Fuori fa freddo!!

Translation: It's cold outside!!

What a busy past few weeks we have had!! Riann and Lincoln both had their little Christmas programs at preschool. Riann's class did a wonderful job singing their little hearts out with several different Christmas carols.


Lincoln's class, however, didn't quite have the same happiness. The domino effect - one sad little kid sees their mom or dad and begins crying even harder, the other kids hear the crying and start crying themselves for no other reason than they think there is something to be sad about. Then those kids see their parents and Miss Echo, their teacher, is trying to get them to sing... But one little girl, our friend Kaelin, she did sing her little heart out with a HUGE smile on her face as she twirled around in her little red Christmas dress and made it totally worth seeing.


Riann turned 5 on December 16th.

It is hard to believe she is 5 but she is so excited!! She had school on her birthday so she took in Tinkerbell cupcakes to share with her class. She requested a special birthday dinner of macaroni & cheese and chicken fingers followed by a coconut cake - some big requests of a 5 year old!!


Riann and I worked on baking about a million Christmas cookies - our old family favorites: animal cut out cookies and pudding cookies. After seeing some tasty Germany treats here in the Commissary, I got an inkling to made an old, long forgotten family German Christmas cookie: Lebkuchen. I can remember making Lebkuchen with my mom, sister and my Grammy in our kitchen. So I did a little research online, found several German Lebkuchen recipes, read reviews, etc and decided on one to try. Grammy always liked her Lebkuchen and her animal cut out cookies crispy and paper thin. I didn't make Grammy too happy, I'm sure, because mine were soft and plump and about 3/4" thick. But they were good and I passed on the "new" recipe on to my mom and my sister all the way across the pond to make this past weekend together. Sounds like they liked them a lot too!!

We're freshly back from a long weekend in Budapest, Hungary - what a fabulous city, even in the frigid wintertime!
Our adventure began Saturday, December 19th. We heard of a few weather delays before heading to the airport, but nothing major. Good thing our original idea to go to Paris didn't work out because they, along with so many other Western European countries were socked by snow. We didn't think anything of it when our flight was delayed a bit over an hour but close to landing time, the Captain came on to tell us in his very strong accent that Budapest's airport was supposed to reopen at 4pm after being closed due to the weather, however while we were flying, the weather did not improve enough to lift that closure and we may have to be rerouted to... yea, I'm not really sure where he said but it sounded something like Yugoslavia. We circled the air around Budapest for over an hour before the Captain finally came back on with the news that we would be landing shortly and we would be arriving into Budapest as planned. Thank goodness!! By the time we got our taxi and checked into our hotel, it was nearly 6pm, a few hours later than expected. With hungry kids in tow, we made a beeline for whatever we could find first - Burger King. Not really what I had hoped for our first meal in Hungary, but with kids sometimes you just make it work. It was pretty hilarious to order our food only for the register to read to us "3349.00" Ummm, excuse me?? That would be in HUF, Hungarian Forint, roughly $5 equals 1000 HUF. Happy kids with full bellies, we were off to the Vorosmarty Christmas Market!!


It was frigid, almost bitter cold walking around Sunday morning. Our first few stops were kind of a bust since things were closed. We also ran into a small problem - our ATM cards were not working. That turned into a big problem very quickly because we didn't have much Euro on us to begin with - you usually don't because of pickpocketing here - and what we did have and exchanged for HUF was almost gone, and our bank isn't open on Sundays, and then there is always the time difference. So we made the best of it, we made the little bit of HUF we did have go as far as it could stretch. We walked to the southern end of Vaci Utca to Central Market Hall (which was closed), Riann and Lincoln played in the snow a bit there while Jamie tried another ATM. We strolled up through Vorosmarty Christmas Market that was just opening, and took the Metro to Hosok Tere to see Heroes Square which has the Millennium Monument in the middle of the square. Heroes Square is at the end of Andrassy Street which runs from the Pest city center, considered the most exclusive address in Budapest. From there we went to Varosliget, City Park. There was a small Christmas market here with Santa's workshop, a big bubble like structure where "elves" were at work, we think they had toys being donated and going to the less fortunate. Then we walked in a loop to Vajvahunyad Castle, which now houses the Museum of Agriculture, the only part open to the public - we did not go inside. The castle, from the exterior, was pretty cool looking, especially with everything being snow-covered.


We continued walking our loop and came upon one of the many natural hot springs that Budapest is so well-known for. There were hundreds of ducks hanging out in this steaming "pond", and I just had to stick my hand in to see just how warm it was - ahhh! Like bathwater! There is also a zoo, a circus, an art gallery, a museum of fine art and the famous Szechenyi Baths, which opened in 1913 near this thermal spring. We probably should have walked over to see even just for the photos but Riann and Lincoln were getting cold. We took the Metro back and headed to the hotel for a warm-up break. Jamie went out to get Riann and Lincoln lunch which ended up being McDonald's, or "Old McDonald's", as Riann called it, then we made a few phone calls regarding our ATM situation...
Thanks to Jamie's mom who (probably took a phone call from us, wondered if the call was a scam, scurried about to find Western Union and) was able to wire us some money, we finally had cash in hand and had a way to use public transportation, get around without the kids freezing their little noses and toes off and enjoy Budapest... or Pest anyway, since we were on that side of the Danube River.
Jamie felt a little nervous walking around with 5,000, 10,000, and 50,000 (HUF) bills in his wallet, but quickly got over it knowing that even with such large looking bills, it was only a total of $250 (US Dollars).



After everyone was warmed up, we took the tram along the Danube River to the Hungarian Parliament for a little sightseeing. The building is absolutely beautiful! We tried to find a "Fairy Tale" Christmas Market near the Parliament but we did not have success. Instead, we did a little more walking toward the city center, found St. Stephen's Basilica - we did not go inside this either, which Jamie is now disappointed we didn't go in. Next time...

We found ourselves back in Vorosmarty Christmas Market in perfect time for the 5:00pm opening of the Advent Calendar window. Everyday they open another window after they play Christmas carols in a balcony above Gerbeaud Cukraszda (Confectionery).
After, we found a restaurant on the way to drop off some things at our hotel, a wine cellar where the man working out front was chatting to us about American football. It was a little early for dinner, so we continued to our hotel, dropped off our things and headed back to the wine cellar only to find it closed. As in no lights were on, the guy was gone, it was like it was never open. We were really puzzled, was it a scam, did we almost get mugged... weird! We found somewhere else to eat, ordered delicious Hungarian food - some things I never thought I'd picture myself ordering, let alone eating like pink duck filet, goose liver pate and veal stew - but it was all so yummy, and what's better on a cold night than hot, delicious Hungarian food?? Bellies full, we called it a night.

Monday we had quite the adventure planned out. We took the metro from Deke Tere in Pest to Buda, walked along the western bank of the semi-frozen Danube River, took in some beautiful sights of the Parliament, and made our way to the Funicular that was unfortunately closed until 2:30pm... so much for getting an early start! We ended up getting a great workout walking up a very long, winding hill and up several cases of stairs. We saw the Office of the President of Hungary, walked along the outside of Buda Palace / Buda Castle - most of the existing castle was built in the 18th century but it was preceded by a palace and two castles, one built around 1255, then rebuilt in 1458. The castle was damaged during WWII, some parts needed to be entirely rebuilt. Since 1945 it has housed several museums including the Hungarian National Gallery which houses more than 40,000 works - something not great for taking kids to see. The sights of Pest from Buda were pretty amazing, we really enjoyed checking it all out!


We took a little break at a Confectionery, rested our feet, warmed up and enjoyed some wonderful Cherry and Apple Strudels along with hot chocolate for the kids and cappuccino for Jamie and myself. Rested up, we took off to the Labyrinth of Budavar - an underground maze of tunnels - once a refuge for hunters and gatherers from about 10,000BC, then it served as a bomb shelter during WWII, kind of bizarre but overall pretty cool! Riann and Linc are both going through the "scared" phase lately so they didn't enjoy it as much as Jamie and I did, but I think we all loved finding the wine fountain.


We passed Matyas Church where we found several huge bells on display in front then headed to Fishermen's Bastion, where some of the best views of Pest are, not to mention some pretty fun picture taking. Fishermen's Bastion was built in 1895 as a monument to the Guild of Fishermen. We walked back down the hill and stairs back to catch the Metro, had lunch at one of the vendors near the Christmas Market before we went back to the hotel for another little break. Jamie and Riann and Linc stayed at the hotel for a movie while I headed back to Vorosmarty to have a better, non-distracted, non-rushed look at the Christmas Market. I met Jamie and the kids back at the hotel, then we left and took a walk along the eastern bank of the Danube to get some photos of the sights lit up, including one of the trams decked out in blue and white lights and the Chain Bridge that made for pretty pictures as well.


We tried our luck finding a place to eat along a roundabout way to Vorosmarty but decided to enjoy dinner Hungarian Christmas Market style outside at the Market. We ate a variety of things - sausage, a potato-pancake type thing, cabbage rolled up beef - none of which we actually got a name for but I did take pictures, of course!

Our visit to Budapest was coming to an end, the sun had set long ago and it was getting cold again, so we went back to the hotel to put the kids to sleep and pack up to head home the next morning.

Our flight was delayed once again, but not for very long. We were lucky we didn't have some of the crazy weather that the rest of Western Europe was having.
We left the snow behind to find ourselves back in 60-degree weather in Naples. It doesn't feel much like Christmas at all here besides the decor on most apartments and inside our own of course.

Where will our next adventure be? We're not quite sure but it will be a little while before we have something big planned. For now we'll take a little hiatus, save up for our next adventure. I can't complain, we have been here for 6 months and have already been to Stuttgart, Munich and Kaiserslautern, Germany; Innsbruck, Austria; Florence, Lucca, Cinque Terre, Venice, Sorrento, Napoli, Livorno, Pisa, Viertri sul Mare, Positano, Salerno and Rome (twice), Italy. Still, so many more places to see and we only have 2.5 more years here.

Buon Natale!!

Facendo!

Translation: Catching up!

Holy cannoli, can it really be December?? I am so behind in blogging, it is embarrassing! But I do have a lot to catch up on because we have been BUSY!!

Where to begin...
Back at the end of October, our dear friends the Hoblet's (who we met in Jacksonville) came to visit us. They currently live in France and we were SO excited to have them here!! It was lovely to catch up with a good friend all while watching our kids have a blast together. Lincoln and Zack played cars for what seemed to be 3 straight days before they started having typical 2-year old meltdowns over sharing. Riann and Lily picked up from where they left off. Lily joined Riann at preschool for their Halloween party, practiced with Riann's soccer team, and attended Riann's ballet class. They had such a wonderful time at school that the rest of the time they were often found playing Miss Donna and Miss Echo (Riann's teachers names). Sarah and I also had fun doing a few fun things sans kiddies like going down to the town of Vietri (along the Amalfi Coast) for some ceramics shopping and a quiet lunch, and going to a typical Italian dinner in Monte di Procida, a really cute, nice part of Napoli. We also visited Caserta Palace and the amphitheater in Pozzuoli. But I think the highlight of their visit was Halloween, especially because the French don't celebrate it and well, here in "Little America" we do!




Unfortunately, Lincoln ended up sick with an ear infection and in bed for the night before trick or treating even began (but he dressed up earlier in the week for his preschool class's Halloween party). Lily, Zack and Riann had a ton of fun being out in their costumes among the hundreds of other kids on base. We were sad to see them head back to France, but we did make some plans to meet up in Germany in February.

Lincoln and I ended up being sick on and off for several days after all our fun with the Hoblet's, so on November 7th, Jamie and Riann went on an adventure with some friends to harvest olives. Riann and Jamie picked olives from a tree, learned all about the olive oil making process and headed home after a day of fun in Benevento with a huge jug of freshly produced olive oil. One more reason to love Italy!!





Thusday November 11th, Jamie's parents arrived in Italy. We met "Gigi & G-Daddy" at the Rome airport and continued driving on to Florence where we spent 4 wonderful days exploring. We spent our first afternoon just walking from our rented apartment over the Ponte Vecchio and eventually to a restaurant to eat dinner. We tried to have an easy evening before we had two very busy days sightseeing.
Friday morning we woke up to rain, we started walking in the direction of the Uffizi Gallery but didn't expect to get in since we did not have reservations, but with no waiting line we walked right in and spent the next two hours among the works of di Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo and many others. It proved to be a little challenging with Lincoln, but overall the kids did great! We ate lunch at a tiny sandwich shop, I Fratellini, that has been opened since 1875 - 29 different sandwiches on the menu to choose from, so delicious and easy and inexpensive!
Over to Santa Maria del Fiore (duomo), we climbed the duomo's dome, all 463 steps up to the very top. Riann did awesome, walking up all 463, Lincoln slept through most of it while I carried him in the the baby carrier... all 463 steps with an extra 32 lbs strapped to me: awesome workout!! The views from the two landings (for lack of a better word) up in the dome were amazing on the inside of the duomo, being able to see the paintings in the dome in great detail was pretty fascinating, seeing everything from angels, to skeletons, to the devil... But the view from the top of the dome outside - amazing!!! Even on a cloudy day you could see all of Florence, though it was a bit terrifying being up so high. Jamie looks down for me, I just like to enjoy the view looking out. Back down 463 steps, and time for a reward... gelato, of course!!




That evening, we had a walking tour for the Accademia to see the David. Jamie was concerned that we got scammed with the price and not really knowing what to expect, but the cost was totally worth it and we were certainly not scammed!! The highlight of the tour was learning that the original David was supposed to be in a certain spot on the roof of the duomo when it was built, as we walked to the Accademia, a replica of David was in the spot where the original was supposed to be! The tour guide, a former sculptor himself, said the replica had never been there before, probably never would be again and would be down by morning. Even the tour guide was in awe!
We arrived at the Accademia, learned about the other statues by Michelangelo in the museum (and that some may not have been done by Michaelangelo afterall). A friend told me we HAD to see the David... I am SO glad we did and had the walking tour guide!! The David was amazing to see in real life, such incredible detail, and so much history and knowledge of how David came to be in the Accademia. Lincoln slept through the entire walking tour, and Riann did amazing once again, so we treated them, well, really ourselves, to another scoop of gelato. Thanks to my wonderful husband who I have nicknamed Human Mapquest, or JamieJamie (as in TomTom), we found our way around Florence to a restaurant a friend of mine recommended, I Ghibellini (thanks, Blair!!) which was fantastic!
We did a little shopping on Friday, which included a few "Made in Italy" purchases... my no-longer-have-boot-envy Italian black leather boots, Jamie bought shoes and a jacket, and Jane (my mother in law) bought a leather jacket.
Saturday, it was noticeably busier in the streets of Florence. Jamie noticed the night before his shoes were mismatched so we went back to the leather shop... Problema turned into Non problema: Francesco righted Jamie's shoes then had us follow him to a local bar (cafe in America) and treated us to cappuchino, cioccolata calda (hot chocolate) and pastries for our "inconvenience". That's Jamie with Franceso...


We walked over to the Duomo where they had rolled out sod over the entire piazza for what looked like a royal parade of some sort.

We also saw a man that seemed to be an Italian celebrity, so I made like the paparazzi and took a few photos. Can anyone tell me who this is??


We went to Piazza della Repubblica where Lincoln napped in the stroller once again while Riann rode on the carousel a few times, then we walked through the market where a ton of leather goods are sold.


We did a little more shopping which included Gigi purchasing a nice, unique, hand made in Florence handbag, and I bought a few little items for Christmas.
We headed back to the other side of the Ponte Vecchio, back to our apartment and then out to dinner to a restaurant called Borgo Antico, where the food, once again was delicious!


Sunday morning, we had to leave Firenze. We made our way trying to find Piazzale Michelangelo but ended up at San Miniato church which was up further on the same hill across from Florence. We had some stunning views, so we took some photos and then piled back into our rental minivan.





On the way to the autostrada, we drove past the bronze David (another replica) and Piazzale Michelangelo... Next time, next time. We had a wonderful time in Florence, there is still so much to see that we missed, I expect we will be back a few more times, at least!

With the G's in town, Jamie & I took advantage and booked a trip, just the two of us, to get away to Venice for a long weekend. It was just what we needed!! We had 2 full days and 2 full nights to explore as much of Venezia as we possibly could. It also meant that we had many uninterrupted, unrushed meals as we could fit in too, what a luxury!
The forecast in Venice was not a pretty one, but the weather ended up being fantastic and our hotel was fantastic too (Palace Bonvecchiati)!
Friday, we walked and walked and walked and took pictures... and walked. We started at the Rialto Bridge to Piazza San Marco, past the Bridge of Sighs (that was covered for renovations, unfortunately), we walked to "Sandwich Row" where we ate a pretty good lunch, went by the church of San Zaccaria, walked along the San Marco basin, we crossed over the Grande Canal, we walked by La Salute (big church you see from the San Marco area), we stopped for cappuccino and cioccolata calda to give our feet a rest, we walked over the Accademia bridge, and of course this whole time I was taking pictures and window shopping!! We decided to make like the locals and begin our own little pub crawl before dinner, starting out at Osteria al Portego - a terrific little place where you can grab wine or other beverage, and a bunch of tapas-type snacks, or you could sit down for an entire meal. The food was great, the drinks were fabulous, and it was just nice to have zero responsibility! After Osteria al Portego, we walked back to explore a few sights at night, checking out San Marco Piazza again, then finally we headed to dinner. The restaurant we ended up had an interesting, strange devilish theme to it, but our meals were good and the vino was even better.





Saturday after breakfast, I put on some galoshes and we headed out to see the high-tide-flooded areas of Venice. We went to the fish market - yum!! So much fabulous looking produce and, well, fish of course! Jamie didn't have cool rainboots like me, so he took some pictures of me wading in the high tide waters. It was fun just to be shin-deep in water in places we had walked the day before!




We headed back to San Marco, the lowest laying area in Venice, most prone to flooding and high tides. We toured San Marco (duomo), we were fascinated by the Golden Alter which is quite a piece of art containing over 2000 precious stones - Pretty amazing!! We also toured the Doge's Palace which was pretty cool before heading back to Piazza San Marco to put our feet up at Quadri (restaurant/cafe) and enjoy frothy, hot, really expensive beverages... the ambiance and the people/pigeon watching was worth the pricey snack! We walked over to grab a vaporetto (like a water metro) and headed to Murano, famous for its glass blowing and production. We took in some great sights on our 40 minute boat ride which included a practice race for a gondola ragatta - every team's gondola was one color and all the gondoliers on that gondola wore the same color shirt.
I think we got suckered into taking a detour once on Murano to one glass blowing demonstration, afterward we left and felt like we were in a ghost town - there was nothing and nobody around! When we finally made it back to civilization, we walked along a canal and many, many Murano glass shops. We took the vaporetto back to Venice, getting off at a different side of the islands so we could walk and see things we had not already seen. We decided to be like tourists and find a gondola. Romantic and fun, touristy and so cliche of Venice, but we had a good time seeing Venice from the canals, it certainly gave a different perspective and gave our feet another rest!
We walked some more and stopped for gelato, I saw a spot the day before that I just had to try the cioccolato nero - dark chocolate - holy yumminess!! It was so, so delicious that I made Jamie take a few pictures of me with my gelato. That was our appetizer, then we did a little shopping before finding another restaurant, Rosso Rosa, for dinner to celebrate our weekend and last night sans kids. Dinner was great as was the wine, and a little too much maybe too... Back to our hotel for the night.





Sunday arrived and we had to make our way back to the airport and fly home. Our last ride on the vaporetto down the Grand Canal, back to the bus, and to Marco Polo airport. It was great to get away but it was also nice to get home!

The week of Thanksgiving was a short work week for Jamie but a busy week all the same. We decided to take the train on Thanksgiving morning up to Rome for an overnight. Lincoln and Riann loved taking the slow train and watching out the windows.


Once we arrived in Rome, we checked into our hotel (IQ Hotel, great place!!!) and headed out with some new umbrellas that we quickly invested in. We grabbed some quick sandwiches while it down poured, then we headed out on an adventure to see the Colosseum,

where we also came across what I originally thought was a parade... It was a protest/demonstration. The protesters rushed into the Colosseum, made their way up to the upper levels and were chanting something in Italian, and lit flares that had red and blue smoke pouring from them.





the Forum, (with a quick stop in a store that I found a beautiful coat in and quickly fell in love), then on to the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain


and on to the Spanish Steps. This visit, Lincoln was awake and headed up to the very top on his own with Jamie next to him, no hand holding necessary - What a way to spend your last day of being 1!! Here is Lincoln with Jamie on their way back down...


Once again we treated the kids (and the adults too) to gelato, a stop in a toy store and then finally headed back towards our hotel stopping for dinner as the rain kept falling.
Friday was Lincoln's 2nd birthday! How many 2 year olds get to spend their birthdays at the Vatican?? Lucky little guy! We started our day hopping on the Metro over to Vatican City.


(My grandfather went to Vatican City back during World War II and met the Pope. It was pretty neat to be somewhere where my Grampa had been so many years ago!) We dodged some more heavy rain while we stepped in to eat some breakfast at a little Bar (for pastries and cappuccino) near the Vatican Museum. The Museum was amazing, so much beautiful detail on the ceilings and the floors, the statues and the walls. And yes, we did go to the Sistine Chapel... Wow!! It is amazing that Michelangelo was able to paint the entire ceiling, the colors, the detail, unbelieveable!! But San Pietro Basilica was amazing too.
We saw a nun praying in the Basilica, the Pieta, and also the Swiss Guard in their colorful uniforms outside of the Vatican and Basilica.
We must be seeing the churches in a good order because I am always impressed and in awe even from the last church, I don't know how you can top San Marco in Venice and San Pietro in Vatican City... (Well, there's always Westminster Abbey... I'm always looking for tickets to London so I'm sure it won't be too long before we are there!!)









We took the Eurostar (fast train) back from Roma to Napoli, took the bus from the train station to the airport where we parked on the base Jamie works at, then drove home. We had enough time to celebrate Lincoln's birthday, letting him open presents, having dinner and then eating cake. I still can't believe my little man is already 2.



Lately, Jamie and I have been spending a lot of time researching our next trip. Riann requested to spend her birthday in Paris but Jamie is really concerned about the weather and it being too cold to enjoy. On our list of possibilities: Paris; Koln, Germany; Barcelona; Sicily; Milan; France; Budapest, Hungary... Where we will actually go, who knows, that's half the fun of living in Europe!!