Day 5: Life Happens

Hello, again. I’m sure we all knew (at least I did) that a daily post was more of a dream, rather than an accomplishable goal. As much as I want to spend every day writing and reflecting on our vacation, life has a way of catching up with you. Even when you are on vacation, life has a way of catching up with you too (more on laundry and bills in a later post). With that said, I am still going to write 28 posts, however, it make take longer than 28 days. I hope you still look forward to looking back on the once in a lifetime vacation with me – I know I do.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the cities we visited:

Naples

 Capri

Rome

Florence

Milan

Venice

Paris

Berlin

New York

Day 4: Sight-Seeing in the City of Light

As you can imagine in over a month, we saw many iconic and historic sites. Some we enjoyed more than others. Being surrounded by thousands of years of history can be intimating at times. To paint a clearer picture, I am going to break down my favorite (and least favorite) sites we saw in the four countries we visited. As expected when you spend two weeks in one country, a lot of my posts will probably be about Italy (I apologize ahead of time). So for some variety, I am going to skip over those first two weeks and talk about one of the other countries we visited: France.

As this was Andrew’s birthday and his favorite European city is Paris, we had to make sure we visited Paris, again. By the time we arrived in the City of Light, we were more than two weeks into our trip. We had already visited over 5 cities and more than twice that many sites/museums. The length of the trip was starting to wear us down. But we were excited to be arriving at some place familiar. (On our first trip to Europe one year and a half ago we had the opportunity to spend a four days in Paris with the Smiths, our best friends.) When you are visiting a city for the second time, you get to see and experience something different. You don’t feel the pressure or need to see/do everything on your to-do list. You get to see things you missed last time. You get to enjoy more of the ‘local’ city. This was a nice break for us. After two weeks of Italian food and sites, we were looking forward to hearing French and eating their food.

The Eiffel Tower: probably the biggest and most iconic site throughout the world. We of course had already seen and gone to the top of this monument the first time. However, its lure and beauty will always attract me back to view and admire it. We enjoyed the view from the Trocadero, the plaza that stands across the Seine River, known as the best place to view the Eiffel Tower. I made Andrew take over 100 photos (most rather reluctantly), with and of me – hoping I would get that great shot I missed last time due to winter weather. I ended up with a few that I adore. See below! We then took the walk to the base of the Eiffel Tower to admire it up close, again. As the Tower gets larger and larger in front of you, the miraculousiness of the Tower gets bigger too.  It’s really fantastic – I wonder how it was put together by human beings in the 19th century. Photos of the Eiffel Tower often define a visit to Paris, and ours are no exception. ;-)

The view from our hotel room

 I'm holding the tower!

Up close and personal 

The Eiffel Tower glittering at night

The Jardin des Tuileries: one of Paris’s most visited gardens and a tourist attraction we missed on our last trip to Paris. It’s like the Central Park of Paris. Ironically this garden was created in the early 16th century in Italian style to remind the queen of France of her native Tuscany. We still enjoyed the park, grabbing a chair and sitting to admire the beautiful view.

Pont des Arts: another site we missed and one I really enjoyed. The Pont des Art is a bridge full of padlocks and lots of love. It is said by some to be the most romantic place in Paris. It is a destination for couples, near and far, to memorialize their love by attaching personalized padlocks to the bridge and then throw the locks’ keys into the Seine below – and we were no different. It was fun to pick our spot of the bridge, attach our lock and throw the keys into the Seine. It’s inspiring to see how many locks are on the bridge, how many people are and have been in love. I hope to one day return to Paris and see our lock still on the bridge. Something new to add to my bucket list!

 Our lock: "all my love"

Shakespeare and Company Bookstore: a cute boutique with music and wide selection of books. This bookstore is also a reading library and has been featured in various films, such as Midnight in Paris. It has also been frequented by many writers and famous customers -- after all, we went there! I love cozy bookstores, where you find yourself in a small room, surrounded by works of art. Nothing makes me feel good inside like the smell of a good bookstore. After picking out our book and getting it stamped with the store’s signature, we found ourselves a nice alcove with a garden and read out loud to each other on a bench while overlooking the Seine River and Notre Dame Cathedral. Ah, the restful moments that capture the city in all its beauty.

Tomorrow, I will discuss dining in Paris and what we loved about French food. Till then, au revoir!

Day 3: Pizza, Pizza, and More Pizza

Thankfully, I love pizza. And surprisingly after eating pizza every few days for two weeks, I love it even more! Many people have asked me if, after two weeks in Italy, I am sick of Italian food. Although I may not be having pasta cravings any time soon, I really could go for more Italian pizza. One of the biggest reasons I want to travel back to Italy is so I can eat more pizza! Italian pizza is like a combination of New York-style pizza and flat bread pizza. It is thin with great crust. The cheese reminds me of New York pizza, but only half as much. It has only the freshest ingredients. The wood fire oven adds a smoky flavor to the dough that is impossible to resist.

Like the United States, there is some variety between the quality and style of Italian pizza. To better compare each cities styles (and because it was our favorite kind) we ate the margarita pizza throughout Italy. Plus, that's the traditional pizza in Italy.

While in Naples, we visited the famous Pizzeria Da Michele from Eat, Pray, Love. Naples is the birthplace of pizza, so it was only fair that we started our pizza journey and our trip there. It took us 15-minutes to find this small place with two rooms and one nonstop oven. (It is not easy being lost when everyone speaks only Italian! We almost gave up, but I am so glad we persevered.) We got a ticket and waited outside for a table. As this was our first Italian pizza experience, I was excited and anxiously awaiting to try what some call the best pizza in the world. After five minutes, we were seated at a communal table. No menus, just a list of the two pizza choices on the wall. We ordered a margarita pizza and two Peroni beers for a total cost of 10 euros. That's damn near stealing! Once I tried the pizza, I would have walked for 10 hours and paid 30 euros for it. The pizza was soft, chewy, yet incredibly thin. Usually you only have two choices when it comes to pizza crust: thin and crispy or thick and doughy – yet here was the perfect combination of thin and doughy!

As Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, is a much better writer than I am, I will let you read her description of this pizza: “On top, there is a sweet tomato sauce that foams up all bubbly and creamy when it melts the fresh buffalo mozzarella, and the one sprig of basil in the middle of the whole deal somehow infuses the entire pizza with herbal radiance, much the same way one shimmering movie star in the middle of a party brings a contact high of glamour to everyone around her. It's technically impossible to eat this thing, of course. You try to take a bite off your slice and the gummy crust folds, and the hot cheese runs away like topsoil in a landslide, makes a mess of you and your surroundings, but just deal with it…. I love my pizza so much, in fact, that I have come to believe in my delirium that my pizza might actually love me, in return. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair….If you do not eat this pizza when you are in Naples, please lie to me later and tell me that you did."

It's a good sign when the door is filled with awards and recommendations.

 Julia Roberts at Pizzeria Da Michele for the taping of 'Eat, Pray, Love'

 The moment I had been waiting for - pizza paradise!

After the experience at Pizzeria Da Michele, I was hooked on Italian pizza. Every chance I got, I ate more pizza. I had pizza at least every 3 days – as expected with anything, some were better than others. In Rome we had terrible pizza, but had a great view of the Trevi Fountain. Sometimes that happens, but it doesn’t make me love Italian pizza any less. Yet after our first delectable pizza experience, I was craving something that could compete on that level.

I found what I was looking for in Florence at Gusta Pizza – a small, friendly pizzeria that is a favorite among many students abroad, tourists, and locals. Again, long lines, but worth the wait. The pizza was made fresh right in front of you. It reminded me of what I loved about the Da Michele pizza. It tasted like heaven and I wish I could eat pizza from these two places for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Whenever we would ask our countrymen (random people we met from the USA) or our hotel for recommendations on the best pizza in Florence, they all pointed us towards this amazing pizzeria. And they were right! 

Delicious pizza in Florence

Sidebar: let me try to describe how difficult eating traditional Italian pizza is. There really is an art - one that I learned by copying the locals and trying my best to not get it all over myself. The crust is so thin (and delicious) that if you were just to cut it into a typical pizza slice and try to eat it, you would not be successful, as the cheese would slide down off your plate onto your shirt (just as Elizabeth Gilbert warned you about above). First, you slice the pizza in half. The key then is to cut off the tip (or first few typical bites) and eat this piece of heaven with a fork and knife. This is where experience with New York pizza comes in handy. You take a slice, sandwich it together, and enjoy! If done correctly, you will walk away with a happily full tummy and a clean wardrobe.

I love Chicago pizza and I love New York pizza. But Italian pizza, especially from the two great places we found in Florence and Naples, takes the cake, hands down. I occasionally ship Chicago pizza to my house and I’ve found New York-style pizza in Southern California. But Italian pizza is the only pizza I would travel over an ocean to eat. Ah, now I want some (Italian) pizza, again!

Day 2: Flying First-Class

Today would probably be the most appropriate day to talk about my favorite kind of travel day – flying first-class. While you are on a four-week vacation, visiting over 8 cities and 14 hotels, travel days occur every 2-3 days. Repacking our suitcases and carting them all around Europe via various types of transportation makes travel days one of the most dreaded days of the week. (I will go more into travel days in a later post).  However, when a travel day includes flying first-class, even if the flight is 8-12 hours, it is a blessed and relaxing day.

Before I go further into everything I love about flying first-class, I have to briefly talk about how we were able to fly first-class round-trip across the Atlantic for only $200 (normally a $40,000 value). As I mentioned in my first post, all the travel plans and freebies are credited to my husband, Andrew. Our two first-class flights are the best example of how his hard work, research, and planning paid off. The first-class flights were one of the things that made this trip even more enjoyable. As I have said multiple times during the last four weeks to my husband: he has now ruined trans-Atlantic flights for me! I will never be able to fly coach if the flight is longer than 5 hours. There is such a drastic difference in comfort and amenities between coach and first-class when you are on the plane for more than 6 hours. So, big kudos to Andrew. ;-)

Now, let me describe to you what I think are the best things about flying first-class:

The seats

• Probably the biggest difference between coach and first-class is the seating. I am sure many people don’t get quality sleep while on an airplane. And when the flight is 8-12 hours long, notwithstanding the 9-hour time change, trying to get sleep becomes very important. As someone who always sleeps on her stomach, sleeping in a chair with two people on either side becomes nearly impossible. In first-class, the seats are spacious and comfortable. It’s like sitting in a plush lazy boy that reclines into a completely flat bed. Andrew equates the experience to a miniature flying hotel suite. I could not believe that I was able to sleep, on my stomach, for 6 hours while flying across an ocean! 

• Once in your comfortable seat, you also get a free amenity kit with everything you could possibly need during the flight and more, plus a plush blanket and pillow. The primary goal of first-class, it would seem to me, is comfort, comfort, comfort. It also helps they load your particularly large, individual entertainment center with hundreds of hours of the latest movies and television series.

The food and drinks

• The food in first-class was absolutely amazing! Normally eating while on a flight is worse than cafeteria food – this was such a different experience. The five-course meal took 2-3 hours to complete!  I would have easily paid $150 for the quality and quantity of this food and drinks, not to mention the service. There were unlimited top-shelf alcoholic beverages and handpicked wines by a sommelier. Seeing the flight attendant pushing an ice cream cart through the aisles of the airplane was a priceless moment. They even place white table cloths on your tray to make the experience even higher class. And our flight attendant called us Romeo and Juliet the whole flight -- extra plus!    (I took a lot of photos of the food as I know many of you love to see what we eat! If that's not you, go ahead a skip on down to the rest of the blog...)

Appetizer: smoked salmon wrapped shrimp and fresh seasonal green salad

Tamale-filled breast of chicken with creamy corn sauce, grilled yucca, and tomatoes

Short rib of beef with red wine sauce, aji amarillo mashed potatoes and vegetables

International cheese selection -- I never have had cheese after my meal, it's delicious!

Ice cream sundae cart

Andrew was in heaven!

Swiss cheese omelette with broccoli-potato gratin and turkey sausage

Some more photos from our meals on the return flight via Air Berlin:

Some delicious sesame bread, cheese plate, cucumber potato salad, raspberry mousse, cod beet salad

Chicken breast with saffron risotto

Lamb Medallions with fresh vegetables 

Around the flight: special security line, pre-boarding, lounge, and priority bags

• There are all these extra things that, as a first class ticket holder, you get to partake in. There is a special check-in line at the ticket counter. There is a quick and easy security line that lets you bypass the long wait. You are one of the first people on the plane, taking your seat and getting a glass of champagne before the rest of the plane boards.  While you are at the airport, waiting for your first or connecting flight, you have free access to the airline lounge. We were able to go into four different lounges in various cities, and my favorite was the British Airways lounge in Heathrow airport. They all generally have light snacks, drinks (open bar), large comfortable chairs, free WiFi and ample power outlets. But Heathrow's lounge had fresh, amazing food you'd be happy to eat at a gourmet restaurant. And lastly, once you arrived at your final destination, our checked bags were the first off the plane, with priority tags. We got to beat the lines through customs and limit our waiting – yes! 

Sidebar -- Even in all its greatness, there are times you don't feel like flying at all. As we were waiting in Berlin for our delayed plane to New York, Andrew made this comment: "Can you imagine having to fly coach right now? I barely want to fly first-class!" Needless to say, an hour later I was very happy to be enjoying my five-course meal and lay-down beds.

Overall the experience in first-class is something I can’t wait to do again! Yes, it is still a 8-12 hour flight with a just as long time change. But when flying first class, the experience is much easier to tolerate, and I dare say enjoy. 

Day 1: Looking Forward to Looking Back

28 days ago, I embarked on the vacation of a lifetime with my husband, Andrew. We traveled through four different countries in four weeks, experiencing more in that time than many people will in a lifetime. It was a dream vacation: traveling first-class, staying in some of the world's best (and most expensive) hotels, immersing ourselves in new and exciting cultures, and seeing the iconic and historical sites I once only read about.

Andrew, my travel guru as I like to call him, booked this $75,000 vacation for pennies on the dollar. Some of the best things in life really are free, even though they are actually the most expensive, yet they are free because I have an Andrew. If you are interested in your own once-in-a-lifetime vacation for free, please let me know – Andrew is starting his own little travel consulting business and will offer discounted services to his first few clients.

The length of the trip made it even more enjoyable (most of the time) and epic. I don't know many 26 year-olds who have taken off a month of work and traveled first-class throughout Europe. This was an experience I wanted to remember. I put quite the dent in my bucket list, checking off things I never really thought I'd do or see. I saw parts of the world that have existed to me only in history books. Even in its bad moments and mishaps (though there weren't many), this was a vacation I never wanted to forget.

Yet while on this vacation of a lifetime, some memories were already becoming hazy of all the wonderful and spectacular things we just did. If you know me well, you know I don't have the best memory and can forget things you just told me a moment ago. (Rest assured, I can remember enough to be a good, if not a great, nurse). We saw and experienced so much throughout this vacation, and I was sad that I couldn't remember it all. It was discouraging that the memories we made would soon dissipate. I love to take pictures, but sometimes pictures don't do the experience and stories of that moment true justice.

I had brought along a journal in an attempt to record my memories as they were happening. Sounds like a great idea, right? Except while you are on the vacation of a lifetime, you are too busy experiencing all these wonderful things to just stop and write.

So while discussing my poor memory and this amazing trip over pizza in Venice, Andrew thought I should write a blog instead. I liked the idea of creating something I could share with our family and friends, and still look back on years later. However, to be completely honest, I was a bit nervous about this idea...Let me explain: I used to love to write poems while in high school and college. A few things happened all at once and I stopped writing. I started nursing school and had to devote a lot of time and energy to studying. I met Andrew, and as an excellent writer and English fanatic, I was a bit intimidated by his brilliance. (Please don't blame him for my writing fallout; he has done nothing but encourage me to write.) As I write these reasons down, I realize they are more like excuses. I guess, at that time, I just didn't want to write anymore. I no longer wanted to share my private thoughts with people. I was no longer depressed and trying to find an escape into another world or life. I was happy, and I continue to be very happy. But now, I miss writing. I miss doing and creating things that are completely and entirely my own. It's like the stars aligned and I am now ready to write again – and I even have something great to write about! So the idea of this blog was created and I hope that it will also help me find my grove in writing again.

Let me explain a bit about what I hope this blog will become. I plan to write 28 posts, in 28 days, reflecting on our trip in Europe for the last four weeks. Some days may be better than others. I don't plan on doing a snapshot of each day or presenting a timeline of events – we have Facebook for that. Like many other bloggers out there, I plan to write whatever I feel like that day. Some posts may be long (or short) and some may just be lists of my favorite things. Who knows. Nevertheless, I do hope that by writing for a month, I can paint a clear image of our trip for you to enjoy and for us to look back on.

And so it begins! 28 days ago Andrew and I left home: leaving our two kitties in the care of our family and friends. Leaving our routine, schedule and the comforts of our own home. Leaving our cars, cell phones, and lives behind. Yet we were not looking back, we were anxiously and excitedly looking forward...forward to the next four weeks in Italy, France, Germany, and New York. Looking forward to eating and drinking our way throughout Europe. Looking forward to experiencing the vacation of a lifetime! And now I'm looking forward to looking back...

Photo taken in Florence, overlooking the Arno River