Venice
Our first stop was Venice! I met Maria in the airport, and we took a boat taxi to our hotel in Venice. It took a lot longer to get to our hotel than we imagined; the boat taxis make a lot of stops! When we first arrived, we went to our hotel. Our view overlooked the water! We dropped off our stuff and ventured out for some food. We just stopped at the first restaurant that we were interested in, and oh goodness gracious the pizza was so delicious! That first night and the next day we spent just exploring Venice. The weather was beautiful!
View from our Hotel
Canals of Venice
Saint Mark's Basilica
Piazza San Marco
...lots of wine
...lots of eating/drinking by the water
Love her
Murano/Burano
Our last day in Venice, we ventured out to get a tour of the two islands Murano and Burano. Murano is known for glass blowing. Burano is known for the colorful houses (and lots of lace!). Burano was my personal favorite, but we didn't get to spend that much time on the island of Murano. When we returned in the late afternoon, Maria and I went on a gondola ride. It was a great way to see Venice from the water canals. It was a lot of fun! I think I took 200 photos of ourselves with the selfie stick. I am sure our water guide thoroughly enjoyed it.
It was cool to see the glass blowing in action
Murano
Burano
One of many
He looks so enthused....
Last pic in Venice! Off to Florence!
Florence
Traveling in Italy is very easy, which we were very thankful for. We just hopped on a train right to Florence! Florence was a beautiful city, for the most part we just explored. The first day we walked around to just see the city! Also, Maria researched where we could get iced coffee (struggled with this in Venice), and she found a place called "Arnold's coffee"! It was very similar to Starbucks (Starbucks is still #1 in my heart), so we were extremely happy about this find. The next day we took the Big Bus tour bus (it was basically free with our train ticket). It was a great way to see the countryside of Florence. We only spent a couple days here, but it was definitely worth it!
Piazza del Duomo
Big Bus!
Countryside of Florence
Neat view of the city
Michelangelo
One of my fave pics of the trip
Cinque Terre Trail
From Florence, we took the train to the Cinque Terre Trail. It is a trail of five villages with beautiful sights. You can walk between the villages along the coast or mountainside. The coast hike is much shorter and it has gorgeous views. We stayed in Manarola, which ended up being my favorite village. The two trails from Manarola to its neighboring villages were both closed. We ended up taking the train to the last village (Monterrosso) and then hiked from Monterrosso to Vernazza and then hiked from Vernazza to Corniglia. Both hikes were about two hours, so we got a lot of exercise in. The sights were unreal. It was hands-down my favorite day of the trip. When we returned exhausted to Manarola, we took a rest and then took the train to Riomaggiore for dinner. This way we were able to see all of the five villages.
Arrived!
All the above are Manarola
Apparently I don't have any pics of the actual village of Monterrosso, but I love this pic so it's okay
Free advertising for Emirates
Vernazza
Manarola
Riomaggiore
Departures
Our last night we stayed close to the airport, because we had an early flight. Of course I have a story about my flight; I always do. So I booked my trip from Florence to Kuwait with Egyptair and a layover in Cairo. Well the day before I leave for Italy, I find out that there was a situation on an Egyptair flight, and they were flying to Cairo. Everyone was safe, and it was not related to terrorism; however, it didn't sit right with me. So last minute I booked a new flight home. I didn't bother to cancel my other flight, because last time I didn't get a refund, so I thought I would just keep it just in case (that's what happens when you have that Arab money). Well, I noticed one day while in Venice that my flight wasn't from Florence but Rome. So that was a problem. I went through lots of ideas, and ended up choosing to fly from Florence to Rome. If I took the earliest flight from Florence (which left at about the same time as Maria's) then I would arrive in Rome with a little over 3 hours - plenty of time to get my baggage and recheck in for my flight. Well of course my flight from Rome to Kuwait was changed (an hour and a half earlier). So I missed my flight from Rome. They rebooked my flight (no trouble). Since I now had plenty of time, I decided to go out and see Rome just for a little bit. I took the train to a central train station near the Coliseum where I could store my luggage. I only had time to walk to the Coliseum and walk back, but it was definitely better then staying in the airport for 3 hours! My flight left Rome around 3pm, arrived in Dubai around 11pm, and I arrived in Kuwait until 2 am. I got to my apartment at 4 am. I woke up at 6 am for work. That first day back at work was very brutal, and my kids had lots of comments about my looks and my glasses!
Updates
Well it has been months, so I don't even know how to update all of you. I leave on Thursday to return home. I leave Kuwait around 10:45 pm. Taylor and I have the same flight to Amsterdam, and then I go from Amsterdam right to Minneapolis. I get to MSP around 12:35pm on Friday - just in time for my favorite Asian guy's wedding! I will be home (well in America) for summer, and then I will return to Kuwait for another year on August 22.
For some reasons videos haven't been working on here anymore, but hopefully it works. We had to choreograph a spring show and this is our song ahaha
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