Less than a month :)

Italy November 7- 12

There was no school on Tuesday the 11th, so Megan, Carolyn, and I decided to use one of our 'sick' days Monday and spend an extra 2 days in Italy. We flew into Rome late Friday and searched for our hostel. This hostel was quite an experience. It only cost 8 Euro a night and we were on the 8th floor of this apartment-like building. We had to share one large room with 7 other people; it was pretty interesting. The hot water heater made the loudest noise! I was so glad I had brought my iPod to fall asleep with. There were bunk beds lined up all along the room, so Megan and I shared one. When the time came to climb up on top, the bunks were so old and shaking so bad I thought I was going to collapse the thing. I finally made it up there safely and Megan got nervous I was going to be sleeping on her, my mattress sunk down so far! Then 2 guys in the bunk next to ours stumbled in pretty late, we were all sleeping, and they had definitely been out drinking. Not only were they very loud to come in, but snored so loud all night long! It definitely woke me up many times throughout the night. In the morning, we learned that they were in the Air Force and originally from Chicago and Georgia.
We got up pretty early and headed for the Pantheon, Palatine Hill, Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and the Trevi Fountain. There is so much history there; it was remarkable. We had a minor rain delay as we were heading to the Colosseum, but it didn't slow us down too much. It was so easy to get around the city, and everything was pretty close to each other, which was nice. The gelato (ice cream) was amazing! We had plenty (probably too much) during our two days in Rome. We found one place that had 150 flavors :) After all the sightseeing, we did lots of shopping!! Then finally made it back to the hostel to shower and get ready for dinner. We found a great restaurant and had some pizza and wine for dinner. We were exhausted and headed to bed early because we had to catch the 6:45am train Sunday morning to make our way to Amalfi Coast.

Inside the Colosseum

Trevi Fountain

The train didn't go all the way to Amalfi, so we had to get off at Salerno and take a bus to Amalfi. Once in Amalfi we then had to wait for another bus that took us all the way to our bed and breakfast. It was 2 hour wait until the bus left, so we changed into our suits and laid out on the beach for a while before jumping onto our final bus. We are so glad we took the early train, because the traveling ended up taking all day! We didn't actually get to our B&B until 3:00. The bus ride was so gorgeous!! It drove right along the cliff on the Mediterranean Sea. Our B&B was built into the cliff and was so nice! The view from the room was beautiful! We were the only people staying there, so the owners took extra good care of us! He drove us around in his car to take us anywhere we needed, because there was nothing near the B&B. It was such a nice, relaxing trip. I absolutely loved being along the water. We did a lot of laying around and reading. It was nice and quiet :) Monday we spent all afternoon laying out on the beach. It was so nice out!! I was finally able to get a little color back :) I did not want to leave!

The view from our room

Me, Megan, and Carolyn

A view from the beach

The Mediterranean Sea

Monday, late afternoon, we had to start heading back to Rome because our flight was leaving from there Tuesday morning. When we landed in Rome, we found out the public transportation was on strike. We got a taxi to our hotel and looked up flight information for the next morning. We learned that Ryan Air had canceled all flights from Rome on Monday, but it said that they were all scheduled to be on time still for Tuesday. Check again in the morning, still saying the same thing, so we made our way to the airport. NOT GOOD!! Lots of people standing outside, and complete chaos inside! People everywhere, lines all over. We split and started standing in all sorts of lines trying to figure out where we needed to be. There were no people working behind counters to check people in, nothing on the signs with departing and arriving flight information, and finally someone in line in front of me translated that all flights to and from Rome were also canceled for Tuesday; it was not looking good! Megan finally reached one information counter to learn that not only were all flights canceled, but at the time, Wednesday was also fully re-booked already. We had no idea when we could have possibly left Rome. Luckily Carolyn is a very friendly person and had been chatting with a family in front of her that were from Weisbaden, Germany and were military. We like to say that we hitchhiked across Italy :) We hitched a ride with the family from Weisbaden and split the cost of renting a minivan and driving up to Milan. We were able to rebook our tickets for free, and get a flight to Dusseldorf, Germany at 1:30 Wednesday. If we wanted to wait for a flight to Frankfurt, we would have had to wait until 8:30pm. So we took the Dusseldorf flight and found a hotel for the night (we had to stay with the family with the car, so lets say we stayed in the nicest hotel we have stayed in so far; they didn't want to sleep in a 8 Euro hostel, haha). The rental car had to be turned in by 9am, so we had to spend the morning/afternoon waiting for our flight. Finally got to Dusseldorf, had to wait for a bus to take us to the train station, then had to get a train ticket to Heidelberg......lets just say we didn't get home until 9pm Wednesday!!! It was such a crazy experience!

I can't forget the best part of the craziness!! I found out I was now 'Aunt Amy' when I got home :) Congrats to Lindsey and baby Evan James!!! Love you so much Linds!

Evan James

It was a nice short week at school and nice to finally stick around Heidelberg for the weekend. We found a Christmas tree and have that all up and decorated now. Sunday we had our Thanksgiving dinner :) We will all be in Dublin for Thanksgiving, so we needed to have it early so we could eat all our leftovers. We were each in charge of a dish. The kitchen was extra crowded and we even had to borrow the oven upstairs. There was so much food! We even watched our first Christmas movie after dinner :) The Polar Express! I know it's really early, but we are all getting so anxious to get home and thought we needed to get an early start.

I am really enjoying it over here, but I am ready to get back and see everyone!! I can't believe how fast time has gone! Only 25 more days :)