Falling Hard for Florence

You know that part in Pride and Prejudice when Mr. Darcy tells Elizabeth:

I went all Mr. Darcy in Florence. From the minute we began walking around the city, I was smitten. Bewitched.

--

We took a quick 1.5 hour train to Florence on Monday morning. It was in the train station in Rome that we read a headline about the mass shooting in Orlando that weekend. Suddenly, we felt really far yet close to home all at the same time. Our hearts hurt for the news.

The train ride was relaxing - I always wish transportation by train was more of an option in the States. When we got to Florence, we decided we could handle the 10 minute walk to the hotel with our luggage since the rain had held off. Now is a good time to mention how proud I was that we managed to only pack two carry-on suitcases and our own personal item for this trip (ok, so my personal item was a duffle bag...but still!) It's what made moving place to place much less stressful.

We stayed in Hotel Pendini, which has a great location in Piazza della Repubblica near the city center. After we dropped off our things, we picked up our Firenzecards (if you plan to see several monuments/museums in Florence and can splurge a bit for the sake of drastically cutting down your wait time in line, do it! We loved ours.) From there, we just wandered, which was awesome! We instantly admired how clean and walking friendly Florence is. It just felt comfortable right away. Also, while we were visiting, Florence's version of fashion week, Pitti Uomo, was going on, so there were popup bars and lounge areas setup in the streets with fashionable people out and about. It made for fantastic people watching.

We slowly made our way to Piazzale Michelangelo around sunset that evening. It was a 30-minute walk from our hotel, and right before we crossed over the river for the final stretch, hangriness kicked in (definition: the feeling of being hangry). So we stopped for a snack, which ended up being two awesome sandwiches to tie us over until dinner.

The view from the top was as lovely as I remembered from my first, brief visit to Florence. We celebrated our hike up to the top with a small bottle of Prosecco. We did some more great people watching - a guy was being made up to look like Charlie Chaplin, another couple was taking turns taking photos for their fashion blog and everywhere you turned selfie sticks filled the air.

When we walked back from dinner our exhaustion hit hard. My aunt, uncle and cousins would later chuckle at the fact that we walked to the Piazzale (my uncle was planning to drive us the following night). We sat down to dinner in the Piazza de la Repubblica and devoured some mozzarella and pasta before hitting the hay tired, full and happy.

Our Trip to Europe

Jonathan and I are lucky enough that we got to be in Europe together once already while we were dating. He studied abroad in Bergamo, Italy, for a month one summer, and my summer plans to work at school fell through, so my parents were gracious enough to send me to Rome for a month to stay with my aunt -- and my aunt was gracious enough to host me! :)

I visited Jonathan in Bergamo during that time, and at the end of his study abroad, he spent a few days in Rome meeting family and seeing the city. It was a sweet trip that I now nostalgically remember and think wow, we were only 9 months into our relationship. It's been a sweet adventure ever since.

Fast forward to now, and we were so excited to return to Europe almost four years into marriage. His sister, brother-in-law and our nephew are living abroad for work for one year. While they're away, we're watching their dog/our dog nephew, so in return they gifted us a trip to visit them this summer! We knew we would be ending our trip in Dublin (formerly Amsterdam when they were living there -- last-minute travel changes!). From there, we knew we wanted to visit Italy to see some of my family and at least a city that one or both of us had never seen. I had spent one day in Florence last time I was in Italy, and I always dreamed of returning for a proper visit. We added Florence to the itinerary and then went back and forth on what our third city would be. We played around with somewhere in Switzerland for a bit, but getting to and from there proved a little more difficult/time-consuming than we wanted to deal with. We landed on Paris. I had been to Paris with my aunt last time I was in Europe but always wanted to return, and Jonathan had never been. Before I kept going down the road of we could also go there, and there, and there... we booked our tickets: Rome>Florence>Paris>Dublin!

Rome
We landed in Rome Saturday morning. I had caught zero shuteye on the plane, Jonathan was maybe barely more rested than that. Regardless, we were still doing ok and decided to hit the city with my aunt after freshening up a bit at home. We knew we only had 48 hours in Rome, and although we had already visited all major landmarks, it's Rome! You have to go back and say hello to everything.

(My aunt says there is a legend that if a married woman walks up this staircase, she will have no problem becoming pregnant. If you're wondering, I didn't walk up the staircase this trip!)

We had dinner at the beach in Ostia that evening with my cousin's family. I had never met one of his daughters, so it was bittersweet to spend time with them all knowing we'd be saying bye again for an indefinite time in a matter of hours. Jonathan also enjoyed getting to speak a little bit more (who is a lousy Italian teacher? Oh yeah, this girl!) with my cousin who speaks impeccable English. We also tried to get the girls to speak some English with us to practice for school -- the little one learned "Hi, Jon" and "Bye, Jon" really fast : )

On Sunday, by our surprise, my aunt asked us if we felt like visiting the Vatican to be there when the Pope waves from his window. Umm... YES! We arrived to Vatican City around 10:30 to a crowd of people and found out that at noon, Pope Francis would be coming outside to deliver a message. While we waited, we strolled down to Castel Sant'Angelo and to Piazza Navona, one of our favorite spots in Rome. We made it back to Vatican City right before Pope Francis came out and gave a blessing to the crowd. It was world health day, so the blessing was focused on those in the medical profession. As Catholics, it's incredible to say we've been present for a blessing from the Pope and it's something I'll forever treasure. (Later in our trip I would come to realize that for all the planning I had done ahead of time, some of my favorite memories came from unplanned moments. Such is life, right?)

We enjoyed lunch at home with two of my cousins, and I got to meet my cousin's sweet daughter. I hope one day we get to see her together with our nephew -- what a fun time that would be!

In the evening we visited the beautiful overlook at the Gianicolo (Janiculum Hill) and attempted to revisit the Spanish Steps, which turned out to be closed for cleaning. In Rome, something is always getting a little freshening up! :) My cousin Silvia hosted us for a lovely dinner of lasagna, saltimbocca and two desserts (a fruit tart and a stracciatella semifredo that I dream of recreating).

Off to bed that night for a late morning train to Florence in the morning.

Weekend in Chicago

 

In the middle of March we spent a three-day weekend in Chicago. Reason #1 for going was to renew my Italian passport at the Chicago Consulate. This process... oh, this process. It occupied my brain for a good few months. I should have done it years ago, during that little window of time post getting married, pre finding a new job in St. Louis. Ah, hindsight.

Anyway, with a looming passport expiration date, we planned a weekend trip to Chicago sort of last minute. Two friends from Milwaukee and two friends from St. Louis joined us for the impromptu trip. We took the opportunity to book an Airbnb for the first time. We stayed in a town house in the Old Town neighborhood that had plenty of room for the six of us. It was nice to have a home base where we could all hang out in between being out and about. It was also nice to see a different part of Chicago other than the main Loop downtown area I'm familiar with.

What We Did

• Survived St. Patrick's Day Weekend in Chicago - See, when we planned on visiting Chicago the weekend of March 12, we didn't realize until after our plans were made that St. Patrick's Day is a BIG deal in this city, and the weekend before the actual day is plain nuts. Still, we survived. We survived the dazed blank stares from college guys who started drinking way too early that morning... we survived the mobs of people and random fights that broke out along our walk. We survived. We saw the river dyed green and all!

• Saw Van Gogh's Bedrooms exhibit + other impressive art at the Art Institute of Chicago

• Laughed a lot at a show at The Second City

• Spent time with friends that live in the city

• Successfully renewed my Italian passport! Although I still need to get our marriage license recognized by Italy, this alone was a huge accomplishment.

• Shopped on Michigan Avenue to celebrate :)

Where We Ate

• Saturday morning we walked to breakfast at Nookies (I'll never be able to think of that name without this). If you go, remember it's BYOB, so be like everyone else we saw that morning: bring your jug of orange juice and bottle of cheap champagne...mimosas anyone?!
• We ordered pizza from Lou Malnati's Saturday night before The Second City. First we tried ordering from Pequod's, but there was a 2 hour wait - whoa! I'm no expert at Chicago pizza, but I thought the crusts on Lou Malnati's deep dish and thin crust pizzas were both delicious.
• On Sunday, after our failed attempt at visiting Shedd Aquarium and not wanting to put up with walking in the rain any longer, we had a late lunch at Old Town Pour House - aka the fanciest sports bar I've ever seen. The elevated bar food - Irish nachos and truffled chicken salad sandwich - hit the spot.
• We met local friends at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba, a nice tapas restaurant in the Lincoln Park area. We had raspberry sangria, 7 different tapas (burrata with tomato marmalade, beef tenderloin & blue cheese, chicken and ham croquetas, and roast dates with bacon and apple vinaigrette were my favorites) and the paella with confit pork shoulder, crispy pork belly, chorizo and chicharrones. Don't worry, the ladies also split a dessert tapa. Because, you know, it's tapa size! 
• Eataly. Who wants to open one of these in St. Louis? Seriously, who can I call with this request? I've been to the one in New York a few times, but something about being at this one on a Monday morning, when it was quiet with barely anyone else inside ... again, who do I speak to with this request? We stopped there before our consulate appointment for a latte and croissant, and after celebratory shopping, we came back for a lunch of focaccias and a few items for the road. 

It was a great change of scenery for the weekend and a great time reconnecting with so many different friends. St. Louis welcomed us back with open arms when we returned - spring is in full swing here!