Blog Meme

Today, in the midst of trying to reschedule our flights to England (thank you Portuguese air traffic controllers for going on strike!), I decided to take a break and check the blog.  Low and behold, I had something exciting waiting for me in my comment box!  Karen, a fellow blogger, tagged me in a meme.  I had not idea what she was talking about, so I went to her site and educated myself a little bit before deciding to play along.  If you’re curious, check out her blog for a great explanation. 

The basic idea is that Karen answered 11 questions about herself, provided by another blogger, then came up with 11 questions to pass along to me and 10 other bloggers.  We are to do the same.  I’ve already had a great time looking at the other blogs Karen tagged, as well as Karen’s!

First, here are THE RULES as shared with me:

1. You MUST post the rules.
2. Answer the questions the tagger sent for you in the post, and then create 11 new questions to ask the people you've tagged.
3. Tag 11 bloggers, however, you can break the rules and tag fewer people if you want. Make sure you hyperlink their names/blogs.
4. Let them know you've tagged them!
5. Have fun!

Here are the questions Karen gave to me:

1. How would you describe yourself with exactly six words?
Happy, wife, daughter, engineer, restless, planner
2. What’s a great book you can recommend for my next vacation read?
I am a huge non-fiction fan, and one of my favorite books is The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.  I also just finished reading Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner and really enjoyed their take on the world.
3. What are the top two countries you want to see that you’ve not yet visited?
Australia and Morocco (or really anywhere in Africa).
4. Do you collect anything (what)? If not, is there something you’ve thought about collecting?
I collect postcards from all over the world.  We pick up a post card every time we go somewhere new.  I also have most of my globe-trotting friends trained to send me post cards when they travel.  I have been trying for years to come up with a good way to display them all.  Any idea?
5. If you could name a lipstick color, what would it be?
Sugarplum
6. What outdoor activity do you most enjoy?
I love gardening.  My forever house will have a huge garden full of flowers and produce.
7. Which non-profit organization do you (or would you like to) passionately support?
The South Dakota Wildlife Federation had a huge impact on me during high school.  They aren’t some huge global organization out to change the world, but they are near and dear to my heart.
8. Which household chore do you most loath?
Washing dishes.  Good thing I married a guy who is willing to trade dish washing for cooking duties.
9. What’s the earliest “appropriate” time of day to have a glass of wine?
There is an appropriate type of wine for any time of day.
10. If you could have one of the following personal service providers come to your home free for a year, which would you most want to have?  a) house-cleaner, b) a meal planner/cook, c) a personal trainer/fitness instructor, d) a masseuse, e) a nanny
House-cleaner, hands down!  I love to cook and am relatively active on my own, so a) and b) are out.  We don’t have any kids, so e) wouldn’t do me much good.  A masseuse would be nice, but I would rather have a clean house.
11. What’s the oddest thing anyone ever asked you?
 See #5.  I’m sure I’ve been asked stranger questions, but I can’t think of any right now, and my bags aren’t going to pack themselves!

And now my questions for my fellow bloggers:

1. Where do you want to live when you retire and why?
2. If you could take a year off from your “regular life” to do anything, what would you do?
3. What was the last song you listened to?
4. What is your favorite thing to cook/bake?
5. What is one thing you are looking forward to in the next year?
6. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
7. How many US states have you visited?  How many countries?
8. Mac or PC?
9. What is one skill you learned from your parents that you use today?
10. What is your favorite drink (with our without alcohol)?
11. What state or country do you call home?

Finally… here are the blogs I’m tagging:

1. Newly Dependent
2. Andiamo!
3. the.scattered.psyche
4. bejellyfish
5. The Past and the Pending
6. Happily Ever After

I hope you all enjoy checking out some new blogs.  Please make sure you go see Karen too!

Photo Book Procrastination

In preparation for our upcoming vacation to the UK and Ireland, I decided to finally finish the photo book from our trip to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Yes, I'm aware that we took that trip over a year ago. I'm slow, what can I say?

Now, I just have books for Colombia, Hawaii, and Italy to complete. But first, I think I should make sure we're ready for the UK.

Sunny Day

Yesterday, after 48 continuous hours of five-gallon-bucket-dumped-on-your-head rain, the sun finally decided to make an appearance.  Chris and I took full advantage of the sunshine and enjoyed some sangria with an ocean view.

Today, we're back to 50+mph winds, clouds, and you guessed it, more rain.  What a difference a day makes.

Italy–Vatican City

Our four-hour bus ride from Sorrento to Rome gave us plenty of time to research our plan of attack for our afternoon stopover at the Vatican.  It was a good thing too, because we really needed a plan to make it through everything the Vatican had to offer while still leaving enough time to make it to Florence before night fall.  You’re probably wondering why we were only planning to spend a few short hours in what is arguably Italy’s most famous city.  Last January, we spent another long day in Rome while on our cruise of the Mediterranean.  During that trip, we saw the Coliseum and the rest of ancient Rome, so really, the only thing left to see was Vatican City.  Plus, buy spending the night in Florence instead of Rome, we got to spend more time with Lindsey!  Our plan for the day in hand, we set out on our whirlwind trip to Rome.

Step one of the plan (10am):  Get ourselves from the bus station to main train station so we could store our luggage for the day.  This part went relatively smoothly except for the part where we couldn’t seem to locate the metro station nearest the bus stop.  We wondered and eventually found it.

Step two: Store our luggage, and take the metro to the Vatican.  This was easy.  We’re pros at the metro, and can buy tickets in nearly any language.  It also helps that we’ve been on Rome’s metro before.

Step three (11am): Walk to the Vatican Museum entrance and pray that the line is short.  It was, and thank goodness!  We walked right in, bought our tickets and headed for the gift shop.  Why the gift shop?  Aren’t those usually at the end?  Because we intended to take a “secret” exit from the Sistine Chapel right into St. Peter’s Basilica, thus bypassing the gift shop later, any shopping we wanted to do had to be done now.  Plus, this was our chance to see the Vatican’s famous spiral stair case!

Step four: Tour the ridiculously large and sprawling Vatican Museum.  Seriously, this place was huge!  And confusing, with no maps.  Even our Rick Steves book couldn’t keep us from getting lost.  The building that houses the museum was beautiful.  Every floor, wall and ceiling was elaborately decorated with paintings, inlaid stone work, and wood carvings.  The collection of art on display was also impressive and included everything from an Egyptian mummy to entire rooms painted by some of history’s most famous artists (Raphael and Michelangelo ring any bells?).

Step five: Sit and stare at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in complete awe.  I’ll be the first to admit the Sistine Chapel looks nothing like I expected it to from the numerous pictures I’d seen before our trip.  The colors were brighter and the pictures more cartoon-like than I had expected, but they were no less amazing.  I can’t even comprehend undertaking a task as monumental as painting the ceiling of such an immense building! 

We wiggled our way onto one of the few benches in the chapel and looked at the ceiling until our necks hurt.  We also managed to covertly snap several pictures of the chapel.  We’re usually very respectful of no pictures rules, but when we found out no pictures were allowed because the Vatican owned the rights to the images, we didn’t feel so bad.  I think the Vatican made enough money off of us during our visit.  The extra $0.35 for a post card wasn’t going to break their bank.

Step six: Follow a tour group out the “secret” exit from the Sistine Chapel right into St. Peter’s Basilica.  This was the best move we made all day.  The line to get through security for St. Peter’s Basilica would have added at least an hour to our trip.  Time we just didn’t have.  Thank you Rick Steves.

Step seven:  Be overwhelmed by the shear size of St. Peter’s Basilica.  We’ve been in a lot of churches during our travels, but nothing even comes close to comparing to St. Peter’s.  Everything in the Basilica is built on a grand scale from larger-than-life statues to a seven-story altar (and the altar looks small compared to the rest of the building!).  We walked around for well over an hour, taking too many pictures, and enjoying the sunbeams shining through the windows.

Step eight (4pm): Wrap up our tour of Vatican city with a walk through St. Peter’s square, a people-watching paradise.  By this time we were exhausted from a full day of walking on marble floors, so we took a few minutes to rest our feet and take in the atmosphere in the square before making our way back to the metro station.

Step nine: Return to the train station via metro (check out all the people – uggh),

pick up our luggage, and find the next train to Florence.  Lindsey here we come!