had already pulled out of the station at Rome! I was able to write the last blog on the train that you have, of course, read. The journey was a short 1.5 hours, and the only unfortunate part about it was that I spent the entire time typing, so didn't really get to see much of the scenery. Our train back tomorrow is at 10pm, so no more opportunities there either. See, the things your trusty blogfuhrer does for you......
When we arrived at Florence, we disentangled ourselves from the train, and did the ever present "we do we go now" question. We had reservations at a hotel called "Hotel Dali", and with a quick consultation to Lonely Planet (LP) we were on our way from the train station. After about 5 minutes of walking we rounded a corner and there before us was the Duomo, the main cathedral. What a sight! I took a few snaps of it from this point, but then realised that my camera was still set to 1600 ISO after taking pictures in the Pantheon, so they are really noisy. Still, that shouldn't detract from the fact that it was quite amazing to see. We came right up to it and then headed off on a tangent road to our hotel.
Heading up the stairs, we were greeted by the smiling owner, Marco, who had a grin every bit as big as his photo on his website. He checked us in, not even really batting an eyelid when he saw that the reservation was for a double bed, and showed us our room. It is great! Much, much nicer than the room in Rome. But then, Rome is the capital, so we had to work to a budget. Here we are paying the same! Still, we are just fortunate to be able to do all these things, so I will not grumble. After dumping our stuff we headed out to the Duomo. From the outside, this is totally impressive. It seems that the facade is actually 19th century, but is totally amazing. It's this sort of patchwork quilt effect of marbles and is really quite funky. I wonder what the people thought of it when it was complete? It is certainly very different from the austere front of the Vatican. Once we had gone inside, it was a big contrast. The inside is empty! The first thing that hit us was that there were no pews. Just this big, huge, empty space! The nice thing about it is that you can easily walk all over it though and really look at it from all kinds of different angles, which you can't do in most churches dues to the benches etc. We spent a pleasant 30 minutes in there, looking at the interior and the amazing dome. I'll post a picture I took of James inside to give you an idea of the scale of things.
After the Duomo, tummies were rumbling, so we headed to a sandwich shop that we had passed on the way to the hotel. We enjoyed a sandwich and Coke (which cost more than the sandwich!) and then headed on our way again. The next stop was an exciting one for me; the Galleria degli Uffizi. Armed with the list I had made from my art history book, I was so excited to see the works that, up till now, I had only seen in the book and as a slide on a projector. We arrived, paid our entrance fee, had a quick battle with checking my backpack into the bag check and rushed up to the gallery. The first main gallery we saw contained two of the pictures I was most eager to see, the Madonna and child paintings by Cimabue and Giotto. I won't turn this into Art History blog (heaven knows, ask James....he had to listen to me lecturing him about them being a summary of Byzantine art and the transition to Naturalism!), but it was totally amazing. For some reason I thought the pieces were really tiny, but in reality they were about 10 feet tall and suspended in mid-air. Your blogfuhrer was tongue - tied (yay thought James, most likely!) We carried on our way around the gallery and saw everything, with me being tour guide through my typed notes and lists.
After leaving there, we headed out to the local Lesbian and Gay store to see if we could find out any info on the local scene. We met two very nice people who spoke Spanish, so James was able to find out all the info on where we might be going for a drink later. After this it was time to find some refreshment. It is from this place of refreshment that I am now typing this, to be saved to the ubiquitous USB stick for an upload tomorrow. Can you guess where we stopped for sustenance? No, not McDonalds, not Taco Bell either but we found a WINE BAR! It's called La Cite and is a bookstore with two levels that also happens to serve wine and coffee. So here we are, with our first bottle of Chianti in a place that is a cross between the Tattered Cover in Lodo Denver, our favourite Wine Bar in Rome and the Student Union. James is browsing through LP Florence, and the local gay magazine from Rome, and I am typing to the masses. Next stop will be dinner! We have a strong recommendation from some good friends of James, Ann and Mike Milacci, to go to a restaurant called Da il Latino, however it may be out of our reach price wise today. James is busy researching as the good professor he is, so I am sure we will end up somewhere fabulous.
So I’ll sign off here and pick up when we get back to the hotel tonight!
Well, dinner was an experience I can tell you! We arrived at Da Il Latino and looked at the menu outside. We were surprised as it listed pasta dishes for around 7e, so we went inside. The place was really quite busy as the books had said. After a short wait we went to a table for four, and sat down. Within minutes some other people had also joined us at our table! A Belgian man, a French Man, an American Man, and an English Man were all sitting at a dinner table....surely someone out there can make a joke out of that one for us? Almost immediately a waiter appeared with a 1 litre bottle of wine and swiftly opened it before we could protest. I could see the bill going up beyond our reach at this rate. Water also arrived and we ordered a bowl of Minestrone each to start. I have never had Minestrone quite like this before...it was delicious! James then ordered Sausage and Beans and I ordered a Penne dish, both of which were great. All this was interspersed with very light conversation with our dinner companions. All in all it was a great meal and I would highly recommend the restaurant to anyone. When the bill arrived everything had been split into two groups and the wine was 50% ours. So it came to about 6e more than we had expected which was great! After that, a quick jaunt through the freezing night air back to the hotel where I am finishing this up! Tomorrow, we go to see David and probably just wander Florence some. We head out at 10pm on the EuroStar back to Rome, so I’ll catch up with you all then!
Love D&J
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Monday a la Roma!
Well, here we are on the train to Florence! As you might have guessed I did not get to find an internet cafe that would allow me to use my USB stick to upload even the blog file I had written on Sunday night. Here in Rome, most of the places we have tried have been internet cafes who charge extra for everything. Waving a USB stick or a flash card around attracts a 5e surcharge it seems, and with our limited financial situation, that is not something that we can do at present. Even explaining to people that I just want to access a text file on the stick with Sundays blog entry doesn't work! Ah well....it just means that when I finally get to do it, you people will have lots to read! Heaven only knows when I will get to blog some photos at this rate. It is also making me a little concerned as to how I will get access in Menorca, but I'll worry about that when we get there! Maybe finding someone who has a hotspot service and signing up for that will be the way to go, as long as there are no horrid restrictions etc...
So, back to the real blog! Yesterday, Monday, we didn't have to get up to go and queue for anything, so we ended up leaving the hotel around 9am. A quick croissant and coffee, and then we decided that we wanted to go and walk the shops. These days with no cash this was sure to be a tempting situation. But we fared well and were very restrained as we walked past Prada, Chanel, Bulgari etc....it’s easy to resist temptation when you have 30e a day to live on in a capital city! We hit the Spanish Steps, which is right in the middle of the designer shopping area and then just wandered, wending our way up to the Piazza de Popoleo, which was full of expensive shops and restaurants as well! It's hardly a place for the people with Gucci and Armani in residence! We had a sandwich sitting down on the steps of the obelisk at Popoleo and worked out our plan for the afternoon. This involved a number of churches who had art that was on our list. We saw the St Matthew sequence by Caravaggio, some ceiling by a painter I can't remember now, and a lesser known Michelangelo sculpture, Christ and the Cross. Tramping from place to place was fun and we certainly saw plenty. We also discovered the Roman Catholic churches latest way of making money. When you enter these churches it is now easy to find the Caravaggio’s etc....they are the ones in darkness! The churches have put pay boxes and timers on the lights in the chapels/alcoves were these images are, and to be able to see them you have to drop a euro in the machine, and that turns the light on for 1 minute. That’s $1.50 at the current exchange rate! So being dead poor, we just sat next to them and waited for rich people to put money in. I guess it is the next RC church fundraising event since bingo. A few churches that went to had problems with the money boxes though, and people dropped the cash but the lights stayed firmly off! It reminded me of the way the RC church used to sell indulgences to lessen your stay in purgatory. I wonder what happened to those people when they found out they had paid the cash and it didn't work either!
Anyway, we then hit the Trevi Fountain. With high hopes of some campery to Connie Francis and "three coins in the fountain" we joined the throngs of people. It was really quite impressive. Certainly much larger than I was expecting. I think because it is attached to a building and not free standing it adds to its enormity. There were lots and lots of people there, together with the obligatory hawkers, this time selling roses instead of rugs, and shawls as the weather was slightly warmer. And really, isn't a half dead rose at the Trevi Fountain a little more romantic than a 100% polyester prayer mat, which is what some of the hawkers were selling in the cold on Sunday. I swear it was the same lot of people who were following us around Rome. James, bless him, was as usual always fair game for the camera and posed mightily with his coins in front of the fountain while I snapped away. I also shot 10 seconds of video with James flinging his coins into the fountain too. Bet you all just can't wait till I get to upload stuff eh!
Onto the Parthenon next. In the words of Victoria (Perfect Spice) Beckham, this place is MAJOR! It is just huge and the fact that is so old and still standing is just amazing. It has an opening in the roof, so the rain just pores in, but then drain holes in the cambered floor take over to funnel the water off to the sewers. The sheer size of it all inside was just stunning. Raphael is buried inside, and the crowds around his tomb made me wonder what he would think of it all. Perhaps his day wasn't really so much different. The hawkers probably still sold shawls and mats, but without the polyester! It was now raining and the hawkers were waving umbrellas at us, so we moved on once more. James had discovered a little gay bookstore in the Centre Storico that he wanted to go visit, so we donned our rain hoods and sloshed our way through the rain. Bookstore was pretty much the same as every other bookstore in different country. Full of books that are in a different language! It also sold the usual novelty and toys as well, one of which was a lesbian doll called Bobbie. On the package it says "Your very own lesbian to play with". In richer days some people reading this blog would have been receiving these in the mail as gifts! You know who you are!
Now it was getting darker, and we were fading. What better place to fade into than the wine bar we had been to on Saturday and Sunday! We spent another pleasant 2 hours over a bottle of wine from Umbria and then decided to go have dinner in the same super-cheap but really excellent restaurant from Saturday night. We had bread, pasta, water and an accidentally ordered bottle of wine by James (yeah right!) all for 20e! On the way to the bus stop we stopped in at what was listed as a gay bar, but is now a restaurant and got fleeced for 10e for a small beer and a bottle of water, followed by our trip on the bus back to the hotel room. There ended our Monday!
So now we are sitting on the train to Florence, where we will arrive in about 40 minutes. The Eurostar train is great, and it's quite nice not to be pounding the streets for a while! When we get there, we have to find our hotel, check in and then it's off to see some art! David (Michelangelo's) is on the agenda, as is the Galleria degli Uffezi, the big art gallery of the trip. Not sure which will be today and which will be tomorrow yet. We leave Florence tomorrow night on the 10pm train. So likely the next blog will be then. I'll save this to my flash drive and keep it with me in the hope that I may be able to upload them soon!
Hope all are fine and dandy!
Love D&J
So, back to the real blog! Yesterday, Monday, we didn't have to get up to go and queue for anything, so we ended up leaving the hotel around 9am. A quick croissant and coffee, and then we decided that we wanted to go and walk the shops. These days with no cash this was sure to be a tempting situation. But we fared well and were very restrained as we walked past Prada, Chanel, Bulgari etc....it’s easy to resist temptation when you have 30e a day to live on in a capital city! We hit the Spanish Steps, which is right in the middle of the designer shopping area and then just wandered, wending our way up to the Piazza de Popoleo, which was full of expensive shops and restaurants as well! It's hardly a place for the people with Gucci and Armani in residence! We had a sandwich sitting down on the steps of the obelisk at Popoleo and worked out our plan for the afternoon. This involved a number of churches who had art that was on our list. We saw the St Matthew sequence by Caravaggio, some ceiling by a painter I can't remember now, and a lesser known Michelangelo sculpture, Christ and the Cross. Tramping from place to place was fun and we certainly saw plenty. We also discovered the Roman Catholic churches latest way of making money. When you enter these churches it is now easy to find the Caravaggio’s etc....they are the ones in darkness! The churches have put pay boxes and timers on the lights in the chapels/alcoves were these images are, and to be able to see them you have to drop a euro in the machine, and that turns the light on for 1 minute. That’s $1.50 at the current exchange rate! So being dead poor, we just sat next to them and waited for rich people to put money in. I guess it is the next RC church fundraising event since bingo. A few churches that went to had problems with the money boxes though, and people dropped the cash but the lights stayed firmly off! It reminded me of the way the RC church used to sell indulgences to lessen your stay in purgatory. I wonder what happened to those people when they found out they had paid the cash and it didn't work either!
Anyway, we then hit the Trevi Fountain. With high hopes of some campery to Connie Francis and "three coins in the fountain" we joined the throngs of people. It was really quite impressive. Certainly much larger than I was expecting. I think because it is attached to a building and not free standing it adds to its enormity. There were lots and lots of people there, together with the obligatory hawkers, this time selling roses instead of rugs, and shawls as the weather was slightly warmer. And really, isn't a half dead rose at the Trevi Fountain a little more romantic than a 100% polyester prayer mat, which is what some of the hawkers were selling in the cold on Sunday. I swear it was the same lot of people who were following us around Rome. James, bless him, was as usual always fair game for the camera and posed mightily with his coins in front of the fountain while I snapped away. I also shot 10 seconds of video with James flinging his coins into the fountain too. Bet you all just can't wait till I get to upload stuff eh!
Onto the Parthenon next. In the words of Victoria (Perfect Spice) Beckham, this place is MAJOR! It is just huge and the fact that is so old and still standing is just amazing. It has an opening in the roof, so the rain just pores in, but then drain holes in the cambered floor take over to funnel the water off to the sewers. The sheer size of it all inside was just stunning. Raphael is buried inside, and the crowds around his tomb made me wonder what he would think of it all. Perhaps his day wasn't really so much different. The hawkers probably still sold shawls and mats, but without the polyester! It was now raining and the hawkers were waving umbrellas at us, so we moved on once more. James had discovered a little gay bookstore in the Centre Storico that he wanted to go visit, so we donned our rain hoods and sloshed our way through the rain. Bookstore was pretty much the same as every other bookstore in different country. Full of books that are in a different language! It also sold the usual novelty and toys as well, one of which was a lesbian doll called Bobbie. On the package it says "Your very own lesbian to play with". In richer days some people reading this blog would have been receiving these in the mail as gifts! You know who you are!
Now it was getting darker, and we were fading. What better place to fade into than the wine bar we had been to on Saturday and Sunday! We spent another pleasant 2 hours over a bottle of wine from Umbria and then decided to go have dinner in the same super-cheap but really excellent restaurant from Saturday night. We had bread, pasta, water and an accidentally ordered bottle of wine by James (yeah right!) all for 20e! On the way to the bus stop we stopped in at what was listed as a gay bar, but is now a restaurant and got fleeced for 10e for a small beer and a bottle of water, followed by our trip on the bus back to the hotel room. There ended our Monday!
So now we are sitting on the train to Florence, where we will arrive in about 40 minutes. The Eurostar train is great, and it's quite nice not to be pounding the streets for a while! When we get there, we have to find our hotel, check in and then it's off to see some art! David (Michelangelo's) is on the agenda, as is the Galleria degli Uffezi, the big art gallery of the trip. Not sure which will be today and which will be tomorrow yet. We leave Florence tomorrow night on the 10pm train. So likely the next blog will be then. I'll save this to my flash drive and keep it with me in the hope that I may be able to upload them soon!
Hope all are fine and dandy!
Love D&J
Vatican Museum
And another snapshot! This is James at the Vatican Museum on Sunday on the replic of Berninis horse capable staircase. Did I say anything about old Nags?
Love Dand J
Love Dand J
Touchdown +2 days!
First off....we have an Italian phone number. It's +39 331 702 7904. From the US replace the + with 011 and from the UK replace it with 00. Feel free to call us or text us if you want. Skype and Yahoo have really good rates on your PC. Just remember we are 7 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the US and 2 hours ahead of the UK.
It's now Sunday and this is the first chance there has been to update the blog. You'll all be pleased to know that we arrived safe and sound in Rome on Friday at 8am Rome time after a long but uneventful flight. I say uneventful, even though we had a 1 hour delay in leaving Chicago. When we arrived the first thing we did after collecting our bags was to sit down, have a coffee and work out how to get to the hotel from the airport, which lies about 30km outside of Rome itself. A short while later, and we whizzing our way into downtown Rome. A trek of about 6 blocks with bags brought us to the Hotel des Artistes, our home for the next 7 days. We booked it a while back, so we couldn’t; really remember what we had chosen. It's very basic, but then it was only about e40 per night for the centre of Rome, so we can't really complain. The room is simple and small, but the staff are friendly enough. We don't plan to be here much anyway, so it will suffice!
Friday passed in the usual 1st day jet-lag way of feeling there, but not there and somewhat disoriented most of the time. We had lunch at the railway station and found a great little wine bar to have a few glasses of wine in, all the while starring glassy eyed at our surroundings. Dinner was a Pizza (pretty good!) and then home to pop some Melatonin and off to bed.
Saturday we awoke at 6am, bright eyed and bushy tailed, thinking it was time for dinner! Alas it was only time for breakfast, so we showered, left the hotel and grabbed some Espresso, croissants and headed for the first stop of the trip, the Vatican. Ever mindful of the fact that there was already one big drag queen in residence, we dressed more soberly than usual, and very warmly as well. Rome has been hit by a cold spell, and the temperature was -2 centigrade, which is about 28 in Fahrenheit. We arrived at the Vatican at around 8am, and stood in the freezing cold outside in line until 9.30am when the doors opened. The whole experience was quite amazing. I had been through my art history book a few weeks ago, making a list of all the things that I had studied and wanted to see in person. We checked quite a few off the list. It was really quite amazing to see so many Giotto's, Caravaggio’s, Michelangelo's, Raphael's and many more masters in one place at the same time. If anything we felt a little guilty at being able to give such astounding works of art a 3 minute glance over before we moved onto the next one. Eventually we hit the Sistine Chapel, which was quite breathtaking. Michelangelo’s frescoes were amazing, and so were the other artists as well. It's quite sad that in that same chapel are frescos by the likes of Botticelli and they get completely passed over. After the Sistine Chapel, we left the Vatican Museum complex and headed onto St Peters.
When we arrived, the sheer scale of the Piazza is astounding. It's huge! I took a few snapshots (holiday pic's thats all!...) while James had a sit down on the steps for a while. Then we headed into the Basilica and marvelled at the inside. It's truly amazing, and overwhelms you by it sheer size. A trip around the dome was in order, as was a journey down into the tombs, trying to avoid the mass of nuns around John Paul II's tomb, finishing up with a quick trip to the restroom! It almost seems a crime to talk so quickly about such places, but this is a blog, not a research paper.....
In need of sustenance, we consulted the other bible, Lonely Planet Rome, and headed off to a little wine bar that sounded interesting. The little wine bar is now a building site, so after stopping off to warm ourselves in another place, we ended up in the most amazing wine bar that was also in Lonely Planet. Just like the Vatican, it deserved more than a cursory look, so we decided to buy a bottle and sit there for two hours. James chatted with some people at the table next door, while I researched where to go for dinner and drank. We had a lovely time and swore to return! Then off to dinner which was another Lonely Planet (LP) recommendation, for a 6e plate of Pasta in a super cheap restaurant! A short bus ride later and we were back the other side of town popping some more melatonin combined with some Body Shop Peppermint foot lotion and off to bed!
Today dawned cold again. A quick shower and off to find caffeine. Then we walked about 1.5 miles to the Colosseum. No gladiators, and no Christians and Lions, just us and every Japanese person outside of Japan. Although it was below freezing again, we wandered the arena and had a super time. It's very difficult to get a sense of what it must actually have been like for the people who were there in it's hey day; the nobility watching, the gladiators fighting and the poor people who were sacrificed there. Time has moved on so much, and the change in times and surroundings of this enormous building somewhat lessens the impact of it all. Still, with a bit of thought and effort it is possible to remember and honour the people who lost their lives there over the years. After a few hours we moved onto more coffee and then the Palatine. This was a disappointment in many ways, largely due to the lack of signs and information (which was also strangely the case in the Vatican, St Peters and the Colosseum). Still we had a pleasant 2 hours strolling through the ruins, marvelling at how a pile of columns could just be left sitting around the ruins so casually! Lunch from a supermarket consisted of some rolls and salami, and then we fled the cold to a local hotel and hid in the lobby for a few hours.
Dinner time was calling, so we needed somewhere to go to decide where we would go to eat. Where else but the wine bar from the previous night! Safely ensconced again with a bottle (syrah this time from Lazio) we spent another two hours chatting to people from Seattle and then just watching the world go bar. Dinner was a plate of pasta in a nearby restaurant, followed by the bus home again. I have just downloaded a bunch of pictures onto my PC and at the same time, in the spirit of multitasking, have written this long blog! Tomorrow morning I will pick an image and stick the whole thing on a USB key and try and find a way to get on line and post it!
It's now Sunday and this is the first chance there has been to update the blog. You'll all be pleased to know that we arrived safe and sound in Rome on Friday at 8am Rome time after a long but uneventful flight. I say uneventful, even though we had a 1 hour delay in leaving Chicago. When we arrived the first thing we did after collecting our bags was to sit down, have a coffee and work out how to get to the hotel from the airport, which lies about 30km outside of Rome itself. A short while later, and we whizzing our way into downtown Rome. A trek of about 6 blocks with bags brought us to the Hotel des Artistes, our home for the next 7 days. We booked it a while back, so we couldn’t; really remember what we had chosen. It's very basic, but then it was only about e40 per night for the centre of Rome, so we can't really complain. The room is simple and small, but the staff are friendly enough. We don't plan to be here much anyway, so it will suffice!
Friday passed in the usual 1st day jet-lag way of feeling there, but not there and somewhat disoriented most of the time. We had lunch at the railway station and found a great little wine bar to have a few glasses of wine in, all the while starring glassy eyed at our surroundings. Dinner was a Pizza (pretty good!) and then home to pop some Melatonin and off to bed.
Saturday we awoke at 6am, bright eyed and bushy tailed, thinking it was time for dinner! Alas it was only time for breakfast, so we showered, left the hotel and grabbed some Espresso, croissants and headed for the first stop of the trip, the Vatican. Ever mindful of the fact that there was already one big drag queen in residence, we dressed more soberly than usual, and very warmly as well. Rome has been hit by a cold spell, and the temperature was -2 centigrade, which is about 28 in Fahrenheit. We arrived at the Vatican at around 8am, and stood in the freezing cold outside in line until 9.30am when the doors opened. The whole experience was quite amazing. I had been through my art history book a few weeks ago, making a list of all the things that I had studied and wanted to see in person. We checked quite a few off the list. It was really quite amazing to see so many Giotto's, Caravaggio’s, Michelangelo's, Raphael's and many more masters in one place at the same time. If anything we felt a little guilty at being able to give such astounding works of art a 3 minute glance over before we moved onto the next one. Eventually we hit the Sistine Chapel, which was quite breathtaking. Michelangelo’s frescoes were amazing, and so were the other artists as well. It's quite sad that in that same chapel are frescos by the likes of Botticelli and they get completely passed over. After the Sistine Chapel, we left the Vatican Museum complex and headed onto St Peters.
When we arrived, the sheer scale of the Piazza is astounding. It's huge! I took a few snapshots (holiday pic's thats all!...) while James had a sit down on the steps for a while. Then we headed into the Basilica and marvelled at the inside. It's truly amazing, and overwhelms you by it sheer size. A trip around the dome was in order, as was a journey down into the tombs, trying to avoid the mass of nuns around John Paul II's tomb, finishing up with a quick trip to the restroom! It almost seems a crime to talk so quickly about such places, but this is a blog, not a research paper.....
In need of sustenance, we consulted the other bible, Lonely Planet Rome, and headed off to a little wine bar that sounded interesting. The little wine bar is now a building site, so after stopping off to warm ourselves in another place, we ended up in the most amazing wine bar that was also in Lonely Planet. Just like the Vatican, it deserved more than a cursory look, so we decided to buy a bottle and sit there for two hours. James chatted with some people at the table next door, while I researched where to go for dinner and drank. We had a lovely time and swore to return! Then off to dinner which was another Lonely Planet (LP) recommendation, for a 6e plate of Pasta in a super cheap restaurant! A short bus ride later and we were back the other side of town popping some more melatonin combined with some Body Shop Peppermint foot lotion and off to bed!
Today dawned cold again. A quick shower and off to find caffeine. Then we walked about 1.5 miles to the Colosseum. No gladiators, and no Christians and Lions, just us and every Japanese person outside of Japan. Although it was below freezing again, we wandered the arena and had a super time. It's very difficult to get a sense of what it must actually have been like for the people who were there in it's hey day; the nobility watching, the gladiators fighting and the poor people who were sacrificed there. Time has moved on so much, and the change in times and surroundings of this enormous building somewhat lessens the impact of it all. Still, with a bit of thought and effort it is possible to remember and honour the people who lost their lives there over the years. After a few hours we moved onto more coffee and then the Palatine. This was a disappointment in many ways, largely due to the lack of signs and information (which was also strangely the case in the Vatican, St Peters and the Colosseum). Still we had a pleasant 2 hours strolling through the ruins, marvelling at how a pile of columns could just be left sitting around the ruins so casually! Lunch from a supermarket consisted of some rolls and salami, and then we fled the cold to a local hotel and hid in the lobby for a few hours.
Dinner time was calling, so we needed somewhere to go to decide where we would go to eat. Where else but the wine bar from the previous night! Safely ensconced again with a bottle (syrah this time from Lazio) we spent another two hours chatting to people from Seattle and then just watching the world go bar. Dinner was a plate of pasta in a nearby restaurant, followed by the bus home again. I have just downloaded a bunch of pictures onto my PC and at the same time, in the spirit of multitasking, have written this long blog! Tomorrow morning I will pick an image and stick the whole thing on a USB key and try and find a way to get on line and post it!
Monday, December 17, 2007
A quick update!
Yes, we are here safely in Rome. Unfortunately the Internet Cafe we picked doesnà t allow uploads, so I can't upload the post I wrote last night. That will come when we find another cafe later today!
We have a cellphone in Italy now. Here's the number...
+39 331 702 7904
If you want to call us Skype and Yahoo Phone have good rates! Or you can txt us if you like. In the US just replace the +39 with 011 and the UK just replace it with 00
Watch for the new post later today!
Luv to all....
D&J
We have a cellphone in Italy now. Here's the number...
+39 331 702 7904
If you want to call us Skype and Yahoo Phone have good rates! Or you can txt us if you like. In the US just replace the +39 with 011 and the UK just replace it with 00
Watch for the new post later today!
Luv to all....
D&J
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Waiting to go!
OK, James here. We're getting ready to leave for the airport on our European sabbatical adventure in about an hour. It's amazing to think that we're actually all packed and ready to go. Well, almost. I still have to shower, change, brush my teeth.....OK, this is my first blog ever, and you probably don't need to know that level of detail of my daily affairs!
David has already shut down his computer, and he wanted to upload this photo of the packed bags. Since my computer is still up and running, he asked if I would do it. Oh, and then since I was already logged into BLOGSPACE, he said you might as well post your first blog. (Then he oh-so-convincingly says it wasn't a ploy to get me to blog. Yeah, right!)
So, now we're about to go into check-check-check mode. That's where one person asks: "Did you pack the toothpaste?" Check! "Did you pack the camera?" Check! "Passports?" Check!
I know you're probably asking yourself: How in the heck are they going to survive for six months away from home with only those bags in the photo? Well, I guess it's just one of those things we're going to have to figure out as we go.
Anyway, looking forward to hearing from y'all.
Hugs,
James
David has already shut down his computer, and he wanted to upload this photo of the packed bags. Since my computer is still up and running, he asked if I would do it. Oh, and then since I was already logged into BLOGSPACE, he said you might as well post your first blog. (Then he oh-so-convincingly says it wasn't a ploy to get me to blog. Yeah, right!)
So, now we're about to go into check-check-check mode. That's where one person asks: "Did you pack the toothpaste?" Check! "Did you pack the camera?" Check! "Passports?" Check!
I know you're probably asking yourself: How in the heck are they going to survive for six months away from home with only those bags in the photo? Well, I guess it's just one of those things we're going to have to figure out as we go.
Anyway, looking forward to hearing from y'all.
Hugs,
James
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
The final countdown
Hello all,
Well, today I finished my last final. So school is now complete for me for another semester! It's been a crazy time recently with photo projects, research papers, web site projects and trying to get everything ready for departure! But, things are starting to gel. Thanks to all those Professors who have been supportive and have ignored my slightly more stressed than usual pappearance. James has been frantically busy at UC trying to finish up all of his stuff, not to mention all the things I keep asking him to do here as well!
Tomorrow we will be shipping our books over to Spain. James has about 15 books he will be using while he is there, and I have about 10. For those of you who need to ship things overseas, we have discovered that the USPS does flat rate boxes to most of the world for $37. The maximum weight of the box is 20lb's so we are sending four! But considering Fedex and UPS wanted $380 for a 55lb box, this is a steal!
Also tomorrow is the packing. How do you pack for 6 months? Well, thankfully we are limited to our two bags each, so that will help constrain us I suppose. I also have all the technology stuff to pack as well; portable hard drives, camera gear, phones, networking stuff, laptops, walkie talkies and so on! We aim to have it all done by tomorrow night as we leave around 9am on Thursday morning. Plus I have a dentist appointment for a filling and a car service tomorrow as well! What fun!
For those of you who are here for the photogrpahy, I have setup a flickr pro account. It's empty currently, but you can check it out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidnmartin98 It is set up to push photos into this blog, so that should be in action once we have stuff to show you.
Well, time to head toward the to-do list....We will try and post before we leave on Thursday morning. Oh, and I also turned on anonymous commenting to the blog, so you shouldn't have to have a Google account now to leave comments!
Have a great evening!
D&J
Well, today I finished my last final. So school is now complete for me for another semester! It's been a crazy time recently with photo projects, research papers, web site projects and trying to get everything ready for departure! But, things are starting to gel. Thanks to all those Professors who have been supportive and have ignored my slightly more stressed than usual pappearance. James has been frantically busy at UC trying to finish up all of his stuff, not to mention all the things I keep asking him to do here as well!
Tomorrow we will be shipping our books over to Spain. James has about 15 books he will be using while he is there, and I have about 10. For those of you who need to ship things overseas, we have discovered that the USPS does flat rate boxes to most of the world for $37. The maximum weight of the box is 20lb's so we are sending four! But considering Fedex and UPS wanted $380 for a 55lb box, this is a steal!
Also tomorrow is the packing. How do you pack for 6 months? Well, thankfully we are limited to our two bags each, so that will help constrain us I suppose. I also have all the technology stuff to pack as well; portable hard drives, camera gear, phones, networking stuff, laptops, walkie talkies and so on! We aim to have it all done by tomorrow night as we leave around 9am on Thursday morning. Plus I have a dentist appointment for a filling and a car service tomorrow as well! What fun!
For those of you who are here for the photogrpahy, I have setup a flickr pro account. It's empty currently, but you can check it out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidnmartin98 It is set up to push photos into this blog, so that should be in action once we have stuff to show you.
Well, time to head toward the to-do list....We will try and post before we leave on Thursday morning. Oh, and I also turned on anonymous commenting to the blog, so you shouldn't have to have a Google account now to leave comments!
Have a great evening!
D&J
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Welcome to the first post!
Well, the time is getting close for us heading out to Italy and Spain! To bring those who are new up to speed quickly, James and I are planing to go and live in Spain for 6 months starting on December 13th. We will take in a trip to Italy for 7 days before arriving on the island of Menorca on December 21st.
There are still so many things to do as well before we leave. I have more lists than you can imagine, and some things are just floating around my head. On top of all of this it is the end of the semester at school so projects are due and finals are happening as well. In hindsight, perhaps we should be leaving the country a week later than we are, as that would have given a clear week with no school, no UC, no Starbucks and no exams to concentrate on getting everything done. Ah well! Last night we researched a little side trip to Florence from Rome. We booked ourselves a cheap (very cheap:-45euros) hotel round the corner from the Duomo. We then tried to book train tickets from Rome to Florence, but failed at the final hurdle due to a credit card address issue on the Trenitalia website. So we will book those tickets when we arrive at Rome on the 15th. We will be in Florence on the 18th and 19th December now, then heading back to Rome on the evening of the 19th. Then on the 21st we head onto Menorca. I am expecting the apartment to be freezing when we arrive. With no heating and all those stone floors, it will be a cold first night! Then the challenge the next day will be to work out how to heat the place.
Anyway, enough for now. Back to work! See you all later!
DavidM
There are still so many things to do as well before we leave. I have more lists than you can imagine, and some things are just floating around my head. On top of all of this it is the end of the semester at school so projects are due and finals are happening as well. In hindsight, perhaps we should be leaving the country a week later than we are, as that would have given a clear week with no school, no UC, no Starbucks and no exams to concentrate on getting everything done. Ah well! Last night we researched a little side trip to Florence from Rome. We booked ourselves a cheap (very cheap:-45euros) hotel round the corner from the Duomo. We then tried to book train tickets from Rome to Florence, but failed at the final hurdle due to a credit card address issue on the Trenitalia website. So we will book those tickets when we arrive at Rome on the 15th. We will be in Florence on the 18th and 19th December now, then heading back to Rome on the evening of the 19th. Then on the 21st we head onto Menorca. I am expecting the apartment to be freezing when we arrive. With no heating and all those stone floors, it will be a cold first night! Then the challenge the next day will be to work out how to heat the place.
Anyway, enough for now. Back to work! See you all later!
DavidM
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
