May 8th-13th 2011
Hi all!
So it wasn't exactly before the end of the weekend but this was a long one!!! Also, I forgot to mention one of the biggest parts of our train ride... We MIGHT have made a friend!!! LOL! Yes, we met a guy named Daniel on the train who is from Budapest, speaks English and offered to show us around the city. We haven't met up with him yet but I will keep you posted! :)
So after we got to our hotel in Vicenza we were beat! We immediately fell asleep for 6 hours... pretty much ruining our first day there! :( Once we finally got out of the hotel we realized what a cool city Vicenza is! Brian has been there a few times before but this was my first trip to Italy... ever! We decided to take the bus down to the center of the city. We wandered for a while before finding a great restaurant in an alley. It was called Ca' D' Oro and it was downstairs in what looked like a renovated basement/cellar! It was so cute! This is when I found out that they don't just serve you one meal after an appetizer. They have primi piatti, which is basically pasta and secondi piatti, which are the main courses. I ordered a pasta with peas and a green sauce which came out first, and Brian had a frutti di mare pizza. Check out the pictures for that one! It was delicious!!! After we finished dinner we were going to get gelato but at 11pm, everything was closed. :( Maybe another day.
On Monday, Brian had to go to work in Montecchio Maggiore (a city on the outskirts of Vicenza) and I decided to explore on my own! And by explore I mean SHOP!!! :) Vicenza has some fabulously expensive shops, but lucky for me they also had H&M! I limited myself because once I started converting the cost of things in Euros to U.S. dollars I realized it wasn't very cheap to shop in Italy! I did get myself some gelato though! I found a cute spot in the Piazza dei Signori to sit and eat my mango and papaya gelato... SUCCESS!!! Brian was given a car at work that day so he drove to meet me in the city. We again ate some wonderful food consisting of cream of asparagus soup and veal for me and rabbit meat balls for Brian. He's so adventurous! :)
On Tuesday I decided to go running... with Candi. She's not exactly the type of dog you can run with because she's a little... spastic? Yup, that's a good way to describe it. She gets side-tracked and forgets that we are supposed to be running. Anyway, our run turned in to a walk after a little while and that suited her just fine. Brian got off work a little early that day and we drove to Verona!!! It was only about 40 minutes from Vicenza and what a pretty place! I was especially excited to see Juliet's balcony where our friends Nick and Ciara got engaged! Unfortunately it was closed but we took pictures in front of the gate! After that we decided to do what we do best in Italy and eat! We ate outside at a beautiful little restaurant overlooking the Piazza delle Erbe. The architecture in Italy is incredible! We were looking at these buildings that were built hundreds of years ago and realized that the oldest buildings in AZ are maybe 70 years old? Hahaha! What an amazing place. I can't wait to go back!
Wednesday was a nice relaxing day. I wandered around the city center taking in some of the beautiful architecture during the day and then we met up with Brian's friend, Silvia that night. She is a mutual friend of his and his friend Nick and they met back in 2005 when Brian and some of his best friends were backpacking through Europe. It was great to finally meet her because I had heard some wonderful things! We had such a good night! We ate at a place called "Papa Joe's" which had an interesting mix of non-italian food. They had everything from Mexican food to Indian food! We then went to get drinks at a little cafe where we met Silvia's friend and I tried a delicious drink made of wine, soda water and mango flavored syrup! MMMMMM!!!! We then went to the piazza to get drinks and just had a great time. Thank Silvia for showing us around Vicenza! It was awesome!!!
Thursday was a fun day for me! I went to the city center early because Silvia had told me about a flea market they were going to have! It was crazy! They were selling everything from men's dress shirts, to rugs, to socks!! Tables and tables full of socks! Haha! It was pretty amazing to see! After that I went to the Teatro Olimpico which is a beautiful theater that was constructed in the late 1500's! I was able to take an audio tour in English and it was soooooo interesting! The architect who designed it was named Andrea Palladio and he is considered one of the most influential people in the history of Western architecture! Unfortunately he died before the theater was completed but his design is incredible! Check out the pictures to see what I mean! The stage was one of the most interesting things about the theater! It was constructed for the first show which was Oedipus the King and was built to represent the ancient streets of Thebes. It's pretty incredible how they designed the streets to look so long and deep using optical illusions in 1585! Seriously, check out the pictures! After my tour I went across the street to the Palazzo Cheiricati where there was an art showing. Please look at these pictures too! Beautiful! Brian had to work late Thursday night so I got room service from the restaurant in our hotel which I was dying to try! I had pasta with mussels and fish eggs... yum...! :)
Friday wasn't an extremely thrilling day because I spent it packing and getting ready to go to Venice!!!! Yay! I'll continue all about Venice in my next post which I promise will be shorter!!! Sorry for the long post and I hope I didn't bore you!
Thanks for reading!
<3 Steph
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Living in Budapest!
May 3rd-8th 2011
Hi all!!! Sorry for the delay in posts! It's been kind of crazy since moving but I finally have some time to make some posts!
I'll start where I left off. So we made it to Frankfurt and then to Budapest without any major problems! All of our bags made it, including my dog, Candi! She wasn't thrilled after coming off the belt but she was fine once we got her out of her kennel. We exchanged 60 U.S. dollars in the airport which equals about 11,500 Hungarian forint! It's quite a task trying to do that conversion in our heads before buying something!
Getting through customs was a breeze! They basically looked at Candi's paperwork and said "welcome to our country!" We were picked up by 2 of Brian's co-workers from where he will be working in Cegled. They brought us to our new home and even ordered pizza for us! :) Needless to say we were exhausted so they left us to our own devices and we ate dinner. We went to bed shortly thereafter and jet-lag ruined our night! We were both up on-and-off until about 7am! Then we were out until 1pm!
After we finally got up we did some unpacking and grocery shopping at the store across the street from our place. What an experience! Nothing is in English and the Hungarian language is like nothing I have ever seen! I speak German and Brian speaks Spanish and we were no good at figuring out what was in which aisle just by reading the signs! It was slow going but we got what we needed! We then decided we needed to figure out how Brian was going to get to Vicenza, Italy for work the following week and websites were just not working. Luckily, the train (similar to the CTA in Chicago) is located right near our place. We took it in to the city to a larger train station and bought tickets for the 3 of us to Venice for the following Saturday night train. Then we ate!!! We had some delicious food at a restaurant in the train station! We then headed home to finish unpacking and we did it!!! Well, I did... I'm writing this about 2 weeks in and Brian still isn't fully unpacked. ;) He won't admit it though.
That Friday we decided to roam the city after we finally woke up! Ugh, jet-lag! We went down to the river. The city of Budapest is split by the Danube river which is absolutely beautiful! The hilly side to the west of the river is "Buda" and the flat side to the east is "Pest". We live on the Pest side in District 14... OR Kerulet XIV. After traveling to the river and seeing that they have a "Hop-On Hop-Off Bus and Boat Tour" (which we are totally gonna do) we decided to eat right by the river! We had some amazing food again! I had stuffed cabbage, which a Hungarian friend of my mom's used to bring over often when we were growing up, and Brian had "meat on a vooden plate"... yes, they said vooden, not wooden. We also had fisherman's soup... with a solid half of a fish in it... I don't think I'll order it again but it was an experience. I'm not a huge "fishy taste" person even though I llllooooovvvveeee sushi! We wandered around a bit, bought some postcards, took in the sites, then headed home on the train!
Saturday was fun.... we re-packed then headed to the train station for our night train to Venice! Then we found out the tickets we booked wouldn't allow for Candi to be with us! So we had to quickly change tickets and barely made it on the train before it left! We won't be taking the train again... It was a 14 hour over-night ride and we thought "great, we'll just sleep"! Not so much. We went through Croatia, Slovenia then to Italy, had our tickets checked about 20 times and our passports checked 15 times. So we didn't get to sleep but we did get our passports stamped a lot!!!! :) We arrived in Venice at 7am. What a beautiful city! We had to wait about an hour for our train to Vicenza and I couldn't wait to come back to explore the following weekend. We boarded our train to Vicenza and took a taxi to our hotel in Vicenza.
I'll stop there because my next post will be all about our week in Vicenza! I should be getting my next post up before the end of this week!
Thanks for reading!
<3 Steph
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."
-Mark Twain
Hi all!!! Sorry for the delay in posts! It's been kind of crazy since moving but I finally have some time to make some posts!
I'll start where I left off. So we made it to Frankfurt and then to Budapest without any major problems! All of our bags made it, including my dog, Candi! She wasn't thrilled after coming off the belt but she was fine once we got her out of her kennel. We exchanged 60 U.S. dollars in the airport which equals about 11,500 Hungarian forint! It's quite a task trying to do that conversion in our heads before buying something!
Getting through customs was a breeze! They basically looked at Candi's paperwork and said "welcome to our country!" We were picked up by 2 of Brian's co-workers from where he will be working in Cegled. They brought us to our new home and even ordered pizza for us! :) Needless to say we were exhausted so they left us to our own devices and we ate dinner. We went to bed shortly thereafter and jet-lag ruined our night! We were both up on-and-off until about 7am! Then we were out until 1pm!
After we finally got up we did some unpacking and grocery shopping at the store across the street from our place. What an experience! Nothing is in English and the Hungarian language is like nothing I have ever seen! I speak German and Brian speaks Spanish and we were no good at figuring out what was in which aisle just by reading the signs! It was slow going but we got what we needed! We then decided we needed to figure out how Brian was going to get to Vicenza, Italy for work the following week and websites were just not working. Luckily, the train (similar to the CTA in Chicago) is located right near our place. We took it in to the city to a larger train station and bought tickets for the 3 of us to Venice for the following Saturday night train. Then we ate!!! We had some delicious food at a restaurant in the train station! We then headed home to finish unpacking and we did it!!! Well, I did... I'm writing this about 2 weeks in and Brian still isn't fully unpacked. ;) He won't admit it though.
That Friday we decided to roam the city after we finally woke up! Ugh, jet-lag! We went down to the river. The city of Budapest is split by the Danube river which is absolutely beautiful! The hilly side to the west of the river is "Buda" and the flat side to the east is "Pest". We live on the Pest side in District 14... OR Kerulet XIV. After traveling to the river and seeing that they have a "Hop-On Hop-Off Bus and Boat Tour" (which we are totally gonna do) we decided to eat right by the river! We had some amazing food again! I had stuffed cabbage, which a Hungarian friend of my mom's used to bring over often when we were growing up, and Brian had "meat on a vooden plate"... yes, they said vooden, not wooden. We also had fisherman's soup... with a solid half of a fish in it... I don't think I'll order it again but it was an experience. I'm not a huge "fishy taste" person even though I llllooooovvvveeee sushi! We wandered around a bit, bought some postcards, took in the sites, then headed home on the train!
Saturday was fun.... we re-packed then headed to the train station for our night train to Venice! Then we found out the tickets we booked wouldn't allow for Candi to be with us! So we had to quickly change tickets and barely made it on the train before it left! We won't be taking the train again... It was a 14 hour over-night ride and we thought "great, we'll just sleep"! Not so much. We went through Croatia, Slovenia then to Italy, had our tickets checked about 20 times and our passports checked 15 times. So we didn't get to sleep but we did get our passports stamped a lot!!!! :) We arrived in Venice at 7am. What a beautiful city! We had to wait about an hour for our train to Vicenza and I couldn't wait to come back to explore the following weekend. We boarded our train to Vicenza and took a taxi to our hotel in Vicenza.
I'll stop there because my next post will be all about our week in Vicenza! I should be getting my next post up before the end of this week!
Thanks for reading!
<3 Steph
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."
-Mark Twain
Friday, May 6, 2011
Final days in Chicago!
April 30th-May 3rd 2011
Hi all!
So I've decided to keep a blog over the next year (thanks to some helpful tips!) I hope you enjoy our travels as much as we do! :) Thanks for visiting!
So as I'm sure you know, Brian and I moved to Budapest this week! Brian is in a training program with his company, ITT, which lasts for 3 years. His first year he spent in Lubbock, TX. His second year we were in Chicago together. We will be spending his third year in the rotation in Budapest, Hungary! While we have both traveled to Europe on many occasions, Brian has never lived in Europe and I moved away from Germany at the age of 2 so this will be a new experience for both of us!
Our last few weeks in Chicago were pretty hectic. We spent our time off from work traveling to see relatives in Detroit, friends in Cleveland and spending time with the awesome friends we had in Chicago. Our last weekend there was by far the best! On Friday we had a going away party with my friends from the physical therapy clinic I worked at, Accelerated Rehabilitation Centers. We spent all of Saturday with our closest friends in Chicago, Nikki and Pete... or Ikki and Pistol! :) Later in the day Brian's good friend from college, Matt, came down from Milwaukee with his girlfriend. We had planned a big night out in Wrigleyville as a last hoorah! And what a night it was! Many of my friends from Equinox (the gym where I worked as a personal trainer) came to celebrate as well as one of Brian's work friends, our friends Jenn and JP who lived downtown, my friends Terri and Lindsey who I used to train at LA Fitness and Brian's friends from AZ! We had such an amazing last weekend in Chicago and we are so grateful to have such amazing friends there!
Brian and I spent the afternoon of Sunday organizing our things. We were lucky during this move because we had movers come to pack everything! So needless to say, Monday was EASY!! The movers came at 9, packed up the things that we going in to storage, wrapped the things that needed to be shipped and were out of there by 4! Brian and I were still packing our suitcases at 6! Haha! Monday night I had some time to go out to dinner with my friends Terri and Lindsey for Lindsey's birthday at Tango Sur. We all ordered the same thing and it was YUMMY!!! Thank you Terri and Lindsey for my Hungary books and Jelly Beans! I'm eating some right now! :)
Tuesday... CHAOS!!! Our flight wasn't until 10:30pm but wouldn't you know that the whole day was filled with last minute to-dos. Including 2 trips to the USDA, 1 trip to the Vet's office, 1 trip to comcast and dropping Brian's car off to be shipped back to AZ. Thank you Nikki for making all of this possible!!! I won't even go in to the details but it was a crazy day! Luckily we got out of our apartment on time with all of our luggage and the dog! The airport was a breeze, hardly any security and after some quick seat changes Brian and I got to sit together after all! Not that it mattered because out of the 8 flying hours he slept for 7 of them. :)
Thanks for reading!
<3 Steph
We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
Hi all!
So I've decided to keep a blog over the next year (thanks to some helpful tips!) I hope you enjoy our travels as much as we do! :) Thanks for visiting!
So as I'm sure you know, Brian and I moved to Budapest this week! Brian is in a training program with his company, ITT, which lasts for 3 years. His first year he spent in Lubbock, TX. His second year we were in Chicago together. We will be spending his third year in the rotation in Budapest, Hungary! While we have both traveled to Europe on many occasions, Brian has never lived in Europe and I moved away from Germany at the age of 2 so this will be a new experience for both of us!
Our last few weeks in Chicago were pretty hectic. We spent our time off from work traveling to see relatives in Detroit, friends in Cleveland and spending time with the awesome friends we had in Chicago. Our last weekend there was by far the best! On Friday we had a going away party with my friends from the physical therapy clinic I worked at, Accelerated Rehabilitation Centers. We spent all of Saturday with our closest friends in Chicago, Nikki and Pete... or Ikki and Pistol! :) Later in the day Brian's good friend from college, Matt, came down from Milwaukee with his girlfriend. We had planned a big night out in Wrigleyville as a last hoorah! And what a night it was! Many of my friends from Equinox (the gym where I worked as a personal trainer) came to celebrate as well as one of Brian's work friends, our friends Jenn and JP who lived downtown, my friends Terri and Lindsey who I used to train at LA Fitness and Brian's friends from AZ! We had such an amazing last weekend in Chicago and we are so grateful to have such amazing friends there!
Brian and I spent the afternoon of Sunday organizing our things. We were lucky during this move because we had movers come to pack everything! So needless to say, Monday was EASY!! The movers came at 9, packed up the things that we going in to storage, wrapped the things that needed to be shipped and were out of there by 4! Brian and I were still packing our suitcases at 6! Haha! Monday night I had some time to go out to dinner with my friends Terri and Lindsey for Lindsey's birthday at Tango Sur. We all ordered the same thing and it was YUMMY!!! Thank you Terri and Lindsey for my Hungary books and Jelly Beans! I'm eating some right now! :)
Tuesday... CHAOS!!! Our flight wasn't until 10:30pm but wouldn't you know that the whole day was filled with last minute to-dos. Including 2 trips to the USDA, 1 trip to the Vet's office, 1 trip to comcast and dropping Brian's car off to be shipped back to AZ. Thank you Nikki for making all of this possible!!! I won't even go in to the details but it was a crazy day! Luckily we got out of our apartment on time with all of our luggage and the dog! The airport was a breeze, hardly any security and after some quick seat changes Brian and I got to sit together after all! Not that it mattered because out of the 8 flying hours he slept for 7 of them. :)
Thanks for reading!
<3 Steph
We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
-Walt Disney
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