It doesn't pay to be honest

--> So it's our last morning and the car is coming for us at 8:30am for an 11:15am flight.  Should be plenty of time...or so we think!  We are all packed, and as before the trip, Donna has packed all my breakables so they are very secured.  My number of bags has grown from 2 to 3 and they are all pretty heavy.  My big bag has my vacuum-packed sausage and Prosciutto that I have been told I can now take home as long as it is vacuum packed.   Donna's 3 have grown to 4.  It's a little over a 30 minute trip to the airport, so we still have over 2 hours to get through security.  No problem.  HA!  The first thing we discover is that the driver (it turns out all the drivers) drop you off at terminal 3 and after 10 minutes wondering around trying to find AA we ask someone and they tell us we have to go to terminal 5 and the only way to get there is by shuttle.  We drag our luggage to the shuttle stop and ride over to terminal 5.  We get in the very long security line only to learn that this is only the first of 4 lines we have to go through and they all move at a snails pace.  

We are informed that you can only have one carry on so we have to repack Donna's fourth bag, a backpack, into her and my carry-on and now they barely close.  Next stop ticket agent.  Another long line, but because of my Platinum status we get to go to the shorter line.  Yea for status!  Next is main security and this line is moving slower than molasses in mid winter.  We make friends with all the people around us because we are in this line for almost an hour.  Someone tells us that the last time they went through they got stopped because they had little scissors and I saw a sign that said no nail clippers either.  Love to know how I could use those as a weapon.  I decide not to take any chances of then needing to go through my luggage and decide to throw them out.  Finally we make it through that line and then have to get in another line to wait for another shuttle to take us to the gate.  
It is now 10:40.  We get to our gate and there is no plane. The 9:50 flight to New York hasn't even boarded yet.  At 11:15 a BA flight arrives at our gate and our flight information disappears.  About 10 minutes later we are told that when the New York flight leaves we will board from that gate. At 11:00 still no plane.  At 11:30, still no plane.  At noon they start queuing us up, but still don't see our plane. 

At 12:15 or so we start the boarding process, but instead of boarding a plane we go down the jet bridge to another shuttle.  They pack us in this shuttle like sardines and there is no air in the shuttle.  It felt like a train car taking us to a concentration camp.  A good name for it would be the holocaust shuttle.  It starts driving us down the Tarmac and we notice a piece of luggage lying in the road.  Everyone starts wondering, could it be mine.... We drive right by.  We all watch that lone piece of lost luggage and the a little vehicle drives up to it.  The driver looks at it and then drives off.  Two more vehicles do the same thing.  Next there are three vehicles that all stop by it, look at it and drive off.  We are all fascinated by this and keep watching to see what will happen to this poor bag.  A couple more vehicles come by and don't even stop.  Our fascination is halted only by the fact that they finally let us out of the holocaust shuttle to board our plane.  We never saw the luggage moved and it could still be there today for all I know.  Once we are on the plane things get more normal, but we are still not going anywhere and my comfortable layover in Chicago has evaporated.   We finally take off about 2 hours late and the rest of the flight is uneventful. 

Ten hours later we land in Chicago and every one is scrambling to get off the plane in hopes of making their connections.  They have a system in place to fast track those US citizens with tight connections and it move fairly well.  Remember my sausage.  Well we decided it was safer to declare that we had it instead of them thinking we were trying to smuggle it in.  The first customs guy I come to asks what I have and I tell him.  I also say that it is vacuum packed and we were told it was okay to bring in that way.  He nods at me marks on the form its vacuum packed and away I go.  The next stop the guy again asks me about the sausage and I again tell him it is vacuum packed.  He takes my luggage opens it up and says you can't bring this in.  I said yes I could, they told me the law had changed.  Even the first guy I stopped at here in the States agreed.  This guy says,” well you can't" and he takes it all out and throws it in the trash.  I start arguing with him and he could care less.  Minutes are ticking by and I am getting nowhere so I just say FINE!  Grab my luggage and head out of the customs area.  I'm seriously pissed, but know there is nothing I can do about it without missing my flight.

I made it back to terminal 3 headed to my gate and headed home.  If I had bought less and buried in my luggage, I would have probably had some really good stuff to share with my husband when I got home.... Lesson learned. 

Even with all our little (and big) problems it was a trip I will always remember as being one of the best trips ever!!!

Tour day in Rome

I wrote a very detailed blog on the plane yesterday and lost it so I will try again but not sure I will be able to capture all that I wrote on how awed and amazed I was!

We started our day at 7:20 am because some of the tour guides can get you into the Sistine Chapel before they let in the general public.  I can not stress enough how worth it it is to go this route.  We got to go in about 8:15.  The beauty of the tapestry rugs hung on the walls in the hallway to the chapel were spectacular.  The detailed stitching were such works of art.  You could see the eyelashes on some of the people in the scenes.  There was a considerable amount of gold woven into them and because of that many of them were confiscated by the Nazis during the Occupation and melted down to capture the gold.  What a loss!  We entered the Chapel and it is just beyond description, though I will try.  You are not allowed to take photos of any kind (they will make you leave if they see you pull out your camera or phone) nor can you talk.  So we took a rather quick look around and then exited to the coffee shop so our guide could tell us about it and point out things to look for in the painting.  Our guide, Flaminia Chapman was the best!  A big thanks to Jim Marx for recommending her and setting it up. Anyway, I knew a little about the ceiling and Donna knew a lot more (besides being an artist in her own right she loves art history and Michelangelo is her guy) but Flaminia told us some of the history and things to look for in the individual scenes.  An example, is that in the last 3rd of the ceiling there are a lot more people and details than in the 1st and 2nd thirds.  This is because he started at the back and when he finished that third he realized from the floor looking up you really couldn't see much detail due to the distance, so as he continued towards the beginning of the story of creation he used much less detail.  Then we headed back into the Chapel.  Remember earlier I wrote that getting to go in early was a must?  Well, when we had gone in the first time there was maybe 30-40 people in there.  When we went back  there was probably 200+ people and the crowd was growing.
   I was most amazed by the way it was painted to look 3 dimensional, like a sculpture and how the people painted on the curves of the ceiling looked perfectly proportional when in reality they were larger on the tops than the bottoms to account for the curvature of the wall.  I was walking around staring at the ceiling and I know my mouth was hanging open.  I could hear my mother saying to me "laynie shut your mouth, you look like a country bumpkin".  I could have spent much longer in there, but we had places to go and lots of things to see and very little time to do it all.  Next we headed to St Peters Basilica and you just can't imagine the majestic ness of it.  There was definitely more staring with open mouth in there and lots of pictures taken that I know won't come close to capturing the beauty.  One really cool thing we saw was Michelangelo’s Pieta statue.  It is Mary holding a full-grown Jesus in her lap.  It was his very first sculpture and the only one he ever signed.  It is signed on the dress sash across Mary's chest and he did it after the statue was completed and already on display, because he was an unknown and wanted people to know of his work.

Then we were off again, next stop the Pantheon.  What an amazing feat of architecture, then again of what we were seeing what wasn't an incredible feat?  On to the Spanish Steps, which it turns out aren't even Spanish.  They were built by the French and lead to a French Church, Trintia dei Monti a patronage of the Bourbon Kings of France but they were for linking the Bourbon Bourbon Spanish Embassy to the Church.  It is the widest staircase in Europe.  Then on to the market in Campo Di Fiori and then to the Colosseum.  I've seen lots of pictures but being there and seeing it in person is indescribable.  How there were able to construct something like this, huge blocks of stone cut square and others made of concrete with metal rods, like rebar set inside each block.  Then set in place conjoined in such a way that it gave the structure strength and stability to last these centuries.  During the different wars, the citizens knowing these blocks had metal rods embedded in them would chisel away at the blocks digging for the rods to be melted down for canon balls.  You can see lots of holes in the walls; this is also what contributed to the collapse of many of the walls when earthquakes struck.  The last place see took us was to a little surprise.  It's called the key hole and you look through a key hole in a wooden door of a gate and see a tree lined path that leads right to a view of St Peters. The garden was owned by the knights of Templar and then the knights of Malta.  Our tour was done and two very tired travelers headed back to the hotel.

For our last dinner in Rome we took Flaminia's advice and went to Trattoria Dar Pollaro.  It was a four course meal with no menu for 25€ and included the house wine.  It was delicious.  We walked there using only our street map and got home using the map as well.  We were quite proud of ourselves for not getting lost!  We got in the elevator, pushed the button to our floor and smiled that hello, I don't speak Italian smile to the other people in the elevator.  They got off on their floor and we continued to the next stop.  We got off the elevator and a couple got on.  We walked to our room put the key in the lock and it wouldn't open.  Next we tried the other key. It still wouldn't open.  I said I would go down to the desk and get us new keys.  I got to the desk and was just starting to explain the problem when Donna came out of the elevator giggling.  She looked at me and said the keys are fine; they just don't work on the wrong room.  So we can navigate through the streets of Rome, but can't find our room in this small hotel.

Tomorrow I will write the last post about our grueling trip home.

Rome

We arrived in Rome without much incident.  Our only problem is we didn't know which station to get off the train (there are 2)  and picked the wrong one.  No problem though we found a Taxi and got to the Hotel.  It was a very nice hotel and the staff is very helpful.  Donna did a great job picking this place.  We unpacked a little charged up our phones and headed out to see the Jewish Ghetto.   First thing we did was to take a tour of the Synagogue.   That turned out to be a verygood decision because it was almost 4:00 and the museum closed at 5:00.  It  was really an interesting tour and I learned a lot of things I didn't know.  Like Jews were established in Rome before any other area of Europe.  Also Judah Maccabee sent his sons to Rome to cement relations with the Roman Replublic and from there more Jews moved creating a decent Jewish population.  They are an Orthodox community and practice, have rituals and prayers that are all their own, leaning more toward Sephardic, really still different.  I learned much more but don't want to bore anyone with more Jewish history.  The inside of the synagogue was beautiful and I am very glad we were able to see it and the area  that housed the Jews for most of their history here, until recently.  We stayed in the area for Dinner and got to try fried artichokes.  They are delish!  After that we set out walking to find the Trevi Fountain.  It seemed like a short walk and we had our street guide but street guides are only good if you can find street signs.  There is always at least one, but most likely not on the corner where you are standing.  It took us awile, but again with the help of GPS and google mps.we found it.  We celebrated with our daily gelato.

The synagogue

Eating in the ghetto Ebraica 

Fried artichoke-Jewish style

Finally Cooking Class

The new cooking class day finally arrives.  We head out for the Bus Station and it only takes us 20 minutes, we now have this route down pat!  We get on the correct bus and away we go.  The scenery of the country side is picturesque and I find myself wishing we had more time to explore some of the smaller towns. We get to Colle Val D'Elsa a little late but Judy and the other two students are waiting for us at the Pasticceria. We get acquainted with Edith and  Carol, who are taking the full week course.  Next we take off to the butcher's shop.  The most gorgeous selection of fresh meats.  The shop is family owned and has been a family business for at least 3 generations. We buy prosciutto, thin sliced veal and a top round veal roast.  Next to the co-op for bread,cheese and veggies.  Last to the little market for the balance of our ingredients.  We head to Judy's apartment which is also her studio for classes.  We put on our aprons and discuss the menu we are about to prepare.  We are making a light Spring meal, Rissotto with spring onions and asparagus, Veal Saltimboca (veal that jumps in your mouth), Vitello  Tonnato and Panna Cotta with Cherry sauce.  The Tonnato is a tuna mayonnaise, which sounds disgusting but is Molto Bene!  It is so easy to make and on fresh sliced tomatoes with a few capers, delizioso. We put it as a sauce on the simply dry roasted roast that we thinly sliced and served at room temp.  We snacked on sheep milk cheese made by the woman who sold it to us.  She has a flock of 1,000 sheep and makes her own cheeses. The bread we had was made with olives in one loaf and sunflower seeds in the other- all local ingredients.  The Saltimboca is a piece of thinly sliced veal, a sage leaf and a slice of prosciutto on top of that, what more could I want except maybe a little Parmesan cheese.  It is sautéed in olive oil and the smell alone makes your mouth water.  For dessert we made Panne Cotte, which tasted nothing like any Panna Cotta I had ever tasted before, could be because the cream was unpasturized and full of that real cream flavor, no need for adding vanilla.  We made a fresh cherry sauce that was pitted cherries (Donna was the queen cherry pitter) sugar and red wine.  We cooked it down to a light syrup and spooned it on top of the Panne Cotto after we umolded them on our plates.  Then to finish them off and I mean taking it from buona per prefezionare (good to perfect) we drizzled a little 30 year old balsamic on the top.

Oh No Donna, please don't kill me

Yes it's cooking class day- or so I thought.  We are getting ready to leave the apartment and I decide to check my emails real quick.  There is an email from the cooking class instructor.   Is everything okay? I saw your blog and do you need a refund?  What is she talking about?  Class is today Tuesday the 3rd....  Then I look at the date on the email, it says Tuesday the 4th.  How did I lose a day?  How am going to tell Donna that not only have I screwed up and had us miss our flight, I also screwed up and missed our cooking class?  Oh Donna honey, I have something to tell you.......I've got some splaining to do.  She didn't say anything, in fact she really didn't even look at me.  I began frantically emailing with Judy, our instructor.  Lucky for us she is really an understanding woman and there was room in her Wednesday class, so crisis averted, but barely!  So change of plans and now today would be more museums, the Duomo, seeing the statue of David and the San Lorenzo Market.  

David was incredible, there are no words.  Not only is it a magnificent sculpture, that was some good looking model!  The Duomo is one of those Churches I talked about in the prior post.  The building on the outside is incredible, the inside was also beautiful, but not with the same majesty as the outside.  I wanted to walk to the top of the Dome- 410 stairs, but the line was very long and we had so much we still wanted to do. So I will have to save that for another trip.  Yes I have to come back!  Next we headed to the San Lorenzo Market.  It goes on and on for blocks and blocks.  We did some bargaining and bought lots of goodies to bring back.  Shopping, one of my favorite past times.  We did the walk back from the bus station again and this time got it in about 30 minutes with only a couple of missed turns.  Tomorrow was cooking class and we were not going to miss the BUS!

Wednesday and off to cooking class

I don't know what has happened to my brain this trip. Everything was going great. We had no problem getting to Florence or getting a taxi to the apartment. We had dinner in our neighborhood or as Donna has nicknamed it "our hood".  It was a little cafe on the Piazza Santo Spirito. We sat outside and just soaked up the atmosphere. The food was delish and I enjoyed a glass of wine as the sun set.  We also learned that many of the most beautiful churches on the inside have very plain exteriors and those with the most ornate exteriors have more auster interiors in contrast.  

The next morning we got up and put on our agenda getting cash and figuring out the bus station for our class the following day.  We headed out of the hood over the Ponte Vecchio bridge, which has more fine jewelry, gold, silver, fine gems and watches than you can imagine.  Decided we didnt want to spend all our euros on one item so we kept walking.  It was very cool to see though.  We found a Bancomat (atm) and I got cash,  Donna needed a Bank that would handle changing currency.  That was a little more difficult to find, so she decided to use one of the currency exchange offices.  Turned out they charge a lot more fees than the bank and she ended up with a bit less cash than she had planned.  We walk 2 more blocks and find a Deutsche Bank that could handle the transaction, oh well lesson learned. Next we came upon the Piazza Della Signoria.  The statues were everywhere.  They are the most incredible works of art.  It just boogles the mind that they could take a block of marble and with a series if chisels create these perfectly formed, life like sculptures.  I moved from one to the next with that look of pure awe.  My mother would have looked at me and said, laynie,  close your mouth you look like an idiot.  We were getting ready to head for the Bus Station to check out the schedule and location when the skies opened up and the rain came pouring down.  Taking shelter in a building we discovered we were at the Palazzo Vecchio, the palace of Cosimo Medici (the first).  I went and bought us tickets for the "English" tour and we only had to wait 20 minutes for the tour to start - understand that a 20 minute wait for these museums and tours is nothing.   It was so worth the time and money, we saw the most incredible paintings on the walls and ceilings, plus the guide was very knowledgable about the Medics and the palace, so we learned a lot as well.

The ceiling.  Each of those squares is about 10 ft long.

This painting took about a year to do and there wer 6 different panels in the Hall.

Once the tour was done the rain had stopped, we found the Bus station, bought our tickets and started back to the apartment.  The Google map said it was approximately a 20 minute walk.  1 hour and 23 minutes later we finally found the apartment.  This city is not on any kind of grid and streets change names and directions at almost every intersection. I thought I had a pretty good sense of direction but we got so lost 3 different times and even asking people for help and trying to use our city map was of no help.  Talk about exhausted..

We were ready for cooking class the next day and very excited.  However.......

Too tired to post

I promise to fill you in on our adventures in Firenze tomorrow, but it has been a really long day that started bad but ended good.  I thank God there are understanding, good people out there because today could have been a disaster.  Instead of reliving that frantic hour I will leave you with this photo of the beauty of Firenze!

Firenze

As I said last night, you can't help but fall in love with Florence.  The hills and river and bridges and old buildings with such character.  Our landlord in Bolonga came and picked us up and drove us to the train station saving us from dragging our luggage down 3 flights of stairs and through the city streets to the train station.  We had already purchased our tickets and knew the lay of the land so boarding the train was no problem--- except we had to carry our 40+ lb bags up a flight of stairs to get to the platform.  An Italian man offered to carry our bags up for us and we forgot to ask "quanto costa?".  When he got us to the correct platform he says 20 euros. We say NO!  Then he says Yes, again we say NO, then he say 10 euros, again we say NO and this time we hand him 2 euros each and say, that's it, that's all you are getting.  He wasn't very happy but at least he didn't drag our luggage back down stairs.  On the regional train to Parma, Donna got to sit next to the window, so I said I want the window for this trip.  Well this was a high speed train and the only time we weren't in tunnels was leaving Bologna and entering Florence. Not much of a view from my window.  We took a quick cab ride to our next apartment and our new landlord met us here about 10 minutes later.  This apartment had only one flight of stairs and was just as cute as a speckled pup.  Claudia our landlord, brought with her some eggs, milk, yogurt and a cake she had baked that morning.  Staying in apartments is really a great way to experience a city.  We went out and explored some of the City and every where we turned we found more statues and incredible  architecture. We were snapping pictures like crazy.   Had our daily gelato and were very happy campers.  For dinner that night we had pappardelle pasta with wild boar ragu and linguine with clams- a glass of wine and I continued to be a very happy camper.  Tomorrow our adventures walking around Florence lost.

We have arrived in Firenze

I loved Bologna, but have fallen in love with Florence.  I don't even have the words.  But first I need to finish up on what we did in Bologna.  In one day we trekked the entire old town.  We saw the Jewish ghetto and even found the old synagogue, but it has been converted into apartments.  We went into at least four churches, the most incredible being Basilica Di San Domenico.  Though they were all incredibly beautiful that one was truly a museum and a huge complex. Built in 1219-then enlarged in 1248 and improved and enlarged again in the 1400's.    Saint Dominic's (founder of the Order of the Dominicans) died in the Church and his body was buried there.  The body had to be moved to an alcove because there were so many pilgramages to see the Saint that it disrupted services and so the ashes were moved and reburied and a shrine was built. The shrine has in it the sarcophagus with the ashes which has the most beautiful marble carvings around it depicting scenes from his life.  There was also some incredible statues, one of which was carved by a very young Michelangelo.  Donna and I got separated again and she found herself behind the main nave and pulled what I call a Rob Wolin and just starting walking through open doors until I found myself in the inner courtyard- not open to the public.  I admired it for awhile and then went In search of Donna.  I found her back in the Church proper because her pathway led her back into the main sanctuary ,  I tried to take her where I had been, but this time we got caught before we made it out the side door and we told we couldn't go out there.... Little did they know I had already been there!

Our first experience taking il Treno

We decided we needed a practice run before we were trying to traverse the train station with all our luggage in tow.  So we took a short trip to Parma. Home of parmigiano reggiano cheese and parma ham (prosciutto).  It was only a half hour train ride and once we figured out the platform and learn Est from Ovest (east from west) for which platform, we were good to go.  Parma was a nice little town with some great markets. We bought some balsamic vinegar and freshly cut and packaged cheese and sausage.  We also bought some dessert to take back and have after dinner in Bologna. We had leftovers from the night before and since we weren't getting back until after 8 that sounded perfect. Oh and it was!  Sorry, no pictures I took them all with real camera instead of iPhone.   Lots of walking- Elizabeth have you been checking my steps?