Pics!!!

Here are a couple of pics. I would upload more but it takes forever to get them up so I will most likely put up a bunch when I get back to the states on monday!

Rook and I with the Napoli skyline behind us... oh yeah we are on top of a castle!:

Saint Peter's Square Rome:

The Famous Pizza da Michelle (best pizza in the world!):

Napoli, Castellamare, and Pompei

Rook and I instantly loved Napoli! The flow of the city, how busy it was, all of the fake designer stuff overflowing the sidewalks and spilling onto the streets. It was pretty crazy! We left our bags at a bag check, trust me it sucks hauling around what must be 35 pounds by now... especially after you have spent the last 2 weeks on your feet 12+ hours a day. We then left the station and decided to see all that Napoli had to offer. On the way to our first mission (more on that later) we were assaulted by various street venders, most of them were very nice and very pushy. We had two guys trying to sell us iphones, we got them down to 170 euros for 2 16 giggers, but we thought they wouldn't work in the states so we decided not to. On top of that we only had enough cash for lunch and needed to pull out some money. These guys tried to sell us everything, they had iphones, laptops, and I joked with them that this stuff "fell off the back of the truck" and they shushed me and looked around all cautiously. It is obviously stolen goods, if there are any goods in the first place (we think its probably a scam). Anyways, our first mission was to get a pizza at the best place in Napoli, where they make the best pizza in the world! We found it at a place called pizzeria da michele. It has been around since 1870 and It has tons of awards on the door. We even saw a newspaper article where oprah went there with her crew and they ate 400 pizzas! Let me tell you this place did not dissapoint, I can say it is probably the best pizza I have ever had. It is hard to describe, but they use a certain kind of mozzarella called fior di latte and it is super simple, just: basil, tomatoe sauce and cheese (maybe some olive oil). It is super thin, not even as thick as a cafe rio tortilla. The great thing about it is that it just kind of makes your whole body sing when you eat it and it makes you go into a frenzy (we went back for dinner). It was super cheap 5 euros for a maxi pizza with double mozzarella which still doesn't cover all of the sauce btw. There are about 6 total items on the menu and for of them are drinks. You can get either coke, orange soda, beer or water. There are two pizzas: margherita and marinara (I didn't see a single marinara ordered and mind you there was a wait at the door pretty much all day long to get in and eat), margherita is pretty much a cheese pizza for those of you not in the know. After eating we went out to see every big building that Napoli had to offer.

We started with a castle, I don't remember the name but it was really cool. We hit up a couple of churches a couple of museums, by now you can probably tell from my writing that I am pretty worn out on the whole museum/church 3 times a day in every city routine. So I wont go into much detail about it, but we saw over 10 of them, did some tours and took a funevia (its a kind of a rail car, kinda like a trolley on a rolercoaster pipe) up the mountain. Rook pointed out that we have traveled by every mode of transportation on this trip. We have taken planes, trains, and automobiles (like the movie), boats, trams, trolleys, busses, subways, metros, we have driven cars and been driven around, the only thing we haven't done is swim somewhere (maybe later). We noticed that there are lots of dogs running around in Napoli and tons of dog crap on the streets. On our way back we got stopped by a nice guy selling sunglasses so we got a couple to bring back for the siblings.

Then things got interesting. Dad kept warning us about Napoli and said it was dangerous, but we didn't think much of it. Everyone seemed very nice. Let me start by saying we are fine and nothing happened so you can all breath and not worry about the coming sentences. At the end of the day when we were walking back to the train station so young guy came up and grabbed Rook by the right arm, Rook pulled away really hard and the guy backed off and said "sorry, sorry i thought you were Napolitan" I got in between them and kinda pushed the guy away with my body (with a fierce gaze on my face mind you haha). After that I made sure Rook was ok and we continued on to the train station. We asked around to see if that was some way of them marking you to get mugged or something like that and we got a bunch of different answers ranging from yes to no to maybe to be careful to you should have knocked him out. Napolitanes are funny. We asked the bag check guy and he said instead of pulling your arm away you should have smashed his face. After that we asked some security guards and they said you can do what you want just don't hit them in the face so you can say he "fell down" haha. It was pretty funny and we thought we were in the clear. Boy were we wrong. We got on the train going to castellamare to meet up with a friend of Rook's and stay with them for a couple of days. The moment we sat down there was kind of a crazy guy mumbling and 3 young guys like us mid 20's laughing at him and I joined in. After that I said "ipod me" to Rook and he pulled my ipod from his bag so I could listen to it. The guys that I was joking with asked to see it so I handed it over and regretted it the split second later and thought well that was stupid. Two of them kept saying "mine, mine" and I said no "mine, mine" then they asked what kind of phones we had etc we tried to be nice and smooth things over. Rook gave them some gum. Then they wanted to see Rook's iphone and I could tell Rook was getting really upset. I always took the approach on my mission to be friends with people like that so they wouldn't bother you but this was a little different. After a couple of mins I asked for my ipod back and they didn't want to, so Rook got mad and said just give it back and grabbed it and gave it back to me. I put it in my backpack and my mind was going a mile a minute. One of the guys spit out his gum and I thought oh crap something is going to happen. The guy asked Rook why he was acting the way he was and Rook said I'm sorry I don't feel good and I just don't want to lend people my stuff so i don't get screwed. They guy said if I was going to rob you I would just put a knife to your neck. Rook didn't like that and said I'm sorry I don't feel right and we got up and went to the front of the train. When we got there I looked back and saw one of them walking up and keeping his eye on us (just writing this is making me shake). Rook was figuring out when we needed to get off the train, I said lets just jump off as the doors are closing and catch the next train that comes by (they come every 5-10 minutes) he said no. The guy walked away and then I saw the other two get up and walk up towards the front of the train after us and my heart was racing, you just never really know what to do in those situations. They kind of went in shifts coming up closer and closer to us. It was pretty suspensful. I remembered to pray and ask for protection and I felt a little better. Then when it seemed like they were going to make a move one got off and was walking wuickly towards the front of the train while the other walked up through the middle of the train. I thought there were going to try and trap us in the front car but luckily the one just stayed off the train while the other keept watching us. He got a phone call and was walking all up and down the train (not in our car). He eventually got off and we thought there was one left but Rook walked up and down the train and was sure he had left. Then a guy came up to the front and was looking at me a little weird and looked at our bags and went ufff. I thought it might have been the third guy, but he started a conversation with us and said we were lucky and that the guys had decided to rob us but the guy got a phone call and left. Rook during this whole ordeal was very angry I could tell because every vain in his forehead was pulsating. I just told him to calm down and that everything would be fine. The scary thing also was that they were speaking the Napolitan dialect and Rook could not understand them at all, it is a very different way of speaking and super hard to understand. So we didn't really know what they were talking about when we were talking to them. We would of had to fight them because niether of us is in good enough shape to run after them, Rook's knee is bothering him and I have been rubbed raw haha. In the end we thought they might be calling their friends to wait at each train stop and mug us, but we felt semi ok and luckily the dad of the family we are staying with wanted to pick us up from teh train station instead of us walking to his house even though its a 7 min walk. We got in and got a good nights sleep. A fun a eventful day comes to an end.

Which now brings us to today. I want to go over it real quick before bed and it will also catch me up on the blog, then I will have more time to put up picks tomorrow night since I am completely out of memory and we are using just Rook's cam now. We have taken well over 2,000 pictures, not including the many that we have erased. So this morning we woke up around 8:30 and went around castellamare with Hermione our host who I guess recently got back from a temple square mission. We walked around the bay and some ship yards, she gave us a history lesson on castellamare and napoli. We got some gelato (we do every day) and walked around some more. Went to a local gourmet bakery/pizza shop got some supli kinda things and some deep fried mashed potatoes with cheese in the middle (don't remember what they are called) that were way good and we got some canolis as well. We took that with us to Pompei where we spent the rest of the day. We walked around pompei for about 3 and a half hours, the place is freaking huge. Met some nice people from the bay who are studying in paris and london (I think it would be fun to study abroad). Took a bunch of pics and got on the train coming home. By then we where beat and ready to be done for the day. I think we are starting to break down Rook's knee is really hurting him since yesterday and I got some major rubbing going on downstairs (my knee started to hurt today as well) I think all of the walking and running around is taking its toll. We are both loving the trip and being with each other, but I think we will both enjoy the luxury of your own car and not having to walk if you don't want to back in the good old USA. I think I need a good calf and foot massage. Speaking of feet, they hurt all day long and I got a big blister on my middle toe today! When we were done with pompei we went back to the same gourmet spot fo dinner but they had to get the over ready for the pizza. So we walked around and looked at some shops. Rook showed me an italian family owned supermarket which was neat. After that the fam called us and they wanted us to get pizza with them. So Rook and I bought everyone pizza, it was the least we could do since they are being so nice to us. The pizzeria was off the chain cool. They had a sweet system going where they made 4 pizzas and slipped them into the oven on a long plank. The pizza turned out great and I'll hopefully put up some pics tomorrow for ya. Love you all, I can't believe that tomorrow is pretty much our last day since we'll have church and some travel on sunday and then we fly home monday morning. It has been a great trip and we lived it up! TTYL.

2 days in Rome

We got into Rome and went straight to the hotel. We got a great deal on a 4 star hotel called pineta palace. When we got off the subway and started asking directions so we could get to the hotel we went into a little bar and we just had an x on a map in the general location of the hotel and we couldn't remember the name of it, the funny thing is the guy knew exactly what we were looking for and what bus to take so that was pretty cool. We got to the hotel, settled in and got ready to go out on the town in rome!

our first stop was at the spanish steps in downtown rome. We passed a bunch of cool designer shops: dolce and gabana, gucci, armani, salvatore ferragamo, louis vuitton, all of the cool shops that I wanted to browse around in... sadly we didn't have enough time.W e took a bunch of pics on the spanish steps, I have no idea why they are famous (I bet it is something historic...duh). So after that we walked around some more and hit up trevi fountain and got some gelato, trevi fountain was way cool/pretty and reminded both of us of vegas ha! After that we went around some more and took some pictures of the Roman forums and then did a guided tour of the colloseum which was pretty cool since we learned a whole lot more that we would of if we didnt have our guide. He was also funny so it was worth the extra money. Interesting fact: the games at the coloseum were free, you got free food, free wine, free water, and I think free women (not sure on that one, I don't remember). Another funny thing the guy told us was that chicago in latin means to take a deuce... then he said so when people say your new president obama is from chicago..., he is from crap... people got a kick out of that. On a side note a lot of people have asked us if things are better with obama and if things have changed etc, so its funny that everyone is so interested in what is going on in the good old USA. Durning the tour it started to rain big time and we had to cut the tour short and stay under the cover of the coloseum most of the time, so we missed out on some stuff in it.


Next we went on to the Roman forums with the same guided tour, and also went up and got a history lesson on the circus maximus and the forums and Romes fore fathers Romulus and Ramos. I didn't know this but Rome was founded by Romulus and that is where the name came from. Also he killed Ramus so he could rule the land. The tradition of carrying your wife over the threshold when you get married and are going to replenish the earth for the first time comes from the raping of sai (sp). When the Romans didn't have any women they invited a village known for their beautiful women for a big party and got them drunk, scared the men away, scooped up the women in the way you carry one over the threshold and closed the castle doors behind them... I thought that was pretty neat. At this point we were super duper wet and decided to check out the pantheon, that was cool. At that point we were sick of being wet and cold so we decided to get some grub a dub dub. We asked around for a while and a nice lady told us where to get some good food. It was a pretty decent little place and we ended up staying there for a while and drying of/flirting with our cute brazilian waitresses. For some reason the place only had waitresses from brazil. So I showed off all of my portuguese that I learned in one semester of classes and she thought I spoke portuguese at first, then she realized I didn't but said I had a brazilian accent already and that if I went to live in brazil for a month she thought I would be fluent... haha fat chance, but it was a nice compliment (it didn't hurt that she was a looker either Rook and I were kinda fighting over who had a better shot with her like we always do). After that we went and used the internet and went to bed.

The next day we woke up around 8:30 and went to go do our laundry, its nice every once in a while to break up your everyday routine of site seeing and to do a normal task like washing your clothes. ps. it is super expensive to wash your clothes in italy it cost us like 20 bucks the first time and about 15 the second... so it cost us 35 buckaroonies to do 4 loads of laundry? go figure. Luckily there was an internet place close by and we were able to kill some time, it was also cool that the lady there started the wash for you, used the right detergent and dried and folded them for you if you wanted. We just let her dry them for us and we folded them ourselves, it was pretty convieniant. We walked into the internet place and the girl asked me if I knew spanish and if was I colombian, so right then and there I knew she was colombian and we got to talking and we are now facebook friends haha. I know I say this a lot, but its fun to be able to use my spanish and actually talk to someone instead of doing lots of listening, nodding of the head and one word answers. Funny thing is usually when I can get out a sentence or two people think I can speak italian or tell me I have a good accent (I guess I naturally pronounce things correctly, lucky for me).


So we got done with laundry and internet and headed out to the vatican and saint peter's square/basilica. Sorry dad we forgot to ask for carlo fortuno, but when we thought about it (after we left) we didn't really know who to ask, the funny thing is we asked about him in the duomo in milano. As grandpa would say we are a couple of lemon heads! On the way there we stopped and got some kebab's, they were really good. A kebab is supposedly 82% turkey 9% veal and the rest is yogurt and spices, well at least theirs was (it was really good). So we did the museums and the churches again. BTW saint peter's basilica is pretty amazing. Its hard to appreciate some of the churches when you see like 5-10 of them a day, but this one was huuuuuuuge and just had some insane statues in it that were way cool. After walking around the vatican and taking a bunch of pictures we decided to do some shopping. Bad idea. We only got to go to like one shop (dolce and gabana) since all of the freaking stores in Rome closed at 7:30... are you kidding me? I almost bought a sweet necklace with the italian good luck horn, but I know I can get it cheaper online (it was 160 euros but way cool). Then we decided to eat and we wanted to eat somewhere nice. We went to a place that a couple of people recommended and said was good. It was good and it was expensive, but tiny portions and nothing too amazing. We got an appetizer that was about 20 bucks and we thought the guy said it was 5 different kinds of meat... well it wasn't. Then we got a roast suckling pig and a bucatini alla amartriciana to split, long story short we should of just got the pasta. Everything else was just kinda average. After a 60 dollar meal we werent even full... that sucked. We wanted another kebab instead. After that we went home and started planning for Napoli!!!! (we are now in napoli, and have access to a computer with the people we are staying with so I will be able to put up some pictures some time tomorrow!)

Arezzo and on to Roma!

After we left Florence :( we went to Arrezo to stay with an old missionary contact that Rook and Daniel Taccone had met who turned out to be the nicest little lady you could ask for. I mean she really rolled out the red carpet for us. First off, after getting to Arrezo we were met by one of Rook's baptisms. His name is Fiorino and he is from Romania. At first I thought he was a little weird, but I really warmed up to him and he is a great harworking guy. He was so happy to show Rook his Maquina (he has a pretty cool red alpha romeo). Rook really wanted to get some piadinas from his favorite place in Arrezo (he served there for 6 months). I think its called il tuo piadina or your piadina in english. It was fun because Rook had taken grandpa and barbara there when they came and visited him... so it was nice thinking that grandpa had been in the exact same spot as I had just 6 years earlier.

After we finished up touring the city with Fiorino and calling and re-calling Angela Pasqui (the lady we stayed with) to tell her to expect us a little later we called up another of Rook's baptism named sueli a nice girl from brazil. She had since gotten married to an architect who was dead set on showing us his rental property. It was really cool and reminded me of the house on a good year the movie with russell crowe. It was pretty cool, but it seemed like he was trying to get us to rent it. He said it was 5,800 euros a week during the holidays hahaha... yeah right buddy! So after looking through their wedding fotos that they had in this huge leather bound book (way cool I want one it looks like an old bible or something) and doing an awkward kiss goodbye we headed off to Angela Pasquis.

When we got to Her house she wasn't what I was expecting. I thought she was going to be some nice middle aged tall thin woman for some reason. Big shock here... she was a tiny little in your face kinda lady, extremely nice and really reminded me of what my dad's nona would have been like. She is so warm and will let anyone stay in her house, fed us breakfast in bed... just told us to relax and she would take care of us! So when we got there it was around 10:00 at night she took us out to a restaurant with her twin sons and their wives and babies. Did I mention that Angela is blind as a freaking bat? Well she is. She was following her son the the restaurant and tried to drive up the side of a grassy hill and kept spinning her tires. She was all confused and didn't know what was going on. hahaha. So Rook said "why don't you drive on the street for a change" and then she got all embarressed and said "mama mia mama mia my sons will never let me live this down" it was freaking hilarious especially when she said that they will tease her about it for at least 3 months (she had Rook drive home)! The son's (Mario and Athos) both went to cooking school in spain and are bonafied freaking chef's (more on that later). So we went to the restaurant and got some great food. These people know how to eat, its just course after course after course. We had proschiutto and different kinds hams and salami's with different kinds of bread. It was amazing! Then we had our main course, I got gnocchi in a ragu sauce with bacon and a little bit of spice in it (de-lish) and Rook got his staple of tagliatelli with a wild boar meat sauce (I have pics I just can't upload them here). After that we had a chocholate brownie/pudding kind of like a flan type consistency desert that was very good. We had some great conversations and we felt like we were part of the family, mario speaks spanish so I was able to talk to him all night and that was a lot of fun for me, he is probably the coolest guy I have met in Italy. So after that amazing meal we said our goodbyes and did the kisses on the cheek and it no longer creeps me out doing it with the guys like it did before, probably because I like the family so much. After that we went home to sleep and wouldn't you know it Angela has 2 cats and surprise surprise they were both in heat and wouldn't leave me alone... agghhh! I don't know why all these italian cats like me so much its annoying.

So we got a great nights sleep and breakfats in bed that was hot milk and croissants filled with custard and fruit. We went out to open up Angela's tennis academy. Supposedly its the best tennis academy in Italy and people come from all over the world to train there, it was pretty cool. She and her two boy's own and run the place and also have a restaurant inside. So she gave us a tour, there are 8 clay courts all inside blow up domes. A school for the kids, a gym, 11 apartments for the kids who don't live close and the restaurant. She said they own everything but the apartments. It was a pretty big deal. So Athos came and cooked us an amazing meal. he made probably the best lasagne I have ever tasted in my life and it was a vegetarian lasagne it was so good I want another piece right now (it was also an Athos original). After that we had some roast suckling pig and fried potatoes, again really tasty. She gave us two different desserts one was a puff pastry kinda cream puff with cream and fruit and sweet balsamic vinegar (my fav of the two), the other was a really thick chocolate desert that was kinda like a really undercooked brownie, it was way good and way rich.

After eating Angela gave us one of her cars to use for as long as we wanted. We went up to siena and went all through the town. It is the town where the new james bond starts out with the horse race in the beggining. Way cool town it was like we went back in time. Did the usual, went to all the churches and crypts and museums. Rook had made plans to stay with the bonorino family, but angela wanted us to stay with her again and we obliged since she was so good to us. When we got back to Arezzo she had dinner ready for us in the restaurant and had made us a delicious plate of spaghetti with really thick noodles, tomatoes, basil, and big shavings of parmesean cheese! After that we had some proschuitto, pecorino romano cheese and some honey to dip it in (very tasty). Then she brought us out a kind of apple pie dessert that was way good. Did I mention this lady hooked us up big time? Well she did. She also gave us a really expensive bottle of old balsamic vinegar... it looks great. This lady is just so giving, we are thinking of something nice to do for her, so any ideas would help.

After all of this we went to bed and woke up at 6:20 to catch a train to Roma, we reserved 1st class tickets (supposedly we arent supposed to since our pass is 2 class), good thing Rook talked him into letting us stay and got into rome at 8:30! We ound a 4 star hotel for 45 dollars a night (sweet) and we are here for two nights waiting for our connections in Napoli to figure stuff out and let us come stay with them. More on Rome and everything else later, our laundry is done! Love you all.

Arezzo (where they filmed life is beautiful)

Siena (where they filmed james bond)

The Spanish steps (don't see what the big deal is)

Monument for vittorio something the second, its a way cool building

More later, I just wanted to put up some stock picks so you had an idea of where we are! Love you all.

Firenze, Florence, Tuscany

We got into Florence Thursday night and went to bed. We were super tired. Got up a little late the next day and did our laundry... finally! It was time we had just run out of everything and we spent the morning washing clothes, blogging and eating piadinas at a place owned by an italian lady who is married to a Dominican! It was great, amazing food, super busy with the college kids and it was great getting to use some spanish! We went around and saw the Duomo, walked up what seemed to be 1,000 steps of spiral staircases and enjoyed the views. The dome is a panting of dante's inferno (according to some american students we walked up with) It was pretty cool. We met some nice girls at the top and we met up with their group later to get some gelato at a famous place that is gelato torino style, (its called GROM). After that it was my turn to get some sweet designer shades. Rook's amazing italian and charm helped out once again in getting us a deal. I found a sick pair of Versace shades that were half off and and Rook got me an extras 10 euros off for beng nice and I got an extra glasses case (a hard one and a soft one). Essentially I got a pair of 300 dollar glasses for 90 euros or 120 ish dollars depending on the exchange rate for that day! SWEET! Rook also talked the museum people into letting us see the statue of David after hours, just us and for free! We didnt et the close but it was way cool and a lot bigger than I thought.

Then we went to il gato e la volpe to get some food. It was packed and we had to wait till about 10 to eat. It was well worth it. We got a focaccia di tre colori... it was focaccia with tomatoes, buffalo mozarella, and arrugula lettuce.... AMAZING! So fresh and it ws just de....wait for it...lish! then We got some special dishes that werent on the menu because Rook sweet talked the host. So he got the dish he has wanted to eat the whole time we have been here. Tagliatelli pasta with a wild boar meat sauce, it was great. I got a chicken and broccoli penne pasta. The host also got us some dates, we told him he could have two hot girls sit with us if he wanted and he got us two nice looking girls, we got to eat their leftovers so it was worth it! The had pesto gnocchi and another gnocchi that wasnt as good. Rook and I love that place, at least I do (Rook is havng a hard time tasting things, he is sick).

The next day we went around florence again went to piazzale michelangelo and sw a copy of the statue of david, took some pics, went through the Boboli gardens, while humming the godfather theme music the whole time. We felt we had arrived in the real Italy. For some reason the Tuscan area of italy is what you think of when you think of italy... its beautiful! After the gardens and a museum, we went and got on a train to Pisa to go see the leaning tower. It was way cool and we met 5 count them 5 nice girls that invited us out for drinks. We became friends (facebook friends) and we got some VIRGIN strawberry daquiris with them. It was fun, Rook talked up a storm and charmed the ladies. Luckily the one I thought was cutest was the only one that knew spanish, so I got to talk to her a little which was nice... but my spanish was a little too dominican for her at times and I had to enunciate a lot and not use as much slang/cutting words in half like dominicans do. We went back to Florence that night and went back to the same restaurant and got the same pasta Rook got the time before. We decided to split a Florentine steak it was 1.2 kilos or 2.6455471462199997 pounds! It was cooked (kinda we had to send it back the thing was still mooing) florentine style, it was pretty good. After eating that and some amazing roasted potatoes, we headed back home. That concludes florence for us, we loved it and went to church there the next day. Sorry I can't upload pictures on the pc. TTYL.

This is Florence:

Boboli Gardens:

This is a typical Tuscan Village:

Venzia!

We got in to venice around 10:30 am and were instantly taken back by how cool it was. We were lucky that we were there at the peak of carnevale! So we got to go around and see all of the street perfomers and take a bucnh of pictures with people dressed up as arisotcrats and hoity toity rich people. It was really cool and one thing we noticed about venice was that people were doing everything for fun. Taking pictures, dressing up, street acts, etc. They didn't ask for money or anything like most people have in the touristy areas we have been through... we both liked that! Everywhere you walk around in venice is a foto op. I have been itching to buy a cool italian style overcoat, but so far the only one I looked at was about 1,000 dollars... YIKES! I wish I had looked around more in Milano, there were some shops going out of business and the had 50% off. Its like that everywhere in Italy right now, the new collections have come out so you can get last seasons stuff for pretty cheap. We walked all around the different shops and tents that they had in the city centers, signed up for a cooking class/demonstration that I wanted to go to. We decided we are never going to cook with different flavored smokes and that we didn't want to lose out on the little time we had in Venice. So we decided to eat instead. I thought of you dad and got some Gnocchi! We were not very happy with the meal we got in Venice. We went to one of the nicer places and did like a 4 course meal for 15 euros, salad, gnocchi, steak, and cream caramel for me. Rook got the same but with lasagne and roast chicken (we shared). It was a little dissapointing, bland, and not very much food. Oh well, not everything is perfect in Italy. We stopped into a sunglass shop and Rook got some sweet orang and black carrera aviator shades. He got them for about half off and it was a real good deal! We both like them a lot.

We went around the city some more. Got some Gelato from a very nice lady who thought Rook looked like he used to Box, prob since we are running on little sleep and look beat up! I told her it was because he is gay (called him a finocchio) and she busted up laughing so hard... it was hilarious and Rook and I couldn't stop laughing either and almost lost our Gelato. We then went around the city center more and there were some guys on stilts acting like giraffes (very life like) and one of them tried to steal my gelato and I was ducking and dodging his fake giraffe head! He ended up breaking my cone a little, but we kept the crowd entertained and everyone was laughing and cheering!

We then went through the Duomo, it was awesome. The entire ceiling is mosaic, I have no idea how they did it or how long it took, but it is breath-taking. After a foto session and hanging out and talking with some people from spain we decided to take a gondola ride. It took some convincing, but I got Rook to break down and do it. We met a nice couple from Germany looking to save some money like us and we teamed up to get a deal on our gondola. Rook's Italian got us another 20 euros off and we got it for 100 euros. Not a bad deal. It turned out to be a great idea. We learned a ton about the city and had the coolest gondolear we could have asked for!

After the gondola ride we went on a search for the library that indiana jones and the last crusade was filmed in. It turned out to be a church and there was an inventions of leonardo davinci going on. We felt we had spent enough money so we decided against it and ran back to the train station. We picked up a gift for shelby at a hand blown glass shop (it is super cool) and looked for carnevale masks for Rook and me. We both wanted the same masks so we got two different ones. We'll see how that works out. Grabbed a couple of pieces of pizza and got to the train. Only to sit next to an american family visiting their daughter who is studying in Florence. They were really nice (from Valencia) and gave us some advice on where to eat in Florence. They told us in a Rick steve's travel book he mentioned a restaurant in florence called il gato e la volpe (the cat and the fox) we went there twice over the next two days. It was amazing! More on that later.

Trento, Venice, Venice, Venezia!!!!! and on to Firenze (Florence)

Yesterday was a pretty hectic 48 hrs. I say 48 hrs, because we had gotten about 10-11 hours of sleep over the past three days.... so I should prob say its been a crazy 72 hours. Its all been such a blur I don't really know where to start. Our schedule the past couple of days has been @ Luigi's house monday we went to bed at 2 am and woke up at 7 am. went to cinque terre all day. Tuesday at luigi's slept from 2 am to 5 am and went off to trento (no me gusta, non me piache, I didn't like it... very much) we got there around 10. The hostel was closed for remodeling. I had a feeling that Rook's member friends were going to fail us again... they pretty much did. So I told him we should get on the internet and find a place ourselves instead of waiting to hear back from his friends. As i suspected no one really wanted to let us sleep at their houses and we eneded up sleeping on the floor at marco's house (very cool guy, ex boxer for Italy who was supposed to go to the olympics). As it turns out we spent all day in the freezing cold and we seemed confused about what we wanted to do, either way Rook and I were outta sync and it wasn't the funnest day. It felt like a day on a mission where you are fueding (sp) with your companion and keep talk to a minimum... it wasn't really like that or bad at all.

It was just that nothing was working out for us so it kinda felt like I was back on the mission with teaching appointments being forgotten and just a lot of walking around and not really getting anything done. That pretty much sums up trento. Not a lot of doing, just lots of walking and crankiness/pent up frustration. We got there at 10, rode up a tram (that was cool) went to get some info at the bus station and ran into a member from the area, Rook actually went to his wedding like 7 years ago. Crazy! Walked around, got a piadina (kinda like a hot pocket, but way better) went to the city center, went through the church, went to a museum and thought it was a museum for king trident/neptune (to our defense it said "museo Diosa tridentino") which turned out to be the trento museum, tridentino was the latin way to say trento... so it was just the trento museum. Once you've been through 15 museums, they all kinda seem the same. This one was cool cuz it had a bunch of pope robes and the preist walking stick things... a gold jewel encrusted pope hat, and in the basement it was the original floor and entrance to the city of trento. After that we went around looking for food. Everythign was closed, so we got a sandwich at a bar. Then we went and used the internet... ran into some dominicans and colombians. The museum guy was a german who grew up in argentina and lived in italy, so I got to use my spanish quite a bit. The colombian girl thought I was puerto rican (I aked her if she was looking for a fight) Then dominican said no to me being puerto rican and said "I was just thinking that I was listening to a dominican" (como que me suena a lo mio... in english this sounds like mine or my people)

Then Marco came and picked us up. We went around calling people to see if we could stay with them. Picked up the italian equivilant of buster from arrested deveolpment, just think of a huge overbite, really awkward, and buttons up every button on his coat so he doesn't look comfortable in his clothes... who burnt his tounge so bad it looked like it would fall off (yet had no idea what he burned it on... go figure). Marco said we could stay with him. Rook said no no no no. So we went to an all you can eat place. They had penne pesto, margherita pizza, french fries, salad and thats about it. It wasn't very good... It wasn't bad at all. Just nothing like the pizza and pasta I've had other places in italy. It was pretty awkward at dinner so I just flirted with the waitress, pretty girl with messed up teeth. She was from yugoslavia or something, so she had that I'm hot but I'll also kill you look, ha! We ended up going to the missionaries house and getting an old mattress that they had laying around. Then things got interesting. We went out to marco's house after everything fell through. We had to sneak in. He lives in a loft he made in his parents garage. We slept on the floor with his 4 cats that for some reason all wanted to sleep on my crotch and were walking on and over me all night long. It was kinda nice, they kept me warm. We slept on the floor with the old matress and a couple of shair coushins, not too comfy, but not too bad. Marco is a big time snorer... 'nuff said. We couldn't use the bathroom at marco's house, since his parents aren't fans of the mormons. We had run out of clean clothes that day... so we couldn't shower, couldn't shave, couldn't use the bathroom, couldn't do anything (had to pee outside where it was freezing). It sucked but it was actually cozy and a lot of fun. Its humbling to live in those circumstances and to still enjoy life. Goes to show you that money aint a thang! Trento reminded me of russia... I think I would hate russia equally as much as trento. It just seemed nothing went right for us, but we laughed it off and enjoyed it/made the best out of it. We went to bed at 2 am again and woke up at 5:30 to catch a 6:30 train to venice.

This is Trento (didn't take many pictures there, most are on Rook's Camera):

At a restaurant in Venice, not amazing but pretty good:

On our Gondola Ride in Venice:

A dog dressed up for Carnevale (like mardi Gras) in Venice:

Rook and I with Roberto our Gondoleer (very informative, realy nice guy. I think he looks like Bob Spees)

More on Venice and Florence later. Our laundry is done...its time to see some sights!!!!!!! Love you guys.

Venice!!!!

Here are a couple of more pictures:

Verona at Guilietta's balcony:

Venice:
Cinque Terre:

Milano:

With Quasimotto outside of Notre Dame:

Milano, Cinque Terre and Trento

So after taking Luigi Tavola on his kind offer to stay at his house, We awoke to a kind old man in a wife beater whitey tighties and bathrobe (haha) saying time to get up in broken English. I looked up and kinda smacked my head into my pillow (it was 7:00 am) I heard him say to Rook "your brother sure can sleep" I thought tha was funny since we had all woken up at the same time. I sat at the breakfast table with luigi while rook was in the shower and it was the single most awkward breakfast with an 80 something year old man I have ever had. He doesn't speak english and I am just beginning to understand 90% of conversations not bad for a week in italy :) I sat and had an old man serve me hot milk and biscotti, he then made me eat half a yogurt and an orange (I had to split the yogurt with Rook since there was only one). This was seriously creepy. We thought this dude was going to kill us at frist. An old hermit crab of an art history professor in milan, just let us stay in his den that was filled from floor to ceiling with books and art. He had a couple of huge paintings from the 1500's it was pretty cool. It doesn't help that Rook and I have seen every movie known to man that deals with unsuspecting american backpackers getting lured into innocent looking homes and are then killed slash mutilated and have their organs sold on the black market... YIKES! Anyways he turned out to be a great friend and more reliable than almost all of Rook's friends in italy (more on that later).

So we went to cinque terre and went around three beatiful port towns that are in walking distance of each other. I loved it, Rook loved it, the girls from australia we meet loved it, Rick steev's loves it (the guy from the tour italy dvd's dad gave us) Had a slice of pizza we got pesto pizza and margherita... Way good! Then we went and bought some fruit in the last city, I think it was riomaggiore (not sure) and were off to catch a train up to trento. Well that was the original plan and I told Rook it would be stupid to be on trains from 8:00 am till 11:00 pm and only get to be in cinque terre for one hour. Good thing he agreed and we decided to head back to luigi's for the night and see more of milano, which is a way cool city (it really reminds me of santo domingo) and got some pizza at a dope restaurant that had live music, got another margherita pizza (my fav so far, super classic, simple and delicious) I have noticed that at the nice restaurants, the service is amazing, the guy picked up my plate the second I had taken my last bite. So we got back to luigi's at 1:00 am (the old man is a night owl and a half) got some stuff ready and went to bed at 2:00 only to wake up at 5:00 am to head up to trento.

We slept on the first train to verona. I convinced rook to spend a couple of hours there because I wanted to see romeo and guiliettas balcony and touch her breast (don't worry its for good luck). We wrote our names on the wall which is customary and pretty fun. We weren't sure if romeo and juliet was a true story so we did some fact finding and it was. We found juliet's balcony and we found romeo's house. took some pictues in the verona arena, it looks like a small coloseum. After that we got on a train to trento. Took a tram ride up the mountain to sardagna and bought another converter plug to charge our stuff (turned out to be good since we think rook left the other one at luigi's this morning). We then went to the duomo church and looked around, went to the trento museum, saw some cool things including the ruins of the original city that were buried about 12 feet under where the town is now. We then walked around the whole town looking for something to eat and a hostel. We didn't find either. Everything was closed from like 2:00-7:00 for dinner (I think is stupid) which Rook said its like that in Italy. If it is, I haven't noticed and that pissed me off royaly... I really wanted some gnocchi. We ended up getting some panini's at a bar.

I started to get antsy and frustrated with the day and how lame trento was. I wanted to be able to meet Rook's friends from the city (he served here for 3 months) but it seems they have all moved away or work somewhere else. I told him we should figure out where we are staying since we have been abandoned the past two nights... he said everything would be fine. I said lets doubel check...yada yada yada... It turns out we didn't have anything concrete. I checked for hostels online and the only hostel in trento is closed for remodeling... I really am not liking this town by now. So we step into an internet cafe and wouldn't you know it a couple of dominicans work there which makes me really happy since I can talk to someone and figure things out instead of understanding stuff and asking Rook to make sure I got things right. Which I did :) I got us a nice hotel in florence for 3 days and we are still waiting on one of Rook's friends for here. Hopefully that works out, or I will ask the italian government to do nuclear testing here like Andrea mazzolari's dad said he has been asking them to do in Napoli for a decade (I have a feeling that I am going to absolutely love Napoli). So that brings us to now. We are having a blast. Today has been a little hectic but fun. We have been at each other a little, but we are not letting our fatigue and crankiness get the best of us. Our bodies hurt, we are exhausted, but we are brothers... we're happy and we're singig and we're colored... dah dah dah dah... gimmie a hig five... Derek signing out till next time. We love you all, thanks for the comments. It's nice to get some feedback. I am putting up a couple of pics... hopefully it works.

Done with Paris... Next stop Milano, Italia

Like I was saying on saturday, we went to the big church on the hill by our hotel in the red light district of paris (lots of hookers, lots of sex shops... yikes) it was a fun and interesting two days in paris. At first rook and I hated paris, thought it was dirty, busy, nasty, and confusing. After we got some food in us and a little rest we really started to enjoy it. We started up conversations with people we met on subways, in museums, at tourist locations, etc. Once we learned how to get around everything was great. We always ate on the street, since we didnàt have time for anyting else. We had crepes, paninis, ham and cheese sandwiches, and hot dogs. My favorite thing was the french hot dog. It was two weiners on a baguette with baked cheese on top YUMMY. Rook's fav. was the ham, cheese, and egg crepe (my second favorite). Here are some pictures: ( sorry but the internet cafe wonùt let me upload any of my pictures :(

Sacre Coeur

Gargoyle on top of Notre Dame

Notre Dame (Yes we hiked up the entire tower... it was quite the huff [mom you wouldn't make it hahaha, jk] )

We went an saw the eifell tower again and got our valentine's day hugs/french kisses (on the cheek) from real frenchies!

After the eifell tower we were running late and didn't want to miss our flight to milano so we went to the arche de triomphe and took a couple of pics then off to the airport.

We got into milano at 10:00 at night and two off Rook's old mission companions picked us up (manuele elia and andre mazzolare). They were really loud, very funny, extremely nice, and super excited to see Rook. It was great to see how happy Rook was to be back in Italy and to be with his old mission friends. I was suprised how well I could follow their conversations without knowing any italian. Andrea and Manuele are both married to great girls and have callings in the lake como ward. The church is amazing even in Italy and the chapel is the house of deceased pope. It was beautiful. Here is the center of Como, we walked around, looked at shops and ate gelato ( I had Lake como cream, hazelnut, and pistaccio. Rook had pineapple, strawberry, and cinnamin... again amazingly delicious stuff)

Beautiful lake como:
After getting on a train to Milano, we took a subway to milano centrale and when we walked out of the subway we stumbled upon this little building (duomo di milano... its where the painting of the last supper is)
another picture of the duomo

we were looking for stuff to do till Rook's friend came to pick us up. We meet a nice history professor in the shops at milano centrale. He ended up offering to let us stay with him if things didn't work out (which they didn't) so we took him up on the offer to save some money and to have another story to tell! So we walked to the castella di milano, which is a hughe castle in the middle of milan.
My time is up. Love you all. Enjoy america!

Paris Update

We arrived yesterday at 9:50 am local time in Paris, wandered around the airport for about an hour and realized that we don't speak a lick of french and the people who speak english here are not very good at it. They can say hello, but when you ask for directions they really can't explain how to get any where. aggggh.

so after an hour we got on a train with some italians from Rome and Rook got to brush up on his Italian while I got to brush up on my I'm new in the country and trying ti understand everything while at the same time trying to fake not looking stupid! It wasn't that hard.... I'm pretty good at faking it. So we took a train and then hoped on the subway to get to our hotel (if you can call in that) which is right down the street from the moulin rouge.

We got to our hotel at 1:00, took some pictures of the moulin rouge, took a shower and went out for the day. We got an open tour bus pass thta takes you to all of the cool things to see on a bus route. The only problem is there arent many busses and they only go till 6:00pm.... BTW it was freezing when we got into paris and it looked like it had just snowed. The tour is called L'open toure... its called that because it is a double decker bus with no roof on the top level. It was really cold and I was pressed against the window hating life.

I could not sleep on the plane, no matter how hard I tried. Rook on the other hand was able to sleep like a baby.

We went to the Louvre and walked aroundfor 4 hours. We saw tons of cool sculptures and huge paintings, I mean huge like 40' x 60' (thats feet)! Since I didn't sleep on the plane and we hadn't eaten since about 6:00 am I was literally falling asleep while walking and needless to say a little cranky. We finally got some food in the louvre and I pepped back up and got in a better mood, but about 30 mins later I was falling asleep again.

After we were done with the Louvre and had figured out the subway system out of necessity, (thanks to the crappy bustour), stoppedby the eiffel tower to snap some night fotos, we were headed back home to go to a show and we saw a juggling/ventriloquist act that was amazing and funny. But this time it was Rook falling asleep and me trying to keep him awake. We sat with two couples from greece, one guy was from israel. After the show we sat and talked with some nice girls that are studying abroad south of paris. One american, One Canadian, and one Australian.

SATURDAY

We woke up around 8:30, ate our breakfast, and headed off to the sacre coeur church up at the top of a hill. Got ambushed by a group of africans from senegal and gabon. They are just like the haitains in the D.R. Always trying to sell you stuff. They are hard to turn down and tell you its a tradition to buy their bracelets. Mine was very nice so I gave him euro and a half (he asked for 20 euros) for a little string bracelet he made. Rook's on the other hand wasn't very nice and keept asking for more money. After we were done seeing the church and the crypt, we saw rooks meanie and he asked for more money and said "don't be cheap like the chinese" we laughed and reminded him he told usit was free... I called him a liar and said he was lucky to get anything, then all of his friends laughed and high fived me and said California the best! italians the best! (for some reason they could tell we are italian)!

We are off to Notre dame, the eifell tower again, le arche de triumph and anything else we see of the way! Love you all. I'd post some picture but this computer sucks and doesn't have a slot for my memory card. TTYL.

Derek (and Rook)

Packing and then off to the airport

Today Feb 12th 2009 is the day Rook and I start our adventure! We depart from SLC at 1:55PM and arrive in Paris at 9:50AM.

This is the Hotel we will be staying at while in Paris:
We will be about 250 yards away from this place... I dunno if anyone has heard of it :)