The Blackburn Family

Well, we arrived in Rome today. I do miss the quiet country. Our last full day (Friday) we had terrible weather so we really didn’t spend much time exploring Siena. I was very disappointed so we will have to go back one day. It was cold and rainy so we really didn’t want to spend too much time walking around. I will have to tell you the story of the parking deck later…. needless to say from now on I will remember which level we are parked on. We left Montepulciano this morning and dropped the car off in Chiusi. Then took the train into Rome. So far I like Florence much more than Rome, but we have only been here a few hours. It has a totally different feel. I can’t believe it is already time to go home. I hope we can return one day and bring all of you back. It is a wonderful place with very friendly people. If only the dollar wasn’t crap it wouldn’t be that expensive.

Forgot to mention we saw who one the world championship of City Chase today! www.citychase.com It is a National Geographic show similar to Amazing Race on a much smaller scale. The winners from each country compete and this year it was in Rome. I won’t tell who wins! We talked to one of the wives. The race started yesterday and ended today as we watched. Very exciting.

Well, the weather couldn’t be perfect the whole time…..  The weather channel appears to have no idea what the weather will be here!!  I knew it was going to get rainy and cold here at the end of the week, but the forecast kept changing.  When the weather channel says it will be rainy here it is sunny and when it says sunny it is rainy.  I have been trying to the plan the rest of the trip based on the weather which is hard when it isn’t what you think it will be.  It was supposed to be nice yesterday, but we woke up to clouds so thick you couldn’t see out the window.  We decided to go out anyway.  We drove in search of cyprus lined roads and found several, but it was rainy and cloudy so the picutres aren’t great.  By the time we got to Pienza it was clearing up.  We walked around Pienza, but most of the shops were closed for the afternoon so we decided to go back to Montalcino.  It was nice there too and we walked around some.  Right as we were leaving it started to rain and poured most of the way back to Montepulciano.  We walked to dinner in the cold drizzle.  It stormed most of the night.  It was supposed to be heavy rain all day today, but we woke up to sun!  So we walked around Montepulciano and grabbed some lunch.  It is certainly chilly here today.  As we walked back from town it was getting really windy and cloudy.  I guess it is supposed to rain all afternoon, but so far it is just windy.  This is one of those days a TV and DVD player (plus DVD’s in English) wouldn’t be so bad…..  not much to do when the weather is bad.  Casey is napping…  I am sure he will sleep most of the day.  I am hoping for decent weather tomorrow.  We are planning to go to Siena in the morning.  I really want to find something great to bring back, but so far nothing in my price range that I just love.  I hope for good shopping tomorrow.

I do wish I had brought another book to read.  I am almost done with the one I brought back and need something for the long plane ride home!  Somehow I doubt I will be sleeping much.  It is hard to believe it is almost time to go home…. 

Okay… a bit tired tonight and we had great wine at dinner making me more tired so this may be short!  I believe I left off with us in Florence….  We checked out of our hotel on Saturday and had another cab ride (not nearly as scary) to the Hertz office.  After a bit of waiting we had everything booked.  I have no idea how much it ended up costing because we went with the extra insurance and some option with the gas.  Of course I have no idea how much we are spending on anything and at this point I don’t really care.  I suppose when I add it up when we get home it will be a bit of a shock, but well worth it.  Hey, it is why I work right!  Anyway, the lady at Hertz directed us on how to get to the garage.  They didn’t provide directions out of town just gave you a map.  Didn’t even show you where you were on it!  Luckily we got great instructions from the hotel before we left.  You would not believe the Hertz garage.  It is best described in person, but they had those cars in there so tight I really don’t know how they did it.  They had to climb on top of the cars and crawl through the windows to pull them out!  The guys in the garage were not nice and gave us no instructions.  Then honked at us when we didn’t move the car fast enough!  So off we went.  It was a bit daunting at first, but it was Saturday morning so traffic wasn’t bad.  We pretty much followed a bus until I could figure out where we were on the map (the hotel had highlighted the route).  It was actually really easy.

In Italy the signs are the name of the next town, not exit numbers or highway numbers.  The other tricky part is knowing the name of the next big town.  Getting to Siena was easy, but once there we got nice and lost.  We had to follow the signs for Roma (Blue not Green – green is Autostrada).  It took me a few minutes to realize we were looking for Rome since it is very far from here.  Then the signs would just disappear!!  We drove around for awhile, but finally made it out of Siena and on to Montepulciano. 

Let me just say I am so glad I am not driving.  These roads are so small and steep!  When we got to Montepulciano we got lost again.  We eventually found a place to park and walked to the apartment.  After being show around and shown where to park we tried to get back to the car by walking how we thought we would drive.  What a mess.  We walked forever.  Eventually we got back to the car and had to drive through town dodging tourists and other obstacles.  Once again the bus saved us.  There was one behind us so I know it was okay to drive on the road.  We settled into the apartment and didn’t even try going to dinner.  Just ate a bit here.  We spent yesterday exploring Montepulciano which is a wonderful town.  Today we went to Montalcino, Sant Antimo, San Quirico and Bagno Vagno.  Perhaps I will wrote more about those towns tomorrow.  Please excuse typing errors….  I am sleepy. 

I have been writing a lot about our trip in my journal, but I won’t bore you all with my many pages of writing.  So here are a few highlights from our trip so far….  Casey is down for his afternoon nap so I have a bit of time before we go to dinner.  He seems to require about 12 hours of sleep a day while here.  I guess he isn’t used to so much activity! 

Arriving in Florence – after a long night of traveling with almost no sleep for me we arrived in Florence.  The seats on American have got to be the most uncomfortable seats I have ever sat in!  Casey wasn’t phased and slept almost the whole trip.  When we arrived in Florence we picked up our bags and headed out to find a cab.  The cab ride to the hotel was by far the scariest cab ride ever!  I was just glad we didn’t have to drive in this crazy city.  The city was not built to accomodate cars so the roads are tiny and packed with tourists, bikes and other obstacles.  Even if a road is “two lanes” it is just drive wherever you want.  The mopeds go anywhere they want!  We arrived at the hotel and had to walk up the stairs since the elevator was broken.  The hotel was very nice!  I really wanted to turn the AC off and open the window, but it was so loud!  Everything echoed and there was a ton of street noise so we shut the window.  We wondered the streets some to keep ourselves awake and get used to our surroundings.  Florence is full of people – trendy Italians and tourist.  You can really spot a tourist!  The skinny jeans have really caught on here and all the Italian women had skinny jeans, scarfs, big sunglasses and cute shoes.  We saw three brides while in Florence all from areas other than Italy (heard them speaking English).  We climbed 414 steps to the top of the bell tower, took a day trip to Pisa, saw the David, saw more renaissance art than you can ever imagine, toured several churches, ate pizza for lunch every day, took a nap every afternoon, had gelato at least once a day, walked what had to be at least 7 miles a day and spent more money than I care to know….  just on food!  I didn’t purchase anything in Florence because it seemed so expensive. 

We tried several times to find recommended restaurants, but got lost every time and ended up in the tourist trap restaurants that were good, but not authentic.  Of course the menus were also in English.  We did manage to find one of the recommended restaurants, but the menu was in Italian so I got out my menu reader.  Talk about stressful!  So many things to look up!  I managed to find a pasta and chicken dish.  I read some of the meat options to Casey and then gave him the book to look up the rest.  He looked up Trippe and declared it was beef tips.  So he ordered that……  when it arrived it was not beef.  He ate about half of it, but I could tell it wasn’t good.  So I looked it up in the menu reader.  Casey apparently didn’t read the definition….  he saw beef tips it says “Beef tripe cut into strips”.  He stopped reading here and thought it was beef tips….  Tripe is “the stomach lining of veal or beef”.  He had it alla Florentina which means “veal tripe and veal foot stewed in herbal tomato sauce”.  Perhaps next time he will actually read the definition!!  That stomach lining cost about $10!!

More stories to come…. 

Check me out on the news!!  It is great to see rabbits getting some good press.  Thanks to the SPCA for making this story happen!!!  Click here to see the story.

J.D. really likes the bunnies, but he is still a bit scared of them.  I really thinks he wants to be one.  He eats their food, hay and lays with them and their toys.  Here are a few pictures of J.D.

With Tuscan and Moose’s toys

Watching over the foster bunnies (sleeping on the job!)