Italy 2009

The view from our room in Venice.

Standing at the Grand Canal in Venice

The Roman Forum

The date was November 15, 1989. The place was Pine Street Middle School in Texarkana. I was in 7th grade, Jody was in 8th grade when he asked me "to go with him." (Back in the day, that meant "will you be my girlfriend?") The story actually begins in 3rd grade...but that's another post.

So, 20 years, 14 years of marriage, 5 college degrees and 3 children later...we decided to celebrate this crazy relationship that we had no idea we were getting ourselves into back then.

In November, over Thanksgiving, we took a trip to Italy, Greece and Malta. Just Jody and I. We were gone for a whopping 10 days. It was a wonderful trip, one I hope I never forget.

We started out our vacation by going out to eat at P.F. Changs on the night that Grandfather came and picked up the kids to take them to Texarkana. After our yummy meal, we casually opened our fortune cookies and...I still can't believe this...Jody's said, "Europe."

The next day, we headed down to Dallas and checked into the Gaylord Texan hotel. We went out to eat at our favorite place...The Melting Pot. The next morning, we flew to Rome.

Rome was all I expected it to be...and more. I loved it. The history, the ruins, the food, it was all so good. We had a tour guide pick us up at the hotel and he spent the whole day with us showing us around. We toured the Colliseum, the Forum, the Vatican, the Pantheon, and many other parts of the city. That evening, we ate at a restaruaunt that sat above the Spanish steps and overlooked the lit up ruins. It was a great day.

The next day, we took the train to Venice. Wow. What can I say? Venice is probably my favorite city on earth. We took a gondola ride down the grand canal. We ate at quaint little restraunts. Our hotel room had a balcony, which looked out to the Bridge of Sighs. The city was breathtakingly beautiful. It kind of felt like Disney World or Las Vegas, but it was the real thing. We bought some Murano glass light pendants for our house that will hang in our mudroom. On the morning that we left Venice, we awoke to a flood. The people of Venice were prepared, apparently the tides come in occasionally and simply flood the city. St. Marks square at at least 2 feet of water in it. It was definately a memory.

After two nights in Venice, we took a water taxi to our Cruise ship. We cruised on the Costa Fortuna ship and it was beautiful. According to the customer service desk, there were only 10 English speaking guests on the ship. Ha! We visited Bari, Italy...Corfu, Greece....Malta....Naples and Savona, Italy. We loved the old country of Malta and while we were in Naples, we had the opportunity to tour Pompeii. On our way to Pompeii, we visited a Cameo jewelry factory. They make these rings out of shell pulled straight from the Mediterannean Sea. Of course I had to get one. The one I picked out reminded me of Savannah Grace.

Touring Pompeii was surreal. I expected the city, which was built about 70 B.C. to be a pile of ruins. Instead, when our bus pulled up, it was a full walled off city. There were still paintings on the walls, the streets were intact, the lead piping they used to pipe water to homes was still in place. It was crazy. Very interesting, probably my favorite part of the trip.

We had a wonderful time. But, I don't see us doing that again for a long, long while. We missed our kids too much!