Welcome to the Amsterdam airport! … And the future!! Where everything is in English, tulips are more popular than ketchup, and dutch children are painted on napkins.

We survived our 9ish hour flight by binging out on movies, playing group Tetris, and getting a spectacular arial view of the northern lights! Ryder managed to capture a few great photos. It’s hard to describe the northern lights with out waxing poetical with shimmering vertical clouds of ever changing color and shape… gosh I’m sleep deprived.

When we got off the plane it was straight to the restroom, or as I like to say, the beautiful water closet where everything you do is completely private. Why oh why can’t we have bathrooms in the US like this?? Mom and J were shocked at all the English everywhere. We wondered around the airport (5 hour layover, yay for sarcasm) and found some amazingly satisfying Poffertjes each the size of a half-dollar.

Currently we look like the walking dead with my mom slumped over her backpack, hugging the blanket I stole from the plane, my sister lying next to me across the air conditioning unit, Ryder on his phone per usual, and my dad, after some coffee, rearing to go. OK, only 2 hours left, then a 2 hour flight, then a 1 hour train ride on no sleep so far… I think I can, I think I can… 🙂

Hello Again!

The Ross family is back! This time we are on a journey to Italy, specifically Florence and Rome, with the Grossmans for 2 weeks! This will be Tawny, Steve, and Justine’s first time to Europe 🙂

Yesterday we drove down to SF from Sacramento. I can’t believe how terrible the air quality is right now, not just in the valley, but even in the bay. We had to drop off the Koa dog at the dog kennel in Elk Grove (I would highly recommend Duck Pond Kennels for anyone needing to leave furry family while traveling). I cried like a total baby when we left him, but he is in good hands.

We spent the night at a motel near the airport, got up early this morning to eat breakfast and catch our shuttle to the airport. We are currently sitting, waiting for our flight. Only 15 hours until we are in Rome, yippee!!!  We will be connecting in Amsterdam. I might have time to post there (5 hour layover) otherwise see you all in Rome!! 🙂

Thank you all for sticking with us through our exciting trip!! We’ve been back for a little over a month now and are getting ready for the holidays! I’ve finally started feeling better, back to my old energy. I had no idea pneumonia could take so much out of you! It’s a shame our trip ended the way it did, but the experience was worth it (minus the hospital stint)!

Ryder is now consulting full time, while I’ve been employed with a company in San Luis Obispo. We are ready to move down there after the holidays and will spend the next few weeks enjoying family, friends, and hopefully a little snow 🙂

We wish you all a happy and healthy end to 2012 and a fresh new beginning in 2013!!

Ok. Sooo, here’s the deal. Amanda got some kind of sinus infection and then pneumonia. She was admitted to a private hospital and we had to stay for 3 nights. While in the hospital, I got sick (although hopefully it’s just a flu – the doc gave me antibiotics just in case). Our bodies are telling us we need to take a break for a while. We’re going home.

We just booked a flight home on Friday from Rome to Sacramento.

Next time we travel, we’re either going for a shorter amount of time (2-3 weeks, with most of the trip planned out) or a longer amount of time (months) but in one place. I think we’ll make a post later on about our overall experiences on this trip.

For the detailed story about the hospital, read on.

Amanda got a sore throat our last day in Cinque Terre. The next day, her nasal passages “exploded” (her words) and she had a huge sinus pressure headache and a mild fever. She started taking the Cold & Flu pills we brought with us but it wasn’t doing much. Tuesday she woke up feeling even worse so we went to a tourist section of a nearby hospital. We assumed that because it had tourist in the name that at least someone would speak English. No such luck.

As she started explaining her symptoms, the doc stopped her and had her walk into the office and type into Google Translate. Sweet.

This experience was not a good one. Because the doc didn’t speak English, we don’t think he understood what was going on and couldn’t explain why he prescribed Amanda antibiotics. She started taking them anyway and the next day it was hard for her to breathe and she started wheezing. Things were starting to get serious.

We called a 24/7 nurse hotline from her insurance back home and they recommended her go to a hospital because she was having trouble breathing and her history of asthma. Great. Two times already we had been to hospitals in Italy and both times we had horrible experiences. We were not excited to go to another hospital.

We hopped in a taxi and headed to the private hospital the nurse line recommended. It turns out they don’t have an emergency section. What? How does that work? We waited for quite some time before they were able to schedule an appointment with a doc. He did a quick examination and determined she probably has pneumonia and he recommended she be admitted to the hospital for a few days. We were very thankful that the doctors spoke decent English, but had to put down a 5,000 euro deposit. Yikes.

We paid a little extra to get a private room so that I could stay with her and keep her company. They don’t allow visitors in shared rooms. Apparently, in Italy, hospital patients are expected to bring everything they need to feel comfortable. We didn’t expect to stay the night ( or multiple nights ) so we weren’t prepared.

Chest X-rays and blood tests confirmed pneumonia. They started her on a different antibiotic via IV and aerosol therapy to help her breathe (a mask type of deal where they shove medicated gas in her face).

That night, I slept in the hospital bed right next to her – it was my first time staying in a hospital (thankfully). The next day, after the blood tests, they switched her antibiotic to a more intense one that took much longer to go through the IV. For most of the day she was on this slower IV antibiotic. Later that day they determined it wasn’t moving fast enough so they brought in a pump to help push the antibiotic into her viens. Her hand, were the IV was placed, swelled up and was causing her considerable pain. 🙁 It’s still painful and swollen today, two days later. They ended up stopping that IV antibiotic before it was finished because it was causing so much pain and took out the IV.

She was still wheezing at this point, and aside from the pain in her arm from the IV, was feeling a little better. Still not good enough to be released though so we stayed two more nights. The TV only had one English station and it had Arabic subtitles.

We’re finally back in our hotel but we can’t leave just yet. Since she had pneumonia, it’s a little dangerous for her to fly for a bit. We have to wait 5 days so that’s why we’re coming home Friday.

I’m just hoping that my pneumonia doesn’t pop up again and that we can make it home before I get seriously sick again.

We found a place to stay in Monterosso, the northernmost of the 5 villages in Cinque Terre, and it was…. interesting. The location was fantastic. We had an awesome ocean view and a balcony that was perfect for eating gelato and watching the sunset. The bed, though, was a little short and the bathroom always smelled like sewer. A weird mix of being awesome and horrible.

On our only full day in Cinque Terre, we took a quick boat ride over to the next village, Vernazza, to start a hike. Our hotel neighbors did the hike the day before and it took them 5 hours so we figured it’d be a good workout. Trying to find the start of the hike was a little difficult. After going the wrong way a few times, we finally found the right starting point at the same time as a group of American guys. About 15 minutes in, Amanda’s asthma was starting to bother her. We immediately hiked back down and took the boat back to Monterosso to get her inhaler. After making a quick gelato stop, and I considering taking a nap, we started the hike in reverse at what would have been the end of the trail.

And a good workout it was; man, were we sweating. About 45 minutes in you could tell the views were going to be spectacular. There were red and white lines that look like a long equals sign painted everywhere (hah, almost everywhere) you might go the wrong direction on the hike. A few confusing forks with minimal signage and three liters of water later we reached the top of our hike, the Santuario N. S. di Soviore, at about 550 meters above sea level (according to the altimeter on my watch, calibrated the night before). The views of Monterosso and the sea were stunning. We relaxed and drank water for about 20 minutes.

We bought some more water, exchanged picture-taking with a group of Australians, and followed them down the trail to Vernazza.

It was a long, long way down to Vernazza and hard on our knees. We passed by many olive trees and grape vines. Some farms had motorized collection contraptions that looked like an unsafe unexciting theme park ride through some plants. If you’d ask me, I’d much rather ride a machine than carry boxes of olives/grapes up and down that hillside.

I had heard (or made up, we’ll never know) that the last boat leaves at about 7pmish. It was about 5:45pm when we got close enough to Vernazza to see that the boat was coming. We really didn’t want to wait another hour to take the boat so we ran the rest of the way. And by ran, I mean we RAN. I wasn’t quite sure we’d make it. As we were running through the village streets, I was sure that we’d missed it. Turns out we made it just in time! As we quickly purchased our tickets from the ticket lady she told us it was the last boat. We congratulated ourselves with some high fives as we wiped the sweat off of our faces and hopped on the boat back to Monterosso. In total, it took 3 hours 20 minutes including a 20 minute break at the top.

For dinner, we ate at Ristorante Miky, a swanky place that we had tried to eat at the night before but they didn’t open until 7pm and we were too hungry to wait. We got there at 7:05 to find a line about 10 people long. We had gotten dressed up (OK, OK, fine, I put on my dress up shirt – a collared short sleeve – and Amanda a nice black shirt. We’re traveling, give us a break) and were determined to eat a Miky. A gal in line told us this was Rick Steve’s favorite restaurant in Cinque Terre which probably was a clue to it’s popularity. Amanda had some triple vegetable soufflé dish with *amazing* cheese and I had some tasty gnocchetti in pesto. Tiramisu and chocolate souffle for dessert. Yummmmm.

We slept real good that night. Oh wait, just kidding. Our sleep has been anything but predictable this trip. Amanda had trouble sleeping with a sore throat 🙁 The next morning, reluctantly, we got up early and, reluctantly, had the same nasty hotel breakfast. A short walk to the train station and we were off to La Spezia, the first decently sized city outside of Cinque Terre.

We’ve been using a SIM card from TIM, an Italian mobile phone company, and were relying on our 3G data too much. We hit our data limits while traveling to Cinque Terre and subsequently used up all of our cell phone minutes. For most of our time in Cinque Terre, we were stuck in a hotel with no internet, with mind-boggling slow cell phone internet, and no upcoming hotel reservations for Rome. Uh oh.

Luckily, my data limit reset this morning (Monday) and I was able to use the internet at a decent speed. We waited at the La Spezia train station for 2 hours for a high speed train to Rome with no train changes. Even more luckily, there was wifi at the train station (for a fee) with which we were able to find and book a hotel for Rome. We’ve done too much traveling to a place without having a definite place to stay until the last minute. It’s getting quite tiring. More than a couple times we’ve talked about heading home before we initially wanted to. We’ll see how Rome goes.

But for now, our hotel in Rome is awesome. Considering we had like 6 choices for hotels with wifi and a gym that had 7 consecutive days available the one we picked has turned out to be great so far. Upon checkin, the front desk manager was funny and sarcastic and gave us a room on the top floor. We were A) surprised to have a separate sitting room with couch & king chair, B) surprised to have a walk in closet, and C) surprised to have a 40 foot balcony overlooking Rome!

We don’t have any set plans for Rome yet, but we do know there are about 5 things we know we *have* to see before we go. First thing on our schedule tomorrow is laundry. Yay! Clean clothes!

Yesterday we met Giancarlo, the mask maker, back at his shop to follow him to the post office to mail our mask. We also brought other souvenirs with us to mail home when we met Giancarlo, and he was so generous to find us boxes in his shop and use his packaging supplies to help us pack our other “to mail” items. During the process, he filled us in on some disturbing facts about Venice and the mafia. He told us that local italians never pays for the tickets to take the water buses around Venice because they are 7 euro for one hour of travel, an astronomical price when you consider that to use the subway in Paris, France, it’s 1 euro per ticket destination. He explained that this huge hike in prices is due to the mafia controlling the transportation in Venice. He also said the gondolas are mandated by the government to be 80 euro for 40 minutes, but because the gondoliers are in the mafai’s pocket, they charge tourists anywhere from 80 euro to 140 euro for sometimes less than half an hour! We couldn’t believe it. After Giancarlo took us to the post office and helped us mail all of our purchases, we treated him to some cappuccinos and said goodbye.

We walked back to our hotel, packed up, and took the water bus back to the train station, passing under the Rialto Bridge on our way. We didn’t bother actually walking on the bridge because the Ponte Vecchio is way cooler. Our train ride was 2 hours to Verona and pretty relaxing.

When we reached Verona, we caught a bus from the train station to a different train station closer to where our room was that we were renting on airbnb.com. Our host picked us up from the bus stop and dropped us off at the small flat. It was very nice and clean if a bit small. We hung out in the flat, then walked 10 minutes from the flat into the city center to find some dinner. Feeling nice and full after, we followed the crowds to a famous square in Verona called the Piazza dei Signori. We wandered among the shops still open and passed by the statue of Dante. Next, we found an alley way that looked like a very sad attempt at Bubblegum Alley in San Luis Obispo. The alley way was chock full of graffiti and led us to the famous Romeo and Juliet balcony!

The balcony was very pretty, connected to the House of Juliet and set in a small courtyard with a bronze statue of Juliet. Apparently, if you touch Juliet’s right breast, you will receive a new lover. There was quite a queue of young men waiting for their turn to touch the statue’s boob. Go figure. According to the English panel below the balcony, the building once belonged to a very promenant and wealthy Italian family called Cappello (This family is believed to be Shakespeare’s Capulet). There is also apparently a “tomb” of Juliet below the building.

We left the poor statue and headed back over the river to our flat, purchasing some groceries along the way. When we arrived back, we noticed a very strong rotten egg smell in the apartment that reminded me very strongly of propane or natural gas. Ryder couldn’t smell it very well because his sniffer is broken, but we contacted the owner who said he would look at it in the morning. We couldn’t leave the windows open because we were directly above a major (and loud) street. With the windows closed, we both started feeling sick, dizzy, and experienced headaches. Eek! Ryder tried turning off the gas valves, but the feelings and smell persisted. Finally we called airbnb and told them the situtation, and called the owner to get him to come over to fix it. Well he finally showed up at around 11pm and explained that some electrical things were done two days ago and must have stopped the heater from turning on properly. He apparently “fixed” it, but we still didn’t feel comfortable at all sleeping somewhere with gas problems. We told him we’d rather leave and he showed us the door.

Now its 11pm and we walk back toward the bus stop only to discover that the busses are no longer running this late. The owner of the flat meets us farther down the street and tells us his wife wants us to stay at their house in their extra room. She was mad at him for just kicking us out onto the street so late. We graciously declined the offer, deciding to try to catch a night train to Rome instead. We finally managed to hail a cab and were taken back to the train station. On the way, I caught quite a few glimpses of street walkers about their business. Talk about the city of love. Once at the station, we tried to reserve tickets for a night train, but couldn’t manage to get any sleeper beds within the same compartment. So, we instead booked a night at a hotel near the train station, caught another taxi, and finally got into bed at 1am. Phew, what an experience.

Today, we are going to take the train (5 hours) to a small hotel located within the Cinque Terre national park. Unfortunately, there is no internet available at this hotel so we will not be posting updates until we reach a new destination on Monday (probably Rome), so expect lots of photos and stories on Monday (unless we can find an internet cafe). Until then, caio!

Today we woke up at around 9:30am and moseyed on down to the breakfast room for some cereal, eggs, and cappuccinos! The hotel has a tiny terrace off the breakfast seating area were we settled, sipping our cappuccinos and watching boats glide by on the canal below. Ryder wanted to venture off the main Venice island today to see glass blowing on the neighboring island, Murano. He went down to ask the concierge where we should go to catch a boat ride, and he told Ryder for us to be in the lobby at 11am.

Ok, 11am and we are met by an Italian guy who tells us its a five minute walk to the boat. He asks us were we are from then assumes we are following him for the next 4.5 minutes. We reach our destination; a dock in a canal running next to a hospital where the ambulance boats park (Yep, that’s right! Need an ambulance in Venice? It floats!). He says the boat will be here soon and then another Italian guy walks up who is introduced to us by Italian guy 1 as his “associate.” Hmm ok. A few minutes later, a boat pulls up and Italian guy 1 helps us in then says “Ciao!” and walks off with Italian guy 2. Now we are alone in a strange boat with a mute driver (we’ll call him Italian guy 3 just to be consistent) who backs up, heads out of the canal, and into open water outside of the Venice island. I have a momentary flash of, “Oh great, we are so getting sold into slavery,” then I realize its Venice and it helped that the boat seemed to be headed directly towards the neighboring island. I know mom, I know, don’t get into boats with strangers. I really wasn’t that worried, I have Ryder to protect me 🙂

The boat ride out was pretty awesome. It looks as though the waterways are marked off by large pylons spaced every 10 feet or so, creating a sort of “boat freeway” between the islands. We passed a few private boats, taxis, shuttles in the distance, and an entire island turned into a cemetery. Finally, we pulled up along side the island of Murano. We were dropped off by Italian guy 3 at private dock a bit down the outside of the island.

Another Italian guy (You guessed it, Italian guy 4) met us at the dock and ushered us into a glass blowing studio! Three men (who we found out later were brothers) were working together to create a glass chandelier; what this particular shop is known for. The glass blower (gaffer) used a long metal rod (about 4 feet) to pick up a portion of the liquid glass (called a gather), then would use gravity, rolling, and some blowing (parison) into the metal rod to get the desired shape (marvering). At one point, he used metal tongs to pinch the bottom of the hot glass, then twisted the rod to get a spiral effect. It was really neat to watch.

According to Boise State University, the art of glass blowing was discovered along the Phoenician coast in 20 B.C. This new technique changed the use of glass from jewelry and ornaments to necessities and is still done in basically the same way today. Constantinople provided the center of glass working after the decline of Rome, while Venice rose as the glass working center after the Dark Ages. Venetian glass was also known as cristallo because it resembled rock crystal. Today, the good stuff is dubbed Murano glass.

After an allocated number of minutes, a smartly dressed salesman lead us out of the studio and into a show room where we discovered 6 rooms full of plates, cups, bowls, vases, glasses, pieces of art, and anything else you can think of all made from glass! We walked around a bit then headed out into the heart of the island. After venturing into a few shops and purchasing some gifts, we ran into two gentlemen we had met on the train from Florence to Venice, Doug and Frazier from Victoria, Canada. It was so great to run into them again! We decided to have lunch together and had the best time! After a couple of hours we parted ways and headed back to the main island. We took the local transportation this time 🙂

Back in Venice, and making our way back to our hotel, we stumbled across a shop selling Venetian masks. This is actually quite common in Venice, lots and LOTS of stores sells masks, but what was unique about this particular shop was we could see a woman in the window actually making one of the masks! Well, my artistic curiosity was piqued so we walked into the shop. The owner greeted us at the door, showing us the two different types of masks him and his wife (the woman working on the mask) make. They had a few ceramic masks, the rest were made by hand out of paper-màché from molds they had made themselves. The masks were then hand painted and decorated. Their shop was full of beautiful designs and unique masks. We purchased one, had some fun working with the owner to figure out packaging, then said goodbye, planning to meet up with him to go to the post office tomorrow to mail our mask and some other things.

Back on the street, and again making our way back to our hotel, we were talked into a gondola ride by a very persistent gondola oarsman dude guy… what do we call him? Anyway, we got into the gondola and set off! It was quite a neat experience to see Venice from the canals. We drifted under bridges and around other gondolas, waving at fellow tourists who floated by. Our gondola oarsman dude guy was very talkative and in English with a smattering of Italian (maybe it was the other way around) pointed out the water marks along the canal where the water line had risen high enough to flood the first floor! After a bit of confusion we realized he was telling us that in November and December it is very common for the water level to rise higher than the first floor of most of the buildings in Venice during high tide, then wash back out during low tide. At almost every building he would say, “Lady, excuse, lady, lady look, see…” He also explained a bit about gondolas, showing us how the boat tips a bit to the right making it slice through the water and easier for him to maneuver. All in all, it was a very interesting and entertaining ride through the watery “streets” of Venice 🙂

After the gondola, we FINALLY made it back to the hotel to drop off our purchases, then we headed back out into the city for dinner. We ate at a small corner restaurant, grabbed some gelato, and walked back to the Piazza San Marco to enjoy the live classical music wafting across the square played by three small orchestras set at intervals along the piazza. Tomorrow we leave magical Venice for Verona!

P.S. According to Wikipedia (cringe), a gondola dude is called a gondolier 🙂