I came back from Italy two weeks ago. It was glorious! Beautiful country, lovely people, excellent food and wine.
Mom and I did a tour from Collette Vacations. This is the first inclusive tour I've ever done, in the past I've always found my own way around a given country and honestly, I wasn't too sure how much I'd like being ferried around. But, Mom was more comfortable with the idea of a guided tour and pointed out, correctly, that there was a far better chance we wouldn't kill each other if we didn't have to deal with making our own arrangements for transportation etc.
So, I figured why not, and decided to keep an open mind. I'm glad I did because I had a great time. Our tour guide, Teria, was just wonderful. Friendly, fun, yet professional, Teria is a first-generation Italian American who splits her time between the US and Italy, and regaled us with fascinating tidbits of Italian culture during coach trips to various places. Our driver, Claudio, was also amazing.
I'll be doing a travelogue about where we went and what we did, but one of the nicer aspects of this tour was that in addition to the standard things you'd see in Rome, the Amalfi Coast and Capri, they also took us to some out-of-the-way places I never would have gone to see on my own, such as a workshop where cameos are made, a Limoncello (!!!) factory, and even a farm where mozzarella cheese is produced organically from water buffalo. As for that last -- if you're going to be a domesticated water buffalo, you want to live here.
We went to lots of places, but also had quite a bit of free time, during which I also took the opportunity to scatter the last of my grandmother's ashes in the Tyrrhenian Sea, in the same waters her father, my bis-nonno, used to fish.
So, yeah, this tour kicked ass and I even spent nine days straight in my mother's company and we only yelled at each other twice. Well, three times. Maybe four.
Among the many things I brought back from Italy were tons of souvenirs, including a bunch of stuff for my Dancing in Socks Guy, a realization that my Italian is actually a whole lot better than I thought it was, and the worst motherfucking head cold I've ever had in my entire life. Some background -- I've traveled extensively, and it's been my experience that every time I go somewhere in Europe, I catch a cold. I was smugly congratulating myself on not catching one this time, and the day before we left I of course woke up with a head full of snot.
Lots of snot. Gobs and gobs and gobs of snot. I managed to totter through work these last two weeks with what I think might be adenovirus-14, but I've been more or less useless as far as anything else goes. I have something like 1000 pictures to sort through and upload, and a house that desperately needs cleaning, especially since Dancing in Socks Guy will be here in two weeks and we're still in the stage where I really don't want him to see all the cat-hair tumbleweeds blowing through here.
Elle
Technorati Profile
Mom and I did a tour from Collette Vacations. This is the first inclusive tour I've ever done, in the past I've always found my own way around a given country and honestly, I wasn't too sure how much I'd like being ferried around. But, Mom was more comfortable with the idea of a guided tour and pointed out, correctly, that there was a far better chance we wouldn't kill each other if we didn't have to deal with making our own arrangements for transportation etc.
So, I figured why not, and decided to keep an open mind. I'm glad I did because I had a great time. Our tour guide, Teria, was just wonderful. Friendly, fun, yet professional, Teria is a first-generation Italian American who splits her time between the US and Italy, and regaled us with fascinating tidbits of Italian culture during coach trips to various places. Our driver, Claudio, was also amazing.
I'll be doing a travelogue about where we went and what we did, but one of the nicer aspects of this tour was that in addition to the standard things you'd see in Rome, the Amalfi Coast and Capri, they also took us to some out-of-the-way places I never would have gone to see on my own, such as a workshop where cameos are made, a Limoncello (!!!) factory, and even a farm where mozzarella cheese is produced organically from water buffalo. As for that last -- if you're going to be a domesticated water buffalo, you want to live here.
We went to lots of places, but also had quite a bit of free time, during which I also took the opportunity to scatter the last of my grandmother's ashes in the Tyrrhenian Sea, in the same waters her father, my bis-nonno, used to fish.
So, yeah, this tour kicked ass and I even spent nine days straight in my mother's company and we only yelled at each other twice. Well, three times. Maybe four.
Among the many things I brought back from Italy were tons of souvenirs, including a bunch of stuff for my Dancing in Socks Guy, a realization that my Italian is actually a whole lot better than I thought it was, and the worst motherfucking head cold I've ever had in my entire life. Some background -- I've traveled extensively, and it's been my experience that every time I go somewhere in Europe, I catch a cold. I was smugly congratulating myself on not catching one this time, and the day before we left I of course woke up with a head full of snot.
Lots of snot. Gobs and gobs and gobs of snot. I managed to totter through work these last two weeks with what I think might be adenovirus-14, but I've been more or less useless as far as anything else goes. I have something like 1000 pictures to sort through and upload, and a house that desperately needs cleaning, especially since Dancing in Socks Guy will be here in two weeks and we're still in the stage where I really don't want him to see all the cat-hair tumbleweeds blowing through here.
Elle
Technorati Profile
