Florence

Since it turns out that 18-year-old boys are basically pretty lazy and not all that interested in seeing the beautiful and interesting historical sights of Rome, we decided to force some culture onto my baby bro.

We took an early bird train to Florence for a day of wandering the streets and eating some delicious steak.

The city is really beautiful, but oh so crowded! People flock to this mecca of art by the millions every year, and since we had chosen Saturday as our day of arrival, we were right in the thick of it.

People wandering around and taking photographs, groups of tourists being led through the streets with little earphones to listen to their guide's commentary, people selling awful reproductions of priceless works of art...you name it, and it was there.

Fortunately for us, we weren't interested in any of that. What we really came for was a delicious, fat, juicy, charbroiled Fiorentine steak, and man did we find it!
There is no other way to describe this beauty except to say that it was outstanding. Not only that, but it was preceeded by three delicious different pastas, and accompanied (of course) by a wonderful red wine. We were in fat belly heaven!
After our meal we hit the streets to check out some of the sites. It'd been a while since we had gone inside any churches, so we did that, and we wandered around a few piazzas, and before we knew it it was time to go! We had to leave a bit early in the afternoon in order for Charles to make it back to Rome in time to go to work at the pub. So, although we didn't do any museums this time around, we will definitely head back there soon!

Three Years!

Let me first just start by stating the obvious: We haven't put up the Amsterdam pics yet, and I know you are all cursing us as you go through withdrawals! They are coming, I swear!

In case you don't keep all of our important life dates committed to memory I'll give you some help. Today is our three-year wedding anniversary! We basically considered Amsterdam our celebration, and so tonight we are just relaxing together with a nice dinner.

My brother made it here finally, after getting stuck overnight in Bratislava and not bothering to call anyone and tell us he wouldn't be showing up until the following day (we had our first glimpse into what it's like being the parent of a teenager). But he's here now and having a great time so far. Sleeping until two in the afternoon, hanging out in the pub with Chuck, not caring to visit important historical sites of Rome, you know, everything you should do on vacation!

Besides all of this excitement there isn't much else to report. I'm afraid we say this all the time, but we will try to be better about regularly updating, and definitely we will get those Amsterdam pics up, hopefully this week!

Drugs are Bad, mmmk?

Getting a fake carriage ride at the Heiny Museum
(and yes, David and Chuck did coordinate their outfits)

We met up with a few guys that Allie knew from high school who just happened to be in Amsterdam at the same time we were. We spent the early part of the day wandering the infamous Red Light District then we made our way to the Heineken Museum for some fun. We thought is was going to be a really boring tour where you might get to look at some guys making beer. Wrong! It was probably the coolest "museum" we've ever been to! What other museum do you get three free beers and a sweet souvenir! None that I can remember. Plus you get to make silly videos to send to your friends and family, hopefully you guys got a laugh out of those. Charles is a really great dancer and singer and not stiff in front of the camera at all! So after the museum we got a quick bite for lunch and decided to go to the Van Gogh museum since we were in the vicinity.

David, Allie, and Bryan goofing off at the Heineken Museum

What a let down the Van Gogh museum was after the Heineken museum. I know what your thinking, Van Gogh is among the greats...blah blah. Stylistically he is good though he borrowed heavily from a number of his "influences" but his subject matter is what I find to be quite awful. He painted peasants and farm scenes because that is what everyone was doing at the time, not because he was inspired by it. Instead of his paintings being uplifting, they are a testimate to failure. But enough of that boring stuff...on to the drugs!

So after the Van Gogh museum we decided to part ways with the guys to get a little rest and before we met up with them for dinner at night. We rested, they didn't. One of the guys ate some "magic mushrooms" before we met up with them and one of the first things he said to Charles was that "These mushrooms are starting to kick in." Well, two hours later, the shrooms had fully kicked in.

The mushrooms were just starting to take effect

The four of us were having dinner in a Thai restaurant near the Red Light District and our friend was tripping out really hard. Not in a bad or scary way but in a hilarious, out of this world kind of way. We thought for sure we would get kicked out of the restaurant or other people would get pissed off at us because our friend was out of his mind doing all kinds of hilarious stuff. I don't know if I can do justice and provide a clear picture of what he was doing but I'll try. Think of a grown man, sitting in a chair, with his head completely thrown back, his eyes just slits but barely open and his hands in something of a prayer position near his throat. At random moments he would shout "yeah!" or smile so wide you wished you knew what he was seeing. Then would he suddenly come back to earth and do some Kung Fu type moves with his hands. Then just as quickly, change to position of exaltation by throwing his hands up to the sky and then back to cover his cheeks. Then back to the prayer position with his head fully thrown backwards. But in the true spirit of Amsterdam, no one cared. People across from us would look at us and mouth "Magic mushrooms?" and we would nod accordingly and then they would just smile knowingly and return to their conversation.

We were so embarrassed the whole time but we couldn't stop laughing after dinner was over. Being close to the Red Light District, I'm sure that all of those people especially the restaurant employees and locals had seen much worse going on in front of them. After a dinner like that we decided to call it a night.

Just a little fun in a wooden shoe!

Ah, Amsterdam!

Enjoying Some Freedom Fries!

What a great city. After having been in Rome for over year straight we were beginning to the think that the world was just like Rome and that every place was just as backwards. Turns out, that's not the case! Amsterdam is a very international city not only in terms of its population but it's cuisine and nearly everything else. Damn near every Amsterdammer speaks English without much difficulty. The streets are clean and clearly labeled, the buses and trams run regularly and are well-maintained, the people are friendly, the espresso isn't so great but the restaurants are fantastic. We decided that we would have no Italian food during this trip because, well, you can guess.

Allie and baby brother Isaac

We went crazy because the food available in Amsterdam is so close to what you might find in an American city. We had waffles in the morning, Allie had a waffle with banana, whipped cream and chocolate sauce! You would never find that in Rome. We ate a lot of Thai food, french fries, apple pie, cookies, you name it, we probably ate it. They also have a Ben and Jerry's near one of the restaurants we ate at! It was amazing, we split a Brownie Sundae with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream! You are all probably thinking that we're crazy for getting so excited about a brownie sundae and some Thai food but in Rome, you really can't find such treats and so we haven't had anything like that in over a year! The Dutch apple pie is something that one must experience for themselves.

Charles Enjoying the Canal Scenery

The Airport Drama, Part 2

After nearly ruining our trip from the start, we arrived in Amsterdam an hour late due to some problems or whatever. At this point we didn't really care because we were so happy that we hadn't lost all of our money, nothing was going to get us down now. We headed for the baggage carousel to retrieve our bags. Charles was really impressed by the carousel because it had a display that said when the bags would start coming out! And they actually started coming out when the monitor said! Nothing like the airport in Rome where you don't know if your bags will ever come out or will ever even arrive at their destination.

One our our bags came out towards the end, then we waited and waited and waited. It was Allie's bag and the one that didn't have all of our coins. Finally the monitor said that all of the bags had been unloaded but there were about 5 people standing around with the same look as we had on our faces so we figured that they were missing bags too. A woman came to the carousel and explained that our bags didn't make the trip from our layover point to Amsterdam. We went to an office and gave them our contact information and where we were staying so they could deliver the bag to us when it arrived.

They thought it would arrive that evening about 730, but of course, it didn't. In fact it was a full day later before it showed up so Charles had to wear the same stank clothes for 2 days, not very nice. Finally the bag showed up to our place and I tore into it, not for new socks but to check to see if the coins were missing or not. They were gone! Well, not exactly. The nice person had taken the time to take our all of the one and two Euro coins leaving us with the 50 cent and smaller coins and in total about 4 Euros.

So, without a doubt, we would have lost over 500 Euros had we left our money in the bag. Now we've decided after having stuff stolen two times in our last two flights that will take advantage of the security wrap thing that you have to pay for. At least, then you have the piece of mind that your luggage isn't being rifled through by some scumbag.

The Airport Drama

So as experienced travelers we know not to check baggage when you don't need to. We decided to each take one carry-on bag to Amsterdam. We've taken these bags as carry-ons on other trips so we figured it would be no problem. Well, at the check-in counter the guy tells us that our bags are not only too big but also too heavy so we must check them. Okay, no problem, our bags will probably get to Amsterdam when we do. Since we thought we were carrying the bags on we had everything in them and I do mean everything. We decided to pull a few things out of the bags before we sent them on their way. Now we were feeling pretty excited about our trip and that it was really starting.

As we stood in line in the first security check we did a quick inventory of the things we would need on the plane. Tickets, check! Books, check! Amsterdam information, check! All of our money for the trip...dead silence. So as we stood looking at each other, we both realized that we had left over 500 Euros in one of the bags we had just checked! Now is the time to panic.

So now we were panicked that not only would we miss our flight but we would lose all of our money for the trip. If we chanced it and left the cash in the bag and our bag showed up without the money our vacation would be ruined from the start plus our flight would have been miserable. If we went back for the money we might miss our flight and have to pay a lot of money for another flight (the only other flight that day was canceled because of a strike). We decided that we would rather take another flight than possibly have our money stolen. We ran back to the desk to ask if we could get the bags back. The people at the desk we hesitant at first because they thought we might miss our flight but as soon as we told them that there was over 500 Euros in cash in one the bags the called down immediately to have the bags sent back.

We sprinted down to the baggage claim and thought about how stupid we are for leaving all of our money in a bag! By some sort of strange chance, our bags were returned to us after only 10 or 15 minutes, though, those minutes felt like forever. So we saw our bags come out and we ripped them open to see if we had been robbed already. Holy Shit! The money was still there! We took the cash and left the coins (about 30 Euros in coins) and sprinted back upstairs because we had to check-in all over again. We made it aboard our flight with plenty of time to spare and our vacation money gripped tightly in our hands. After a near disaster, things were looking up!