Ciao, bella!

Wow, so much to update! Where to begin?? How about with Firenze...

In short, Italy was fantastico!! As the galleries would surely agree, pictures say a mille words. So instead of outlining every detail of our adventure here, I shall merely direct the Gentle Reader to the "Firenze" album in the Nix Pix link to the right...

A brief overview, though: Anna and I, being on Fall Break, found some ueber-cheap tickets on RyanAir from Baden-Baden to Pisa. Seriously, the whole trip, there and back, was 50 Euro! So we spent Sunday night through Wednesday afternoon in Florence, enjoying amazing food and cappuccini, exploring the Palazzo Pitti, climbing the cathedral, taking pictures off the Ponte Vecchio, roaming around the Chiesa Santo Spirito, and numerous gardens and shops and cafes. They were two and a half very laid-back days of wandering, while I attempted to exhume my rusty Italian from its linguistic crypt. (The Central Market in Florence, by the way, is great. It's filled with all kinds of goodies: silks and leather and jewelry and pottery and food; and the best part is, all prices are haggle-able. An excellent spot for some Christmas shopping! ;) )

Unfortunately, the hostel where we stayed -- beautiful and bemarbled as it was -- sat right on the side of what has to have been the noisiest street in the city. There were a couple of restaurants there, one of which was right below us; and so the entire night, it sounded like bulldozers were pushing piles of glass up and down the street while sirens from the nearby police station wailed out every thousandth of a second. Well, at least it wasn't crime-ridden! But as a result, Anna and I arrived back in Neustadt happy, but exhausted. It didn't help that I must have had a bad panino or something, 'cause I ended up with a case of Cosimo Medici's Revenge.

Luckily for Nigel, he got to land right in the middle of our hacking, snorting, hoonking mess for a lovely laid-back visit of clutching stomachs and complaining of our exhaustion. He was a really good sport about it, though: he arrived on Thursday afternoon from Fribourg, where he's doing an exchange year; and we spent the weekend eating, drinking a little wine, and wandering around Neustadt and its adorable neighboring village, Diedesfeld. It was really nice (although I think Nigel would make even going to the DMV fun!). On Sunday, the three of us hopped a train to Karlsruhe, and enjoyed a sweet, foamy Mass of Hefeweizen in a Biergarten and a Spaghetti Eis downtown, before we all headed back to our respective towns.

Oh! Speaking of drinking wine! Ivan and Nico repaid our Munich trip with a little visit of their own, the weekend before Anna and I took off for Italia. They arrived on Friday, and the three of us got half-crocked over a deliciously crispy pizza at a place run by (who else?) Italians in the Innenstadt. Two bottles of Pinot Grigio between three people makes for a very happy walk home, and we spent the rest of Friday night hanging out, listening to music, and polishing off three more bottles of the Rheinland's finest. It's odd to wake up the next morning in your jeans and contacts and not even remember lying down! Not to mention that Ivan, accustomed to Bavarian beer as he is, had no head for red wine and wisely opted to relieve his stomach of the majority of its burden before too much had been digested. Nico, only slightly less crocked, then also had the courtesy to remove his compatriot's wine-bedecked pants, rinse them out, and hang them out the kitchen window to dry. (My apartment, alas, has no dryer. But I'll see if I can find the pictures of Ivan's jeans steaming in the oven and post them online!)

In short, a good time was had by all. The next morning, Saturday (the day before Anna and I flew to Florence), Nico and I left Ivan zonked out while we tottered down to the trainstation to pick up Anna, jetlagged and sick, from her trip to Atlanta for a friend's wedding. Bleary red eyes met bleary red eyes, and Anna had soon joined Ivan in sawing logs. That afternoon, we poked around the Innenstadt in the daylight and got a coffee, and then the four of us sentenced our stomachs to a winetasting on the Weinstrasse. It was delicious! Even hungover! Everybody bought at least two bottles of wine. After that, Nico threw together a fantastic pasta & eggplant dish and foccaccia pizzas, and then we all trooped off to Mannheim to visit our buddy from the UofA, Jason. Then it was back to Neustadt for some much-desired zz's before going our separate ways late Sunday morning: the boys back to Munich, Anna and I to Florence.

So! That's what I've been up to all this time! How is everybody else out there? :)