The secret to life...is butter: April 2012

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Buon giorno!

After a bit of a bumpy start, I finally made it to Italy. My flight was delayed by an hour and 20 min out of Dulles and so I missed my connecting flight out of Newark. This was, of course, the last flight to Rome. They routed me to Heathrow instead and to Rome from there. Since I was supposed to have arrived at 7 40 am and now arrived at 3pm, plans to get to Soriano had to be changed. I was originally supposed to have had a driver meet me at the airport, but now I would need to catch the train to Orte and I would be picked up there. I wasn't planning on taking the train, so I hadn't done any research on it and had to wing it a bit. I bought a ticket for a train leaving in 5 minutes. I still had to validate the ticket and get on the right platform. I jumped on the train at the last minute, with my suitcases, and crossed my fingers. Had an interesting conversation with the train attendant, but luckily she confirmed that I was indeed on the correct train and that no transfers were required. Thankfully, she also told me what time the train was to arrive in the station because most of the stops I couldn't tell which station we were at until we departed again. I arrived in Orte about 6pm and was picked up at 630pm. I was the last to arrive...so the party could begin!

Thursday, April 26, 2012

The evolution of the trip to Italy

After redecorating the bedroom, redoing the deck, transforming most of the basement into livable space, and reconfiguring the mud room to be organized, I decided that the kitchen was next in line. I hate white cabinets, it's not laid out well at all, and the lighting is terrible. I had originally intended just to paint it,but then it expanded into new appliances, cabinets, lighting, and flooring. Then I decided that I'd really like to knock out a wall and expand the kitchen into the dining room. I never use the living room, so that would be re-purposed as the dining room. I love the warmth of Tuscan style decorating and started searching for decorating ideas and collecting it on my Pinterest board. Of particular interest to me is this one lighting fixture that is just SO ME....

Yes, those are mason jars...what could be more perfect for someone who loves to can as much as I do? Anyway, that's sort of how the whole kitchen renovation idea grew after I started pinning ideas.

A coworker mentioned that he and his wife went on a wine tour...brilliant! So, naturally I started to think about what my next vacation would be, and of course I love wine. But then again, I love to cook and want to redo the kitchen, so wouldn't it be great if I could combine it all? So, I googled cooking vacations, and low and behold, what should appear, but a slew of links for Tuscan cooking vacations. OMG - that was too coincidental since I wanted the kitchen to have a Tuscan feel to it. OK, vacation theme and destination - done. I found a lot of different tours and bounced several of them off of Marianne, my travel agent from Classic Travel and she helped narrow down my choices. After speaking with the owners of this company, she thought we had a real winner with Culture Discovery Vacations. She suggested the tour that included chocolate because it had availability for the week I was looking at going in June (when I was scheduled to not have kids again). But I liked the food in the Tuscan Sun tour better, plus we get to stay in apartments instead of a hotel. So, I had chosen which tour I was going on...wow, I'm on a roll! Looking up flights, I happen to check a variety of search engines and they also show calendars with prices on different dates so you can see when you'll get the best deals. Hmmm...flights in June are kinda pricey...what's that I see at the end of April? Flights for $700 less than June? Ummm, yeah...no brainer. Did some quick checking at work for deadlines, swap children visiting Dad from June to April, and Voila! It's done! In the span of less than a week, an idea was spawned, developed and implemented. For me, that's some serious shootin' from the hip. Especially since the end result was a big overseas vacation in only 3 weeks!

So, that's how the travel plans for Italy evolved.

Christmas 2011 in Costa Rica (In Hindsight)

Having recently acquired my first passport in October 2011, I decided a trip was in order. I knew that I was not going to have my kids for Christmas, and there was absolutely NO way I was going to wake up in the house with no kids. Christmas is just too big and special in this house. So, I had to get out. What better excuse to try out that shiny new passport? So, I tried to find (what I thought) would be the most non-Christmas-y place to be so that I wouldn't miss the kids too much. First criteria - no snow. Also didn't want to be around families or couples or any of that stuff. So, I found a tour company that catered to singles and served up action packed vacations. Bike Hike Adventures was a wonderful choice! I had a blast and was so busy I didn't have a chance to be completely miserable missing my kids. We went white water rafting on Class III/IV rapids for two days, hiking from our campsite to see a waterfall, hiking through the rain forest and the Arenal Volcano, soaking in the hot spring, hiking to a massive waterfall, zip lining, sea kayaking, braved public transportation during free time to get to the beach, and miscellaneous other adventures. There were 6 of us in the group (plus 3 guides for the white water rafting ). Had an amazing time and I will try to come back and fill in some more details another time, but I need to finish getting ready for my next adventure that begins tomorrow!