Day 1 - June 7, 2011
Travel Day - we left the house at 9:00 AM for the Eastern Iowa Airport for our flight at 11:00. We met up with my Dad, Laura, Carson, Cade, my Grandma and Laura's mom, needless to say there was A LOT of luggage!
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| What half-way looks like! |
We arrived in Frankfurt, Germany in the wee hours of the morning -- at home we would have been snug in our beds just dozing off to sleep. Lila slept a bit on the airplane, so we had our fingers crossed that she would adjust okay to the time difference.
Our flight from Frankfurt to Florence was a bit delayed, but we made it into Florence with little issue and it was time to pick up the rental vans to make the 90 minute trip to "Barbazzano," the house we were staying at. After a long day of travel, and some interesting winding, gravel roads we finally arrived at the house!
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| Coming up the driveway |
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| Looking back at the house from the pool area |
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| The pool! |
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| Pool house |
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| The patio off of the Eddins room |
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| The Pfeiler's |
Thursday was a lazy day! We spent a good portion of it out by the pool, soaking up the sun! Even though the sunshine was warm and the pool looked refreshing they don't heat pools in Europe so the water was a cool 62 degrees! Mike, Lila and Cade braved it, but the rest of us weren't up for the challenge, so we sat on the side with our feet in!
Day 4 - June 10, 2011
It was time for us to bid farewell to the Pfeiler's. We loaded up the van and headed into Arezzo to the train station to drop them off. Arezzo was also the closest full-size grocery, so Jason and Jen went along with us to do a bit of shopping. This store was unlike anything I have ever seen before. We are used to a Hy-Vee (grocery store) or a Super Target, but this was Wal-Mart meets Hy-Vee meets Home Depot meets boutique clothing store meets lingerie store meets mini mall. It was truly the strangest thing, but an adventure to say the least! Trying to navigate the grocery store when everything is printed in Italian and people are everywhere was a skill!
After the time spent in Arezzo we headed back to Barbazzano to get cleaned up for a trip to an Italian winery called iSelvitici for a more casual version of a rehearsal dinner. At iSelvitici we met Giuseppe and Barbara. The winery has been in Giuseppe's family for several generations and the family has built it from a local winery to an international supplier.
Day 5 - June 11, 2011
The wedding day began with a trip into the town of Civitella. Dad and Laura had an appointment at the equivalent of their city hall to be legally married in the eyes of the Italian government. Even though this was the legally binding ceremony, they weren't considering this their official wedding ceremony. We don't do anything without adventure...we got pulled over on the way to the ceremony for entering a no-entry zone!
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| Posing w/ the police officer! |
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| The rings! |
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| The happy couple and officiant |
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| It's official! |
On our way back to the house we decided to spend a bit of time exploring Civitella and found ourselves in an area where the town was built into the side of a hill, it was gorgeous! This would also be where we have our first scoop of gelato! YUM!!
We hurried back to the house to have a beautifully prepared lunch and began to get ready for the full-blown wedding ceremony at 4:00. The girls wore black dresses, the guys wore black suits and ivory shirts and the little girls wore matching black and ivory dresses!
The wedding took place out on the lawn at Barbazzano. There were 13 of us total, so nobody stood-up with the couple, rather surrounded them while they made their commitment. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, contrary to the stormy weather they were forecasting!
After the ceremony there was champagne and appetizers on the terrace followed by some dancing and even a game of musical chairs on the lawn before we headed into the villa for dinner.
Congratulations to my Dad and Laura! We wish you a lot of love & happiness.
Day 6 - June 12, 2011
Siena was our destination of choice on Sunday! With all of the wedding festivities behind us, we were ready to do some sightseeing and exploration. The whole group decided to take in the sites, so all 13 of us loaded up and off we went! Siena was a little over an hour and totally worth the drive! It is a beautiful town with all of the best elements of Europe: history, beautiful architecture, great dining, shopping and we had great weather to enjoy it all.
Day 7 - June 13, 2011
Monday was a day of rest! Much needed for all of us, but mostly for Lila as it was almost the halfway point on the trip. The rest of the gang went into town in search of lunch and The Eddins family stayed back to make sure Lila got a good nap. After several hours of anticipating the group to come back we finally get word that one of the van's was filled up with unleaded gasoline and both of them required diesel fuel, WOOPS!! Luckily, they realized it before they turned the engine on, but it took quite some time to have a service person siphon out the gas -- and at $6.00/gallon in Europe that was an expensive mistake!
Day 8 - June 14, 2011
Another road trip to Pisa! All rested up we headed south towards the famous leaning tower! Mike and I had been there before, but it was fun to take Lila to experience it. She enjoyed the huge grass lawn that is on the property. It was another day full of sunshine, so much so Grandpa had to buy Lila a "Pisa" baseball cap to keep the sun out of her face, lucky girl!
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| Franchesca & fellow chef |
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| The wonderful house staff! Rosetta, Francesca, Giana, Luca and Simone |
We asked the house staff to join us for the pizza, each of them so friendly! We managed to form friendships with them despite the language barrier. It often felt like a game of charades when trying to communicate, but either way they were wonderful people and a great deal of fun to be around!
Day 9 - June 15, 2011
The group split up to see different cities. Jason, Jen, Celia, Ruby, Mike, Lila and I pointed our compass north en route to Florence while the rest of the group went to Rome. We had all been to Rome and on the train it was over two hours so we still opted for the train this time, but a much shorter trip into Florence!
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| Ready, Set, Go! |
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| Hugs at the Hard Rock! |
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| Street Vendors amongst amazing shops like Fendi, Gucci & Prada |
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| The Pontevecchio a bridge with shops lining the interior |
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| Carousel Ride a much needed break! |
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| Fun in Florence! |
Day 10 - June 16, 2011
Our last full day in Italy! What to do?! We headed back to Siena! It was such a fun place that we all wanted to go back, do some more shopping and eat at a cafe that was recommended to us! Not a lot of pictures to share from the day. Lila did get her souvenier in Siena, a plush doll that I saw the first time we were there, but the little toy store was closed. We made sure to go back and sure enough there was the little doll waiting for Lila! We affectionately named her "Siena!" That evening we made sure to spend a few hours of family time before heading back to reality!
Day 11 - June 17, 2011
Travel day! We left Barbazzano at 6:00 AM on Friday morning (11:00 PM Thursday night @ home) and headed to Florence to catch our first flight on our trek home. After we were all settled in on the plane and awaiting take off, we are still sitting there an hour and a half later. All of us sweating the fact that our layover in Frankfurt was plenty of time an hour and a half ago, but the longer we sit on the runway the shorter our window becomes. When we finally touch down in Frankfurt we are in a MAD dash to get to our next gate. Something you should know: the Frankfurt Airport makes the Chicago O'Hare Airport look like an well oiled machine. This airport is small pods of buildings all over the place and you can't get anywhere without taking a transit bus and no matter where you are going, you are on that transit bus for 10 minutes. We finally get to our building and are running to the gate and my brother gets there as they are closing the door to the jetway and the attendant says, "sorry, you aren't getting on the plane." As we all catch up we shake our heads defeated and move to a line with the other sorry passengers whose planes have left them.
After an hour in line we find out that the airport had replaced the air traffic control tower which took them from managing 50 flights an hour to 20, OUCH! The good news: they had us booked on another flight. The bad news: it was tomorrow. They set us up in a hotel close to the airport and we spent the afternoon and evening doing the best we could to make the situation positive -- it was a bit of a challenge, I won't lie.
Day 12 - June 18, 2011
Once again, up and at 'em! We had to be at the airport early to confirm our seats on the flight we were booked on, so there we were on our way back over. We had to negotiate our seat assignments, they had Mike sitting in row 41, Lila sitting in row 44 and me sitting in row 47 -- not gonna work having a two year old travel on her own! We once again got situated on the airplane and geared up for the 9 hour flight we had ahead of us. Roughly two hours later we were still sitting on the runway. Nine hours on the plane has now been stretched into eleven and we haven't even left the ground. You can imagine that Mike and I were rather concerned about how our darling daughter was going to do, nevermind our patience was growing thin too. We find out that the manifest doesn't match the ticketed passengers and that the United States Homeland Security won't allow the plane to enter US airspace, so we had to wait until that got all sorted out. Once it was sorted out off we went!
Once in Chicago, we had to go through customs and once again, we missed our connection due to the delay getting out of Frankfurt. At this point there was a sense of relief because we knew we were a) in the United States b) much closer to home and c) so close we could even drive if we can't get on another flight, which we think shouldn't be a problem since Chicago has flights to Cedar Rapids every 90 minutes or so. We head to the United ticket counter to find out that their flights to Cedar Rapids are all booked, but that 5 of us can get on an American flight. Jason, Jen and the girls rent a car and start heading west. Mike, Lila, Carson, Cade and I hop from the United counter to the Lufthansa counter, to the American counter in hopes to get on a plane headed to Cedar Rapids only to find out they didn't have 5 seats, they had 4 and Lila was too old to hold on my lap. So, off to rent a car! It was a comedy of errors and we were literally all on our last nerve. At this point, Lila has dozed off in her stroller and I must say she has been amazing, making a fuss every so often, but very minimal. It isn't until we pull into Cedar Rapids around 9:00 PM Saturday night that she starts to come undone and by then we are close to home, otherwise I might have been screaming and crying too!
Even with the experience from hell on the way home the trip was a lot of fun spent with both friends and family! There are a lot of people out there that can't say they have been to Europe, especially at two years old! I truly can't express how well Lila did from the very first airplane ride to the moment we drove into Cedar Rapids. She is truly amazing!
We made a lot of great memories and look forward to many more family trips and memories to be made in the future!
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