highights and lowpoints

in no particular order

• drinking hot chocolate in San Marco Square
• trying to make an authentic Italian meal, only to realize that you do not have salt, and it's Sunday so everything is closed and you can't get salt. 
• waiting in 5 different long, barely moving, lines in the Rome airport
• traveling with the Wrides {this is a highlight, just in case you wondered. they were our perfect travel companions}
• paying $5 for peanuts and water on EasyJet
• Communist training camps
• Jamie's bug bites that nearly turned to cellulitis
• 
• the haze over Umbria and Tuscany. We still aren't sure what it was
• Nadia and her pastries
• running into a friend from residency in Vernazza
• all the buildings that were painted to look like decorative stonework
• finding the perfect souvenir/thank you gift at a little booth in Rome {vintage postcards from the early 1900s}
• running/sprinting 2 grueling miles in the Cinque Terre to catch the perfect light for the perfect shot
• Jill, our garmin guide. we loved her. we hated her. we all agreed her navigation skills were far superior to mine
• Perugian driving
• the white church in Todi, with the sermon on hearing vs listening
• my tour of the chapel in Sienna that got Jamie in trouble. she was not pleased.
• Assisi
• rick steves {highlight or lowpoint, depending on who you talk to}
• Taylor mistaking me for Jamie and putting his arms around my waist. the "You're not Jamie!!!" was priceless
• gelato and amazing food
• declining Fabius' coffee laden Tirimisu , only to be given liquor laced Panna Cotta
• riding bikes in Lucca

• drying our clothes in the sauna, nearly starting a fire
• our selection of TV channels in our villa. we had Arab sports. Arab news. Arab porn. But very few English or Italian channels. Were we really in an Arab safe house?
• waking up at 6 am to get the perfect shot in Venice, only to find a gray and foggy morning
• all those pictures where you look like a "tool"

so, there you have it. italy 2009. we had a wonderful time. again, thank you, thank you, thank you to the grandmas, grandpas and aunts. couldn't have done it without you.