Last Blog from California: Pictures added

Sadly, I have returned to the grand USA. It was a really long flight! But before we could get on our flight to SFO, we had to get from Pisa to Frankfurt….

After my last blog, Andrew vetoed the whole Pizza in Pisa thing and we got a delicious Kabob. Random funny story: When we were in Florence a tourist was trying to buy a ticket to Pisa and typed the location at the ticket machine as “PIZZA”. I could understand using one “z” but come on… it took her like five minutes to figure it out and I’m pretty sure it was because she overheard us making fun of her. Any who the Kabob was really good. Next we saw the Leaning Tower-yep its still leaning. We actually went inside the church and saw the pulpit, which was really cool. We took still touristy pictures with the tower and then headed to the Pisa Airport.

We flew Ryanair, which is cheep but its kind of a pain in the ass. It wasn’t as bad as I remembered-in fact I think they’ve really improved. We had to consolidate our luggage because you are only allowed one carry-on, which means one bag-not a purse and a suit-case. So we checked Andrews bag because we had a small backpack. The flight was good we sat next to this crazy American, who has had the worst luck in Europe. His brother got his passport stolen, they were robbed, there train broke down on the tracks and they had to switch after two hours in a non-air conditioned compartment….fun. Ryanair also flies to random airports, so once we landed we had to take a 90 autobus to the actual town of Frankfurt. It normally is a huge pain in the ass, but the drive so beautiful I wasn’t going to complain. Once we got to the main station we experience, yet again, the Germans inability to display signs. In most metro systems, one can expect a map of all the routes posted in the main ticketing area….not in Germany-or at least Frankfurt. They decided to post a map on the tunnel of the subway, which is not only impossible to see but it means by that point you already know where you are going because you are on the platform. Oh Germany…

We made it to our hotel around 11 pm and passed out. Our hotel wasn’t in downtown really and we didn’t have much time, so we went to the mall next to our hotel. It was not a tourist mall, so we ran into a bit of a language barrier. We hit up the grocery store for snacks-Andrew bought about 1000 grams of Gummy Bears. Then we left for the airport. The airport had no sings about which airlines departed from which terminal so it was very confusing. They also don’t make you go through security until you get to the specific terminal and since all the food is in the B terminal (2 miles from our C terminal) we had to go through security twice, which was a little worrisome because we were trying to smuggle a snowglobe on the plane-not sure if it was allowed…we were successful both times.

Our flight was long and I didn’t sleep at all. The flight departed at 5:25 pm German time and landed in SFO at 7:35 pm local time. So by the time I got to bed last night I was up for over a day. I entertained myself by watching the really bad in flight movies- 5 of them…. When we landed Jono picked us up and took us to Chipotle, because the Euros don’t do Mexican-well they try but we know better. Then it was time to sleep.
Today I’ve posted “selected” pictures from my trip throughout the blog, it was really hard to narrow them down because there was over 1400….and that’s only one camera! I don’t have any of Andrew’s Flip Videos but I’ll post them when I get some as a new entry. Thanks for following my blog. It was an amazing trip and I really want to go back already!

Ciao Italia

Last days in Perugia.
So the train we took from Spoleto didn't get us to the main train station in Perugia, instead we ended up on the outskirts of town hoping a bus would show up to the center. After 45 minutes one did.

We went back to Mediterranea for some pizza and then met up with some more Italian friends. When I was in Perugia before, we made really good friend with Manuelle and Gian Lucca-who would make us really Italian dinners in exchange for English lessons. It was really cool to see Gian Lucca again. We got Gelato-Gian Lucca made fun of me because I saw Gelato like an American. Brittany took a ride on Francesco motorcycle, while we walked around town and met some more of Gian Lucca's amici. Gian Lucca is still the same. He was always trying to understand the strange rules of english. After we told him you didn't have to say 'im at my home' and 'im home' would do, we taught him knew things like wino and that you can in fact call a boy a bitch...he really enjoyed that.

The next day was Sunday so everything is pretty much shut down in Perugia, except for gelato, food, and the church. We checked out the duomo and saw the virgin mary's wedding ring. We ate a typical 3 hour lunch and swam in our pool. It was a lazy day but we it was just what we needed.





Fake David and Fake Purses

On Monday Andrew and I did a stop over in Florence on the way to Riomaggoire (Cinque Terre). We were going to hit our favorite eateries but we dissappointed to find out that the worlds best panino place was closed. I'm pretty sure Andrew was close to crying. We ate another restaurant we like, Trattoria Anita.

There lunch menu is not as good as there dinner menu, but it was still good. The crazy waiter from 3 years ago still works there-but he wasn't as fun, or maybe as drunk, as he usually is. We then said Ciao to the fake David outside the Uffizzi and checked out some fake purses-which in my oppinion have gone down in quality. The Duomo is still there the scaffolding has moved so we got to see more of the back, but the lines are the same. People still stare at Ghilberti's golden doors thinking they are the real thing (which are in the museum behind the duomo).
Then we went to the Lorenzo Market were we did some shopping, unfortunly I couldn't find any good knock offs. Afterwards we went back to Gelato at Via Di Neri and headed back to the train station, where we almost missed our train.


We arrived in Riomaggiore, the first town of Cinque Terre, around 630 and checked in to the place were we were renting an appartment from. The appartment was nice, but the bathroom was the smallest I've ever seen. If we looked over our balcony, we could see the ocean and the harbor. We went to the Coop and bought some Percorino cheese, Proscutto di Parma, Foccia and Vino, which we took to the harbor and ate while the sunset. We went to bed early because we had a big hike ahead of us in the morning.


The Hike from Hell

Fake it til you make it
I hate Hiking, its offical. We did the Cinque Terra Hike (a 9 mile costal hike that links the five towns of Cinque terra together) backwards starting from Monterrosso and eventually ending up back in Riomaggiore, because we heard it was the easier way to go. I guess it was easier because you do the two hardest hikes frist but it was by no means EASY. It was really hard for my lazy butt.

The hike from Monterosso to Vernazza was straight up hill and back down, but the town was really amazing. We went to this restuarant that was above the town called, Ristoranti della Castello-its family owned so Mama made incredible food.

Then we continued to hike to the next town and on to Manarola (below).

The hike didn't get easy until we were walking from Cornigla to Manarola and we got to walk down the 400 stairs that people had to climb. We swam in Manarola. The trail from Manarola to Riomaggiore is called the via dell'amore and people have put locks with there names on them on fences and such. My favorite was the combination lock someone placed on the fence-guess they weren't sure about that relationship. The hike wasn't that bad, but it was hot and I think that taking a ferry to some of the town would have been nice! At least now I can say I survived the hike.


When we got back to town we returned to the Coop and got some more food and ate in our apartment. We then packed up our things for our Ryanair flight.


Pizza in Pisa
Today we are killing time in Pisa before our flight to Frankfurt. I hear there is this tower in town so we might check that out. I hear it leans or something. For lunch we are going to get some pizza probably. If the Church is open I'm going to check out the Pisano Alterpiece, which I missed the last time we were here. Then we are off to catch a plane to Frankfurt to then fly home tomorrow evening. Im sad to leave Italy- especially the food. American italian food is like a knock off of real Italian food-except for some rare places. Hopefully everything goes well with our Ryanair flight....
Ciao Ciao

Home Sweet Perugia

Ciao Ragazzi!


I'm back in Italia. Right now I'm waiting for a train back to Perugia from Spoleto. We got in yesterday around 1 pm after taking a ferry from Ancona, which is were our ship docked at 730 am. My friend Brittany was in Perugia this week because the family she is an au pair for was on holiday in Tuscany. We hit our favorite Pesto spot on the Corso Vanucci and had a wonderful lunch. Afterwards Brit and I stopped by the local cheese store we frequented while studying in Perugia and picked up two types of cheese and some cibatta.


Before munching on the our cheese we made our way to Augusto Perugia-a really amazing chocolate store on down the hill, which makes the worlds best chocolate gelatos. We strolled the hilly streets of Perugia eating our Gelato and talking about the last time we were all here. We headed to the steps, which for those of you who don't know is the place to be in Perugia. Brittany pulled out a bottle of Vino that we drank as we ate our cheese and people watched.

When dinner time came around we made our way up the minor hill to Mediterriana-the worlds best pizza place. We each got a giant pizza and managed to drink 3 liters of vino...it was a wonderful night. After we closed the place, we headed back to the steps which we full of people and met up with some italian friends. It was really great hanging out with some real italians. We got some gelato and talked with them until 1 am, when we made our way back to our fabulous hotel.





Today involved a 2 hour hike. I know what you are thinking; jaime why are you hiking for 2 hours in Italy? To eat-duh! In Spoleto there is this amazing secret restaurant that involves a long and hard hike that is completely uphill. It was a nightmare and I wanted to kill Brittany for making me do it-until I ate the food. To say the food was amazing is an understatement. I was so good I didn't want to stop eating it. We all got a traditional pasta dish of Spoleto and switched so we could taste all the wonderful goodness. The walk down was better because it was downhill, but also a little dangerous...we survived uninjuried.


Spoleto Duomo

Its really great to be back in Italy and really fun to have Brittany here too. Its like old times. Im not sure what we are doing tomorrow, but I'm sure it will involved good food and fun times. Brittany leaves early in the morning to head back to Munich and right now we have to catch our train. Sorry this was a little rushed and I didn't get to fully express how wonderful being back here is but just know its amazing! Ciao for now!

Smelly Split

Andrew and I arrived in Split bright and early today, with about ten hours to kill before our boat ride to Italy. As we walked down the Riva (the big pedestrian street along the harbor), we couldn't help but notice the smell. At breakfast we learned that the smell comes from the sulfur springs that are underground. It smelled like caca, but we eventually got used to it. We headed to the palace of Diocletian, who was a Roman Emperor famous for killing Christians and dividing up the empire. Most of the palace was on top of during the middle ages, but parts of the original still exists. The church was closed, as was most of the town for the National holiday. So we climbed up the 200 steps to the top of the bell tower and saw some pretty views of the harbor and the city. When we finally made it down (there is only one narrow set of stairs up and down), we walked back to the Riva and people watched for about an hour.

We decided that since most of the town was closed, we should do as the locals do and hit the beach. The sandy part of the beach was crowded but we rented lounge chairs on the pier and napped under the umbrellas. Afterwards we found this great little cafe called The Black Cat, that served up some really good chicken ceasar wraps-which was a nice break from the pizza and seafood. Now we only have an hour to kill before we hop on the boat for Italy!

Biking thru Korcula

We made it to Korcula, a small island off the coast of Croatia about 3 hours north of Dubrovnik. We traveled via bus to this destination- you may be wondering how did we travel to an island by bus? Well we started off traveling down some curvy roads and sharp turns (which our bus drive took too fast), then whenever the driver got the urge to eat or smoke we´d stop for 10 minutes. After about 3 hours the bus driver just drove right onto the pier and boarded a ferry. When we got to the bus terminal on the island, we meet our Sobe host, who took us to the apartment we are renting from her. Its a little smaller than our last one, but still nice. It, like our last one, is located next to Gelato! Its not as good as the last place, unfortunately. Our host also told us that Rick Steves was in town last week and interviewed her for his new TV Special-we just keep missing him! Maybe he will be in Italy-I have some words for that man and his advice about the Budapest card...

After we got settled in we went to the market here and got some supplies to make breakfast in the morning before we wandered around the town. Korcula the island is big, but the main town of Korcula is a lot smaller than Dubrovnik and there isnt much to do in town but relax, explore and drink some wine (sound like a horrible place right?). Marco Polo was born here so they have all kinds of shops and restaurants named after him. Our Sobe Host told us about this fish restaurant on the water, so we decided to try it. Andrew got a traditional streak of the region with potatoes and I got Mussels! The waitress said it was a small plate, I planned on eating andrews so I didn't mind. When it arrived there were at least 60 Mussels on it.

It was ridiculous! They were really good and salty. I pretty much ate the whole plate, minus the ones that didn't open (your not supposed to ate those right?). Dinner was quite filling and we wanted to get up early, so we called it an early night after stopping for some lemon gelato.

Today we rented bikes and rode them across the island to Lumbarda, which is where we heard the better beaches were. The bike ride was about 7 km each way and traveled along the coast, through vineyard, and up steep hills. I still haven't googled what a 14km is but I figured I earned a gelato after that ride, right? The beach was pretty nice, but also crowded as it was 90 degrees today. It was a sandy beach, but there were random reefs to explore and watch fish. After swimming and laying out we ate at the beach bar-which served up a pretty good cheeseburger! It was a nice break from seafood and pizza. Yea pizza is big here too. The food is very similar to Italy, but they use different cheese on their pizzas. I haven't figured out what it is but is not bad. After lunch we made our way back to Korcula town. We stopped to walked around the Shell Bay (where there are absolutely no shells), and went swimming. The sea floor was rocky, but the water was much nicer here than back at the sandy beach-but a least I got a work out.

We returned the bikes and explored Old Town some more. We went to the church and followed random street to nowhere. We happened upon Marco Polo's birth house, but didn't go in when we learned that his real house was demoed and this is the one built in its place a few hundred years ago. We grabbed some so-so pizza for dinner and went to buy our ferry tickets for the morning.
Our boat leaves for Split at 6.00 am and we get in around 8.30 am. It was either that or take a 14:30 (2:30pm) and get in at 7 pm and then leave on our overnight ferry to Italy at 830 pm. At least this way we get to see some of Split! Our ferry leaves Split for Ancona, Italy at 8:30pm and we get into Italy around 8 on Friday morning. From there we are taking a train to Perugia to meet up with Brittany for lunch at our favorite pizza place followed by some gelato most likely. We are excited to go to Italy, but sad because it means our trip is almost over. :(

Gotta go drink some more Croatia wines...Ciao till Italia

Sweet Sweet Croatia!

Hey Guys. Sorry its been awhile getting to Croatia was quite a feet in itself and internet cafes are on short supply. Now to play catch up:

"Bye Bye Budapest"
Our last day in Budapest was a day of walking. Our Budapest Card expired and we were too cheap to buy another metro card, so walked the city. We headed towards one of the islands smack in the middle of the Danube. They were setting up for a sports fair in on the island so it was full of vendors and food stands. We walked around the island's park a little-they have this fountain that's cued to classical music and is like a mini-Bellagio in Vegas. After that we got a bratwarst and potato wedges for lunch and watched the school children line up by the hundreds to get cotton candy. It looked like a pretty good deal most of the kids walked away with cotton candy that was at least half their size. We were going to get some but the line was WAY too long.


After the park, we crossed the bridge back to Pest and went to check out Budapest's Parliament. The building is enormous and really awesome looking, we didn't go in because it cost a lot of money and tickets for the day were sold out anyways. It was enough just to walk around it. Then it was off to the Central Market place, which we decided has the best (and cheapest) food in the city. Here's a shocker- we got desert. I got a crepe with nutella and Andrew got a "doughnut" with jam. The doughnut was more like a huge lump of fried dough rather than a O-shaped circle- but it was delightful. We also grabbed some beers and people watched, before going downstairs to get some snacks for our train ride the next day.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped by the second largest synagogue and saw this really interesting monument for those lost in WWII. It was in the shape of a willow tree and the individual leaves had the names of Jewish people from Budapest who died in the war. A random fact is that the synagogue was restored based largely on donations from Tony Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis...who knew?



We went back to the pool and spa at the hotel for the last time. Now guess where we ate dinner? Pizza Hut-yea I guess in Hungry Pizza Hut is like a nice place to eat. There were actual tables with candles-and they served wine! It was crap wine, but the pizza was really good. After dinner, we turned in early because our train to Zagreb departed at 6 am!

"Friendly Zagreb"
We woke up at 4:50 am, checked out of our lovely hotel and headed for the train station. Luckily the train was mostly empty so we got to spread out and sleep for most of the way. The ride was about six hours, so we got into Zagreb in the early afternoon and stored our bags in the luggage lockers. The weather in Croatia was a lot warmer than weather.com predicted and we were very warm in our jeans. The town of Zagreb was buzzing with people-most sporting red and white checkered shirts. Why? I'll get to that in a minute-there's a story involved.

First I must tell you about our first encounter with a croatian. We were at the main church of Zagreb and a man walked up to us and asked where we are from- at first we thought he was going to scam us, but it turns out he was the church historian and gave us a personal tour of the church and a not so brief history of Zagreb and Croatia. It was really interesting. We only planned to spend like 10 minutes in the church, but ended up saying for over an hour. He was really knowledgable and spoke great english. Actually I've found that people in Hungry and Croatia speak English better than people in Italy or Germany. I read in Rick Steve's that because these are smaller countries-where less people speak there language they learn more languages because they don't expect you to learn it.

So after our Croatia lesson, we headed off to find lunch at a Panini place. It was delicious! Andrew was missing his sandwiches, so this should hold him off until Italy. On the way to the Panini place, we got lost and pulled out our book to consult the map. While looking at the map a guy our age came up and asked if we needed help with anything. He was a little drunk, but not in a creepy way. We got to talking with him and found out that the checkered shirts that he, and the rest of the town, were wearing was their football teams jerseys. It turned out that a big football match was happening later in the day and if Croatia won they would qualify for the World Cup next year. He wasn't really from Zagreb, so he said he couldn't really help us but it was fun talking with him for a bit.

After refilling our stomachs with sandwiches we hiked up the hill to check out some other sites our historian friend told us about. There was this sort of make-shift church called Stone Gate, where a real church used to be, but then it was destroyed in a fire-except for this painting of Mary holding a baby Jesus. They never rebuild the church so now they have set up a shrine in this covered passage way with candles and seats.


We also went to another chruch that had a really cool tiled roof.

We then headed back to get our bags and go to the airport to catch our plane to Dubrovnik. The area in front of the train station was filled with people. In the time we were exploring Red Bull had set up a motocross jump thing and bikers were soaring across the sky.

The airport in Zagreb is smaller than long beach, but not as nice to travel with. Our plane was delayed almost 2 hours- the wonderful service of Croatian Airlines didn't inform us of this until well after our fight was too depart. It was a nightmare. We eventually got into Dubrovnik- around 12:30. Here we aren't staying in a hotel because they are pricey and outside the city walls. (Dubrovnik is a walled city on the coast at the bottom of Croatia.) Instead of a hotel we are staying in a "sobe"-it just means we are renting a studio apartment from a local. Our lady is super sweet. We are two blocks of the main street-up a lot of stairs. The bonus of hiking a lot of stairs to our place is that at the bottom is the towns best Gelato place! We've been here two days and I've gone 3 times (probably 4 by the end of the day). We still hadn't had dinner so after checking in with our host, we searched for an open restaurant (thank god it was Saturday!). We ended up getting pizza and passing out around 2 am.

"Chillin in Dubrovnik"

Since we had basically been up 22 hours the day before we figured we were allowed to sleep in till 11 or noon... Our first stop? GELATO! Well it isn't really Gelato-its like halfway between Gelato and Ice Cream. I had Orange and Lemon-I'm pretty sure Lemon is the best favor of gelato overall-and I've done the research. Andrew had lemon as well and topped it off with Mojito-made with real rum! We then happened upon a cliff-side bar, or Busa.

The view was incredible- you walked down these questionable stairs to these tables on the edge of cliff overlooking the ocean. We ordered red wine, which came in mini-bottle and were cold. The wine the other night at dinner was also red and cold-We've decided we are not fans of cold wine.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the maze like town and exited the wall to go to the fort. The fort offered great views of the city and some shelter from the tropical rain. After the rain ceased, we decided to walk the walls around the city-which were free with our chapman IDs.

The walls are 1.4 miles long and could have taken an hour-but with all the picture taking and stairs it took about 2. The sun came out right as we climbed up the first set of stairs. It was perfect.

After all that walking we decided to get another gelato and nap.

We ate dinner at this restaurant on the water and got Seafood Risotto-a typical dish of the region. I tried it-didn't hate it but not sure "seafood" like non-fish seafood is my cup of tea. But we did get a really nice bottle of White Wine.

"Swimming in the Adriatic"

Today Andrew and I purchased our bus ticket to Korcula and then headed to the beach. Well not the beach more like the side of the walled city that had steps into the ocean. We laid out on the concrete, with the locals and swam in the blue waters. The water wasn't that cold either, it was so hot that the water was really refreshing. Andrew got a little sunburned but it was really fun. Rick Steve is in town filming a new show, we haven't seen him yet...but we still have the rest of today. Well I'm off to find Gelato and then maybe some dinner. Tomorrow we are taking a 3 o'clock (pm) bus to Korcula-not sure how you take a bus to an island but we shall see! Ciao for now!

Pest than Buda

Back in the day before Budapest was Budapest, it was two different cities separated by a river. On one side there was Buda, where the castle is, and on the otherside was Pest which is where parliament and the public market is. We spent our first day (weds) wandering around Pest. Starting on the main pedestrian street we strolled down checking out the architecture and the tourist trap shops. We pasted by the first McDonnalds behind the iron curtain, apparently people would wait for hours to get a taste of America - not really fast food huh? The street was really interesting because when the soviets controlled Budapest they stripped all the buildings of there decorative architecture but only at the street level so if you look up you can still get an idea about how the buildings used to look. We also explored this side street that lead to this completely abandoned shopping galleria with a glass ceiling and craved wood walls- you'd expect designer stores to move in on this prime location but it's totally empty.

We headed back to the main street and followed it to the central market place. The huge market had three stories. A floor for food, fish and souvenirs. We spent most of the time looking around the stalls of gifts, but also hit the "food court" for a cheap lunch. I had this really good stuffed cabbage with rice which was super yummy. We also hit the bakery stalls and got a slice of chocolate cake to go. We took our cake down to the Danube and munched on it as we walked across to the liberty bridge to the Buda side. Since we were going to the castle the next we walked back across and headed to a thermal bath in the City Park.

The thermal baths were pretty much what you would expect: warm, relaxing, fun and full of chubby eastern Europeans. People here have a lot of self confidence- I mean u don't see overweight men and women wearing tiny swimsuits in Newport beach. And if you do it's not like this! It was great for people watching and unlike the sunbathers in Munich these people kept there clothes on-thank god. They had this huge pool with random jets throughout the pool and in the center there was a giant circle with two rings. The inner ring had jacuzzi like seats for 20ish people and the outer ring was like this whirlpool that had a really fast current-which was really fun, I did it for about 30 minutes.

When we had our fill of the baths, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the opera. The opera house in Budapest is a lot nicer than the one in Vienna as far as architecture and décor goes.
The opera we saw was Salome by Strauss. It was performed in German and above the stage there were subtitles in Hungarian. So Andrew and I had a little trouble figuring out what was going on (which was what was nice in Vienna they had personal translators at every seat- and in standing room too). After the opera ended, we went to eat dessert at the cafe next door to the opera-yes we had dessert before dinner yet again... It was cheesecake with Carmel on top for those wondering. We ate at this "Italian" place near our hotel behind the nicest pizza hut I've ever seen. The food was pretty good for the price and we saved the leftovers for breakfast. Then it was off to bed after calling home.

Today we headed to Buda and castle hill. I guess the castle has been destroyed and rebuilt a bunch of times so what is there now is a reconstruction of how it was before WWII. We've been using rick steves eastern Europe guide, which until now has been really useful. Most if his Budapest section is pretty negative- he pretty much says everything is lame and not worth a visit. After going to a bunch of his "lame" sites im starting to think he has never been here. We went to the castle and visited the hungry museum of history, which had a bunch of interesting artifacts and English explanations.

I got a Hungarian funnel cake- which is actually in the shape of a funnel! It was really good. We checked out this chruch- that rick said was a must see and covered by our Budapest card- in both cases it was not. The Budapest card was a huge rip off- I could rant about for days but it's not worth my time. The chruch was under renovation so the museum was closed. The inside was neat because the wallpapered interior traced which empire controlled Budapest at the time. It should be seen, but I preferred saint Stephan we saw later in the day. We took some pictures of parliament across the river from the ramparts before heading across the Chain Bridge to find a place for lunch/dinner.

We detoured before dinner to check out Saint Stephens (which for some reason rick Steve calls st ivans (?) and says isn't worth a look). It was really cool. It's huge and while we were in there there were a bunch of school kids preparing for a choir concert so we got to hear the organ play. We also got to set the right hand of saint Stephen, which is when we learned it was st stephens not st ivans. It was pretty nasty but in a cool religious relic way. We grabbed some more goulash and chicken for dinner and found the first strudel house in Budapest for dessert.

Andrews got a bit of a cold so we came back to the hotel early and took it easy the rest of the evening. We went to the spa and used the steam room and sauna. We aren't sure what to do tomorrow. We want to see parliament and then there is this cool monument hill hike we are thinking about taking depending on how the sicky feels.