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Happy New Year!

I thought it was about time I posted...something. Anything. I do hope to try and blog more in the New Year. If anything, at least I'll finally finish up blogging about our trip to Italy. Here is a sneak peak: We went to Pisa. We spent one last day in Florence. We headed home. We had a horrible experience at the Amsterdam airport (is there any other kind of experience there? People say it's so great, but every time I've been there, the lines to get through security have been interminable). We had a nice experience at the Yotel in the Amsterdam airport (if you have a long layover there and are just sick and don't want to venture into town, this is a good alternative). We made it home. I also hope to post at some point about my marathon experience! Yes, I did it! I completed the Twin Cities Marathon. 5:26...more details to come. I am also knitting my husband a sweater. Really all that is left to do is the finishing. Which includes a zipper, so we'll see how that go

Back to Florence

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So, uh. Eventually I'll be done writing about this trip. I'm getting there. We were up bright and early the next morning. This was the day were headed back to Florence. I was sad to leave Tuscany, but was excited to see more of Florence...and we had plans for a day trip to Pisa. As I've said, I was pretty snuffly so I was looking forward to a nice hot, steamy shower. It was not to be. I let the water run and run, but it ever warmed up. This was disappointing, but...timely considering I'd been reading some of the travel tips ad philosophies in my guidebook and Rick Steves specifically mentioned hot showers ad the occasional lack thereof. So, I just sucked it up and we headed to the Cafe Poliziano for breakfast. Croissant and a cappuccino. I felt very Italian standing at the bar. We had some time to kill before Giacomo came to pick us up, so we sort of wandered up and down the streets. David wanted to look in some wine shops so we did that, ventured back into

Last day walking

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So, this was it...the last day of our walking tour (but not the last day of our trip at all). Today was the day of one of our longest hikes; about 8.5 miles to Montepulciano. Montepulciano is also known for their wine, the Vino Nobile. The hike was about 3 miles to Montechiello and then from there about another 5 miles or so, mostly uphill. Paolo and Giacomo came to pick us up that morning and we decided to let them drive us to Montechiello, just to cut the walking time down a little bit. My cold was leaving me feeling a bit weary. Unfortunately, this meant we still had to do the second half of the walk, which was what was going to be the tough part. Five miles, pretty much all uphill. This was the view from Montechiello, just before we started on our way. It was only about 10 a.m. or so when we were there, maybe even a little earlier, and the town as absolutely deserted. I don't remember seeing a single person. Nothing was open. But, it was picturesque and seemed like a p

On to Pienza

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So, here's a funny story. After my last post, which really was based on dim memories, I found my little notebook in which I had kept notes about our trip. Really, the notes totally sucked. They were something like this "Walked long way. Yummy dinner. Spicy Sauce. Had cold. So tired." In some instances, the notes are completely illegible, or they are so brief and nondescript it is as though I woke up in the middle of the night and jotted down a few words that in the morning were supposed to remind me about my dream, but it really just says "squirrel...golf balls...flboud" and is not very helpful at all. And, I've since lost the notebook again. Gah! But, it did remind me of a few things. It reminded me of what I had eaten for dinner. David had chicken, and like the rabbit he'd had another night, it was full of all kinds of teeny tiny little bones. I had beef stew and on the side I got fried baby artichokes. I don't know what I expected from the a