The Italian Job

Our holiday in Italy seems like like such a long time ago, but it was so perfect that it's still very fresh in my mind. In April, Adam and I had 10 amazing days to explore the country so we started at the top in Venice, worked our way down through Rome and finished on the southern coast in Sorrento. I'll do my best to cover all of the high and low points - well, there were no lows, so prepare to read my long love note to Italy. Seeing as this trip was 3 times the length of our average trip, I decided to split the post up for readers' pleasure (but am writing them at once, so they'll be posted close together)!

As I've done with most of the blog posts, I'll give a bit of background on what went into planning this trip. Firstly, friends and family back home were all shocked/jealous/confused about how we were casually able to take off 10 days straight for a trip like this. Including our honeymoon, a week was the most time Adam and I had ever taken off for a vacation. Europe trumps (no pun intended) America when it comes to PTO (which I had to define for a coworker the other day as it's called annual leave here). Our firm gives us 25 days - 25 DAYS people - for annual leave, and that's not including sick days or our UK holidays. As an added bonus, like that isn't enough, we have the option to purchase up to ten additional days, which we of course did. Most people take holidays of at least 2 weeks and many of the senior level staff will often take off entire months (typically August when kids are out of school - thus why August is so often a very busy and expensive time to travel in Europe, because everyone else is traveling too).

Most people here thought we were a bit silly for not waiting for warmer months to go to Italy - it was still a bit cool in April, especially by our southern standards, at around 62 degrees most days. On the bright side, we had a very affordable trip and uncrowded cities to explore. Also, April was the closest to my 30th birthday that Adam could take the time off after wrapping up his busy season and it coincides with our anniversary (not a coincidence - our wedding happening post busy season in April). Going south was an obvious choice since we weren't in the summer months yet, and Italy was an even more obvious choice because we've both always been so intrigued by the country - home to our favorite food, wine, beautiful architecture, history, cities, countrysides, beaches - Italy has it all.

Finally, we wanted the combination of a site-seeing and relaxing trip, so we chose two cities to spend our typical two days running around and a third city for lounging. I'd also like to take a moment to tout my unofficial trip sponsors, Hilton, American Express and KPMG for making our stay even better. Through all of the member points Adam racked up from his days traveling to the middle of no where Mississippi, we stayed 6 of our 9 nights in truly FANTASTIC hotels for free.

Our first stop was Venice. We made the mistake of booking our first night on the mainland of Italy, which isn't really Venice. Fortunately we were pretty tired from our prior evening's activities (seriously - I thought I was dreaming seeing Adele in concert then hopping on a plane to Italy) so we grabbed dinner in the hotel and vowed to get an early start the next morning. We took a train across the water to the main island, but once there, your primary form of transportation becomes boats. There are no cars in Venice, just canals and boats. We purchased a 48hr water taxi ticket and took the scenic route to the southern side of the island and then caught a separate ferry to our hotel which was on the island of Giudecca. This isn't the most convenient place to stay, but our hotel was amazing and it's much quieter and less touristy here than on the main island. Plus, water taxis and ferries run very frequently. Our corner room had a spectacular view of the city lights and the cruise ships coming in and out of port.

We spent our first day wondering around, literally. We'd get on a water taxi, get off and walk for a bit, pop into a museum or grab a snack or gelato (accidentally experienced my first sardine) and just took in the city. Our pictures don't do it justice, but the google images you see of all the beautiful bright colors is exactly what it's like. People told us the canals smelled bad, but it never bothered us. Granted, we avoided the gondola rides, so we were never down very close to the water, as everyone warned us they were overpriced and cheesy. Honestly, the water taxis were just as fun to me, just not private. Our second day we took a water taxi out to the island of Murano where you can learn about and watch Italian glass makers. To say we loved Venice would be an understatement. We've had great times on all of our trips, but often we feel once we've seen something that we don't feel a need to go back because there's so much else to see in the world, however, we've vowed to go back to Venice. Two days was enough, but then again it wasn't. All of my memories of Venice include music playing in the background. Or maybe I'm romanticizing my memories. Either way, I was enchanted.

On our third day in the land of love, we took a train down to Rome. Adam had been to Rome briefly with his college Euro trip and didn't love the city, but I couldn't envision going to Italy and not seeing Rome and he agreed it's a must. Thanks to a recommendation from a co-worker, we had a charming local hotel that was away from the touristy part of town and just uphill from the Colosseum. We immediately grabbed a slice of pizza to take for a walk and headed to Altare della Patria to scope out the city and our evening prospects. From there we decided to brush by the Trevi Fountain and grab a bite to eat saving our energy for an early morning. We'd booked online tickets for the Vatican tour the next day and as Pope Francis was speaking, we knew we needed to give ourselves a bit of extra time.

The Vatican City is about a 20 min train ride from Rome and then a 10 or so minute walk to the museum and Sistine Chapel. We had one of the first tour times so we were able to skip the line and had most of the museum to ourselves. This was particularly beneficial in the Sistine Chapel which isn't that big. Sadly cathedral experiences have become a bit tainted by tourists for me. I know, I am a tourist, but Adam and I are diligent about being respectful with our photos, speaking volume and general reverence while others... not so much. We thought we'd missed our chance to experience the Papal Audience but somehow just slid through the gates after we finished our tour. We were probably a mile away from the Pope, but it was such a cool experience. Bishops from every country recite his speech in their native language and though we aren't Catholic, I still find the power of the Office of the Pope very moving and important for Christianity. The Pope addresses the public every Wednesday morning he's in town, so if you can plan your trip around it, definitely go tour on one of these days (thanks Amanda for the tip)! We finished the day with a full on 4 course Italian meal next door to our hotel. The streets are so charming, I could have just wondered around for days... which I needed to do after all those carbs.

Naturally, our last day in Rome included a tour of the Colosseum. Adam found an app to use when you're traveling - Rick Steve's Audio Guide - which includes guides to most of the big cites in Europe so we didn't have to pay for audio guide rentals. Thanks to Rick Steve, we made our way through the Colosseum in good time AND had the recommendation to go across the street to the Roman Forum. Beyond seeing a play about it in college, I'd never thought much about this place, but it's so cool! We were graced with sunny, 80 degree glorious weather so we had a really nice time slowly meandering through and picturing ancient Roman life. With a bit of extra time on our last night, we did some light shopping for belated birthday presents. On our way out of town we made a second pit stop at the Trevi Fountain as we'd forgotten to make wishes the first time, and visited the Pantheon.

4 nights down and 5 to go! By this point, I was already in love and couldn't believe there was more to do. Thinking on it, we really only grazed Italian culture. I'm dying to go back to Florence, Cinque Terre, Tuscany and wine country, but I'm so glad we squeezed in as much as we did. Will post soon on our antics on the coast.
Love,
J

Bubbles and Blunders

As promised in the last blog post, I'm sharing the story behind this priceless photo, which has since been printed and hangs in our house - both to remind us of lessons learned, and because it's entertaining.

It all started on a boat... sort of.

The incident leading to the photo wasn't the highlight of our Easter weekend, which is what I'll chronicle in this post. Since we couldn't fit our proper holiday (Italy-blog post to come) into four days, we decided to take an easy and 'cheap' trip. It's been on Adam's bucket list for some time to take the car, fondly known to us as Chauncey, on the ferry across the British channel to France. For him, it was something about driving the car on the wrong side of the car, but the right side of the road that was appealing. I don't drive over here, unless driving Adam to the emergency room (I'll get to that), so I didn't fully understand the appeal, but I heard 'boat' and I was in. So, we picked a country we'd not been to, took the car on the boat, and headed for Luxembourg. I have to admit, it was a cool experience. We spent the night at the port the previous night and walked the White Cliffs of Dover. This travel option is a big money saver for groups traveling together. You pay one price for the car regardless of how many people are in the vehicle. Families of four can get to France for less than what it would cost you for one train/plane ticket.  

Cliffs of Dover

The route to Luxembourg City conveniently took us near the champagne region of France, so we made a quick stop in Epernay, home of many of the famous wineries, and we stopped to visit with Dom. Surprisingly, they don't just hand out sips of the $100+ bottles of champagne, but you can tour and taste from the barrels of their sister bubbles Moet & Chandon. Here you walk through cellars that were built to impress Napoleon and wander through caverns with wet walls and endless bottles. After grabbing some macaroons, cheese and bread (tip-never leave France without these essentials), we continued our road trip towards Luxembourg.

We didn't know much about the city/country... scratch that... we knew nothing, and were a bit concerned when we pulled up to our hotel. The 'city centre' isn't picturesque. We felt safe, but that part of town doesn't do the area justice. For dinner we made our way down to a more historic district, The Grund, which is along the lower section of the city wall. Afterwards we found a pub with crazy friendly locals and discovered our current favorite beer (we've since discovered most Belgian beers are amazing). The following morning we took a tour through the city walls which were very cool (albeit dark, wet, narrow and terrifying for me) and walked our way through the city. Up to this point, we were really enjoying our trip. Luxembourg is a business hub for the EU which means English is spoken most places, but everything does tend to shut down during non-business hours. As you approach the next part of the story, keep in mind that it's now Easter Sunday.

The Grund

Around 1pm we started walking back to the hotel. It took us a little longer than expected as we were having trouble finding somewhere open for lunch. We'd already packed our car and planned to get a head start as we intended to drive to Lille, France to spend the night, breaking up the trip and making it easy to catch the ferry early Monday morning.  We got to our parking spot - a parallel spot on the street as was indicated acceptable on weekends by the hotel concierge - and no Chauncey. I begin to do what I believe was a mild version of hyperventilating. Adam stays calm, as he typically does, and we ask the hotel clerk what he thinks happened (a different clerk than we dealt with the prior day). This clerk confidently tells us the car has likely been towed as it was in a no parking zone and the city is extremely strict. Rather than argue with him at that moment, we rushed up the street to the police station where we were informed the car had in fact been towed, and was locked away until the following day at 8am, because it was, after all, Easter and the tow company closed early. After assuring us there was nothing they could do, and kindly ignoring the fully-grown sobbing adult woman in the room, the police gave us the info of where to retrieve our car in the morning. We went back to our hotel, which continued to take no blame for directing us on where to inappropriately park, paid for another room they fortunately had available, and remained dejectedly in our room until first thing the following morning.

At this point, we realized we would miss our ferry, so we paid to reschedule it for the afternoon trip which we could make if we timed everything perfectly. Upon arrival at the tow garage, we met 4 other foreign couples/families whose cars had also been towed - they hailed from Norway, the Netherlands and Germany. I felt less sorry for myself hearing their stories - they had animals they'd traveled with, medications and treatments they needed to get to and much larger problems than my own. We begrudgingly paid the 300 Euros and fled the country as fast as we could.  We arrived to Calais just in time for our rescheduled ferry, only to learn our original ferry had yet to even leave due to rough seas.

So, the aforementioned photo is of us in the queue for a ferry, where we sat in our car for 4 hours waiting on a boat.  We made it back to Birmingham around midnight and pretty much fell into bed since we had to work the next day. It wasn't funny at all at the time, but we laugh now looking back and realizing how fortunate we've been traveling as much as we do. I have friends who've lost passports, wallets and precious valuables. We lost some cash, but were safe and sound and now have a crazy story to tell.

On the ferry home #overit

In case you're wondering (for the faint of heart, don't look at the photo below), in May Adam cut his leg on the wooden stairs in our house. He needed 16 stitches. So we've now experienced the National Healthcare System (NHS)! NHS is cool because it's free - I've come to see the benefits of such, but the A&E (Accident & Emergency = the ER) was nuts - we spent 6 hours in an insanely crowded hospital and at one point were told Adam might need surgery... SURGERY... for a cut.  It was a deep cut, but come on. Oh, and if you ask him what happened, you'll get some story of him being trampled while running with the bulls in Pamplona, where we've never been (insert eye rolling emoji here).

Till next time!

J & A

A Birthday in Bath

Shortly after we found out we were moving to the UK, I came to the realization that I'd be turning 30 in another country. I was sad to not be able to share this milestone with friends and family, but Adam, being the man and husband he is, not only respects my emotions and neuroses, but also indulges them on occasion. So, we got to planning, and oh... did we plan the best 30th celebration(s).  I'll get to the big gift  in a separate blog (or two, because teaser - a 10 day trip to Italy deserves nothing less), and here I'll share how we spent the actual birthday weekend which was Part 1 of the celebration. I'll also say 'Hello' to part 2 of the festivities.

My birthday happens to coincide with the busiest time of year for Adam at work.  As a result, we delayed our Italy trip (my birthday gift and Part 3 of the celebration) until April. My birthday fell on a Sunday, so we decided to take a little weekend getaway to one of the English towns on our wish list. Though Adam briefly toured Bath on his 2010 Euro trip, we were both excited to go and have a relaxing weekend away. Friday evening we drove the 1 1/2 hours south and checked into the Tasburgh House. This B&B is a 15 minute walk from the main part of Bath, but well worth it. It's lovely, charming, and did I say lovely? I'd highly recommend a B&B to get the full experience in a town like Bath, plus hotel options are limited.  Upon arrival, champagne and chocolates were waiting in my room (compliments all the way from my Mom in the US). We spent the evening out for dinner at a local steakhouse (the best steak we've had in England to date) and popped into a local pub for a nightcap on the way home.

Saturday morning we set out to discover the history behind the city.  We walked along the canal behind our B&B to town and started our sightseeing at the Roman Baths. This is a well-preserved site of a place where Romans once, you guessed it, bathed.  The history is interesting, the bath exhibits are pretty, and you get to taste bath water at the end of the tour. Why would I want to drink bath water? Historically, the water had healing powers. Realistically, it tastes like real bath water. Don't worry, it wasn't real bath water, but I did promptly rinse out my mouth.

After the Roman Baths, we stopped for lunch at a place called Sally Lunn's, famous for it's hot buns. The restaurant serves, you guessed it, buns (literally, they're like hamburger buns), both sweet and savory.  It also has a museum downstairs and is a fun experience. We'd fortunately missed the lunch crowd and queue, so got out in time for a walk around the city before heading home to get ready for dinner. Adam picked an Italian restaurant (my favorite) and we had early reservations. Rather than being suspicious, (I assumed he knew I'd be hungry as I always am) I walked right into the surprise of our American/Mississippi/fellow UK expat friends waiting at a table with balloons, gifts, a cake and great company. We make an effort to do something with Kyle and Melana at least monthly, if not more often, and I was so glad they came all the way to Bath to celebrate me.

The next day we treated ourselves to a day at the Thermae Bath Spa which boasts a great view of the city from the rooftop pool. The natural spring waters in the pool are also (supposedly) healing and we felt refreshed for our drive home to finish out the hectic month.

I couldn't have asked for a better way to start my 30th year. While I was apprehensive at first about celebrating away from home, I also recognize how cool it is that I celebrated in such style.  Oh, and I totally recommend Bath to anyone who has an extra night or two in the UK.  The town is a lot of fun, and if you do get bored (which isn't likely), it's a quick drive from Stonehenge.

I'm skipping over how we spent Easter (saving it for another post), but a few weeks later we continued the birthday celebration by going to see Adele  in concert. ADELE. I had one thing on my wish list for when we came to the UK, and it was to see Adele if/when she made her triumphant return. I was discouraged after our first failed attempt to get tickets to a London show, but thankfully she added a few shows and we landed great seats at the Birmingham concert. If you follow me on Snapchat, you're welcome. I can't even begin to do it justice so I'll just say... it was amazing. Oh, and here are a few pics (not featured - the many videos of me singing loudly and proudly).

Oh, and our families got me a bike! I've been wanting a city bike for a while and now I can ride to work and quit the bus! No, I haven't made the 3 mile journey yet.  It's June and it's still cool and rainy in England.  But I'm determined to soon!

It's been a crazy, busy few months, which I'll blame my lack of posting on, but I've been keeping a list of all our adventures and will do my best to catch up soon. Here's a sneak peak at the next blog post - you'll get the story behind this photo.

Feels like home 2.0

Have we seriously been in the U.K. for 9 months? I could have had a baby and no one would know! Kidding - everyone who saw me at Christmas would know. Somewhere between moving, starting work, traveling, the holidays and attempting to live life like normal people, things just shifted and feel different now. I'll try to cover what's been happening as #AandJdoUK since my last post 3 months ago, as a dear friend and loyal reader reminded me.

As I touched on in previous blogs, Adam and I moved in October.  We really love our new neighborhood, Harborne.  We're just 3 miles outside of the city centre, yet somehow my commute via the bus still manages to take an average 45 minutes daily (my only complaint) - that tells you a bit what traffic is like here.  With several restaurants, pubs and shops along the high street, we  feel much more connected to a community than we did before.  Also, our place feels a bit cozier.  I was quite kind/generous with my review of our last place - which in reality was a painfully bare corporate apartment. Granted, when you choose to live in a pre-furnished residence, you take what you get - like our current futon situation. At times it's hard because it feels a bit like post-college living, especially considering we left a home in Jackson for which I was just starting to decorate and collect 'adult' pieces.  However, furnished was the practical decision and our new place has other redeeming qualities.  I've included a few pictures. As Adam reminds me often, it's all temporary.

Den - futon and more oak

Den w/addition of long sought after chair

Kitchen

Conservatory (sun room-which apparently Adam and I have a thing for) - we've also become farmers 

We have a futon, so why not a cork board?

Good sized bathrooms are hard to come by here, as are closets, which I don't have...

The blog title revisits a former post, but also has dual meanings this go round.  When I say 'feels like home,' I am referring to the UK, but I'm also referring to our visit back to the states at Christmas.  We knew we were homesick, and we knew we'd be thrilled to see family and friends, but we underestimated just how good it would feel. It was a whirlwind trip.  In 12 days we crossed multiple state borders visiting Bay Saint Louis, Jackson and Moss Point, Mississippi, Fairhope and Birmingham, Alabama, Lake Norman, North Carolina and New Orleans, Louisiana.  We were fortunate enough to see both families (grandparents included) and have some time with friends. It was a blur, but a really nice one.

I think I speak for both of us when I say the trip was a turning point in this journey for us.  When we left Jackson, we were ready for a change - we NEEDED it.  But being home, it was refreshing, and reassuring to see how much we both NEEDED our connections back in the states.  We knew the probability of returning back to the states was high, probably always above 80% certainty, but this trip confirmed so many things for us. We do feel more settled here having made friends and having gotten into the swing of thing at our respective jobs, and don't get me wrong, we aren't aching to leave and will miss it when it's all said and done; BUT we're also OK with the fact that we only have 14 months left.

So what's next? Well, what's immediately next is trying to survive our first winter in the UK and Adam's busy work season. One month down, two to go (I refuse to call April a winter month, even if I hear it's miserable here then).  Due to the two aforementioned heinous conditions, we've suspended monthly travel until April and will make up for lost time with a 10 day holiday to Italy! It feels like a great way to celebrate someone's (cough, in denial, cough) 30th birthday and our 3rd wedding anniversary venturing through Venice, Rome and Sorrento.  We're also very excited to have some visitors in May which will be quite the busy but fun month! Our moms are making a trip together and a few other Euro travelers will be staying with us as a part of their trips.  Reminder to all out there, we have a spare bedroom and would love to see you!

As for what's in for us next Spring when we return to the states, we're in talks with the US offices and will share more of that as it develops. In the meantime, we still have plenty of living and traveling to do here. Thanks to all that read the blog and keep up with us - it really does help us feel more connected and we so appreciate it!

Signing off for now - J