Home again!

Well, we just returned from Croatia... And for those of you who asked, "Croatia? Why Croatia?", let us tell you that Croatia is amazing!! Beautiful sights, wonderful weather, great food, friendly locals, and very affordable. We would definitely recommend it to anyone!

We left home last Saturday for a long journey via train to Ancona (on the east coast of Italy) then via overnight ferry to Split, Croatia across the Adriatic Sea. We got there Sunday morning, checked into our hostel, spent a good amount of time laughing at the ridiculous "shower", then went out to explore the city. What seemed daunting at first turned out to be a really simple and cute city. We withdrew some money from the ATM; surprisingly, the exchange rate is so bad that 200 kunas is only around $35, but dinner costs around $60-80 kunas (still, thats only around $10!)

The city is cute with a promenade (which one of the locals said "is like our living room") with all sorts of shops and restaurants and a castle district full of little nooks and crannies with specialty shops. We ate dinner at a pretty well known restaurant called Buffet Fife and had such a great time there we ate it twice more before leaving! It is a region of meat & potatoes as well as seafood so both of us were happy (Jenni loves meat and potatoes, Amy loves fish!).

The next morning (Monday) we had booked a Segway tour of the city. We learned to ride our segways (super fun!!) and saw some of the best views of the city! Split is a harbor town in a bay and the water is amazingly clear. Plus the whole coastline is dotted with hundreds of little islands which you can see from the shore. It was a great way to see the city in a shirt amount of time! No casualties occurred. After a lunch of Fife we roamed the city more and checked out Diocletian's Palace more. We skipped dinner and instead went to the Promenade for dessert and to cheer for the Croatian team in the Euro 2012 (the European soccer championship) game, Croatia versus Scotland. Apparently we are Croatian futball fans now!

On Tuesday we met a tour group to go to Plitvice (pronounce "Plitvitza") Lakes National Park and it was incredible!! They brag about 16 lakes and 92 waterfalls and they delivered on the promises. Our trip was interrupted by some showers, but overall the sights were beautiful. There isn't really anything to say other than "...wow...". Words cannot describe the beauty, hopefully our pictures can. On the way to the car to come home we were hit with a random Croatian thunderstorm, our first storm of the summer. We enjoyed our tour, ponchos and all! On the way home we stopped for dinner at an authentic Croatian place then came home, had some local desserts, and hiked up the mountain in Split for a beer overlooking the twilit city. A day of indulgence.

Wednesday we had booked a trip to some of the Croatian islands for a historical tour and a beach day. They cancelled our Wednesday tour on Tuesday night because they expected the weather to be bad, but it turned out to be cloudless and around 80 degrees or more (that's a guess since we don't understand Celsius). We got our 300 kunas (Croatian money) each refunded and then had to decide what to do with all that cash since we couldn't exchange it! (Actually, it's only like $40USD.) We decided to stick to our plan, so we caught a ferry to a nearby island called Brac (pronounced "Bratch"). We laid in the sun and admired the blue blue blue water for a few hours then caught the ferry back to Split. We spent our last kunas on dinner at Fife (Amy ate fish with eyeballs!), shopped for some items at the stands, enjoyed some Croatian treats, and got on the ferry back to Italy.

After a looooong ferry ride, wait for the train, and train ride, we are finally home again! (And we are both excited that it feels like home!) We enjoyed our trip and have retuned home quite a bit pinker than expected (even after tons of sunscreen).

Now we are taking care of the apartment (Amy cleaned the toilet!), grocery shopping, vacuuming, laundry, cooking dinner, dishes, etc before we jet off to Paris on Monday!! Amy finally gets to see her Eiffel Tower!

Arrivederci!!
Amy and Jenni

Pictures:
1) the bell tower to Diocletian's church. It's a cool old building.
2) some cool waterfalls and lakes from Plitvice Lakes NP.
3) a great view from the highest point in Split overlooking one of the peninsulas.
4) Amy is rolling in money! 860 kunas and some change, enough for rent and dinner!
5) enjoying a drink from high above Split!
6) a day at the beach on Brac Island
7) trying to figure out how to use the miniature shower in our room... Even too small for us! For those of you reading since the start, if you wondered why we were so excited for an "American shower," this is why!!

Still in Croatia!

Croatia has been amazing! We will be back in Rome in a few days and will update you more then on our adventures, but to tide you over, here is a sneak peak of our last few days!!

Zbogom (Goodbye!)
Amy and Jenni

We Took the Metro to a New Country

What a local sort of day yesterday (Thursday). We needed stamps and stood around for 45-minutes in the post office waiting to buy them! We had lunch in a bistro down the block then spent the afternoon browsing in the stores down the street. We made ourselves a dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches (or as we decided to call them, cheese paninis!), we learned how to do laundry in our all-Italian machine (including learning how to translate Celsius to Fahrenheit, and how to air dry our clothes on a rack in the living room). After dinner we played cribbage in our square and watched people for the evening. It was a pleasant day.

Today, Friday, we went to the Vatican (which is not a building like many people might think, but rather the grounds, and whole other country, that all the churchy stuff sits on).

First stop was the Vatican Museum. These are tons of rooms and hallways that have all kinds of neat things: sculptures, amazing tile mosaics, gorgeous painted ceilings, beautiful courtyards, even Egyptian artifacts

Next stop, the Sistine Chapel, site of the very famous "Last Judgement" and the ceiling frescos (which we don't know the name of, although, the incredibly famous "Creation of Man" is one of them). It is an impressive sight!

After leaving the Sistine Chapel we headed for St. Peters Basilica. We decided to get to the church via the Cupola tour for 5€... Holy man, greatest decision ever!! Not only did we get to climb to the top of the dome and look down on the basilica from over 400-ft, but we also got to go to the very top of the dome on the OUTSIDE for a top-of-the-world look at the city! Truly amazing! The climb up was exhausting and hilarious (because as we climbed the stairs the walls started curving in on us so we had to walk leaning on a side wall!) and totally worth it! (However, if you are wider than 2-ft, taller than 6-ft, or the least bit claustrophobic, it might not be for you.)

Finally we made it to the Basilica. It is an incredible church; like 10 churches in 1, really. There are tons of little nooks and crannies set up like their own church area. The sculptures are amazing, the ceilings are amazing, the walls are amazing, basically, it's pretty amazing!! The cool thing is that every picture we took has sun rays streaming through them like you can never seem to capture on camera anywhere else! Weird, huh?!

Leaving the Vatican we also truncated a picture Jenni photoshopped to convince Amy to come to Rome. That will be a fun before and after!

We had dinner, came home to do more laundry, went out for a Magnum bar, and prepare for our first upcoming side-trip! We leave tomorrow for Croatia via train and ferry!! Don't worry if you don't hear from us for a few days! We will be back on Thursday.

Quote of the day:
Jenni: "I just took a picture of a pretty vase!"
Passing tour guide: "Anything that looks like a vase in this room is actually a cremation urn!"
Jenni: "Ooooh, I guess I just took a picture of a pretty cremation urn... Yuck..."

Pictures:
1) Trying to figure out where the detergent goes in this crazy Italian washing machine (which BTW holds about 3-shirts and 2-pairs of underwear... Our jeans may come home stinky!)
2) One of the incredible ceilings! This whole ceiling is small individual paintings for about 150-ft (we estimate!).
3) "The Last Judgement" by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. You aren't really allow to take pictures here, but...
4) The ceiling fresco in the Sistine Chapel.
5) From the top catwalk of the St. Peters Basilica cupola overlooking the church.
6) Top-of-the-world! Overlooking the city from the top of St. Peters cupola!
7) Light pouring into St. Peters Basilica through the dome.
8) For you facebookers, try to find an old (poorly) photoshopped picture of us like this on FB and let us know how we did on the recreation!!

Arrivederci!
Amy and Jenni

"Roam"ing Ancient History

Yesterday we jumped on the Metro to visit the Colloseum, Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill (which are the oldest sights in the city other than the Pantheon!).

We wandered around the area for awhile admiring the Colloseum, the ruins in the forum, the amazing Capitol building, one of the worlds first shopping centers, and just some of the greatest sights you could ever dream of! After a lunch in a little cafe overlooking the Colloseum, we paid for a guided tour... and it was totally worth it!

The first stop was the Colloseum. A little bit about what we learned:
-It's not actually named the Colloseum; it got that nickname from a giant statue that used to stand out front called "the Collosious of Nero". The building is actually called Flavians Amphitheater.
-The Colloseum used to be covered in marble and have metal in it to help stabilize it. But at some point in history they decided they didn't care that much about the Colloseum so they dug the metal out to make bullets for a war and "recycled" the marble for other things. (Two interesting stories... Most of the current ornate churches in town are made from the stollen goods from other ancient buildings. And, "coincidentally" the marble circle in front of the Vatican is the same exact size and shape as the "missing" marble from the Colloseum.)
-It held 80,000 people when it was built in 80AD! And Paul McCartny once did a concert in there for 2,000 Euros a seat... Yikes! (but it went to charity.)
-Back in the day slave did all the work, so Romans didnt work and literally sat around in the Colloseum aaaaaaall day watching people and animals kill each other.
-the Colloseum was the very first amphitheater. Romans felt that theaters were too small for them, so they built two together facing eachother to make an AMPHItheather; get it?!

Anyway, after the very cool Colloseum tour we went to Palatine Hill where Rome was basically founded. The original founder, Romulus, started the city here and basically ever leader in history up until the Vatican took over lived here. At one point the castle up top was over 7-square miles!

After Palatine Hill we wandered the Forum. This is basically the place that society, politics, law, etc. all started! The cool history of the forum is that when the Roman Empire got huge then basically fell apart, the forum was lost. The forum became a huge dumping ground for whatever waste people had, so that centuries later when Rome grew again, all the cool stuff had to be rediscovered, aka, dug up!

Other cool stuff we learned:
-They believe that the stuff like in the forum is all over under the city. They have a really hard time expanding their subway system here because everywhere they dig a staircase they find something too cool to dig through!
-Romans had to invent a sewer and water system because the city got so big. They invented aqueducts that brought water from the mountain tops over 25-miles away. Both the sewer and the aqueducts are still used today (with basic upkeep, but very few improvements!).
-The Romans invented tons of things, used them to boom their city, and when the Empire fell apart, the secrets were lost for hundreds or thousands of years before someone else could do it... Aqueducts, cement, basic construction skills, sewage systems, and from what we are told, the general art of loafing and partying!

Today, we enjoyed living like locals and read in the park! We also figured out how to buy train tickets at the Termini, how to get to the airport (for 6Euros instead of 75Euros), and went out for dinner, shopping, and gelato! Thanks to the fun challenge of translating menus, Amy learned she is not a huge fan of raw salmon with "rocket". Also Amy got very excited about a traffic jam caused by one of the horribly parked cars right outside our apartment.

Pictures
1) A statue of a Caesar... Not a special one or anything, but he looked cool!
2) Pillars in the Roman Forum - These particular ones are from the Temple of Saturn built before the year 0 (aka, before Jesus).
3) The Triumphal Arch of Titus, the current entrance to the forum.
4) Us at the Colloseum! How cool is this?!!
5) The Italian Capitol building - what an amazing building.
6) Thanks to the abundant and free water from the ancient aqueducts, water runs constantly from fountains all over the city just like this one. (Actually, all of them are different and beautiful, and there literally must be hundreds!)

Arrivederci,
Amy and Jenni

Oh, and quote of the day...
Amy: I think I'm lost...
Jenni: We live across the street...
(let me clarify, we LITERALLY lived directly across the street and down about 15-feet... LITERALLY!)

It's the daily tasks that make it HOME!

We have been adventuring the past two days, both as tourists and as locals.

Yesterday we went to the Pantheon. Jenni warned Amy that she would walk around a corner of a random
street to find this amazing building finished in 25 b.c. but Amy was in awe
anyway! Random fact about the Pantheon is that it is built to be a perfect circle and perfect half sphere, mathematically proven. We had dinner at a little cafe, complete with homemade pasta at a table overlooking the Piazza Navona! It was a scene right out of a movie.

After a short break at home, we fulfilled Jenni's request to see the Trevi Fountain at night and enjoy ourselves some gelato!

Today we ventured to find a grocery store. First we translated the items we were looking to purchase (we learned the hard way after getting whole milk!) Finding the store was an adventure in itself as we had found one the night before we thought we could find again the next morning but that didn't work as we had hoped. We wondered the city until we were pretty much on our way home in defeat for the day but hopeful for tomorrow when we stumbled upon a different grocery store! Needless to say we got ourselves a basket full of groceries... After looking many things up in our dictionary!

We finished today with a stroll around our neighbor hood to view the beautiful architecture after unpacking our groceries and washing our dishes now that we found dish soap (or what we think is dish soap!) now onto an eventful game of cribbage!

Pictures (in no particular order):
1) Amy and Jenni at the Pantheon
2) Amy at the translating groceries (hope she was right about the dish soap)
3) Trevi Fountain at night
4) Jenni attempting to shop like a Roman with her basket on wheels
5) The Pantheon- Check out the size of the columns compared to the people!
6) Our dinner scene out of our Roman movie

Miss you all!
Amy and Jenni

Hang in there... We're hanging too!

So, you might have noticed that last nights post was a bit dull... Well, we found out that the blog site we set up doesn't really allow for easy formatting or photo entry on an iPad. But don't worry, there's an app for that! So our new posts should be better, but we will still have some minor troubles with the photo placement. (We will keep working on it)

Today (don't worry,we don't plan to update every dull day we have) we learned a little more about life in Rome. Such as...
-buying the right grade of milk in Italian is much harder than expected! (we got whole milk!)
-grocery stores close at 2:00pm and don't open at all on Sundays.
-if you eat the bread they bring to your table at dinner, they will charge you.
-European DVD players don't play American DVDs. Also, Netflicks and YouTube don't really work here (except for the old school version of Peter Pan). Thank god for cards and board games!
-Italian pasta is, indeed, delicious!
-it is totally appropriate to grope your lover in public here.
-none of the soda tastes quite like we are used to.

So, today we explored the city a bit more. First we visited a great church down the street from us (1 down, 599 to go!). Then we found the shopping district (uh oh) and ate at a really nice little diner with amazing spinach ricotta ravioli. We went on to see the Trevi Fountain (one of Jenni's favorite sites of the city, and one of Amy's new favorites). We found a great little path running from the Spanish Steps to the Piazza del Popolo (which overlooked the whole city - see the picture) and hung out there until the sun set. It was a beautiful night for a walk!

Pictures (which sadly seem to arrange themselves however they want and are immovable) are as follows:
1). Both of us at the beautiful Trevi Fountain - the Trevi Fountain was built in the 1700's. It is meant to be Neptune, Roman god of the water. He is being pulled by two "sea horses" which symbolize the two moods of the sea; one is calm and docile, the other is raging.
2) Inside the Santa Maria del Popolo church - this church was built in 1472... that's 20-years before America was discovered!
3) Overlooking the Piazza del Popolo -this amazing square is literally 3-blocks from our apartment! It is alive at all times with performers and tons of people.
4) The full Trevi Fountain! Enjoy!
5) Overlooking the city from a high path. The camera obviously doesn't do it justice!
6) Hanging out on the Spanish Steps -not really sure why they are famous, but the sure are pretty! We even saw a young bride and groom there waving to the crowds.

Arrivederci!
Jenni & Amy

Home Sweet Rome

We arrived in Rome at last! It took us 3 hours and $125 (usd) to get to our apartment. Once there we got our keys and a tour. Not more than 20 minutes had passed when we had our first visitors, two "ancient" Italian women (at least that is what their daughter explained them as.) We love our small and trendy apartment. Our bags are unpacked and in the drawers. We went to a market across street, hit up a local pizzeria, took a quick nap, and head out on the town! The apartment is only a 10 minute walk to the Spanish Steps. Here Amy and Jenni took in the sights of the busy city center while trying to grasp that their adventures had just begun. Once our minds were full, Amy and Jenni found a gelato shop for their first of many refreshing treats. No plans are set for tomorrow but getting to know the city is a must. Our goal is to find a real grocery store in the area. We will also try to figure out how to upload pictures as our attempt today was not successful.