Eiffel Tower, Here I Come!

Just a quick note to say I am off to Paris this morning. My bus leaves for the airport in less than an hour and I couldn't be more excited! Plans when I am there? Head to the top of the tower of course! Other than that, I have no plans. I want to just go, experience Paris for a few days and have a good time. I am coming back Saturday night so I will post on Sunday.

Time Change, Siena & Christmas Carols... What do they all have in common? ME!

I woke up this morning at 11:30, which was actually pretty late for me but I wasn't worried. It was Sunday and I had nothing going on. I found out around 12:30 however that our time change was last night. So, that means instead of sleeping until 11:30, I was actually up at 10:30am! I didn't feel so bad after that. :)

Ivonne (Mario's gf) asked me if I wanted to go with her and 2 of her friends to Siena for the day. This was the city that has the horse races every year that I went to this past August. My plans for the day consisted of pj's, movies and room cleaning so I was glad when the opportunity arose for me to get out of my jammies and get out of Florence for the day.

We made it to Siena around 3pm and walked through some of the streets. It was actually a very nice little city without a million people running through it. :) We stopped for gelato and then headed to the Duomo (the main church) to check out the museum as well as climb to the top for a panoramic view of the city. The climb up was a bit of a killer but the view was well worth it, as it always is.

Once down from the Duomo we headed back to the car. While on our way to the car we all ended up talking about Christmas. We were all saying how much we enjoyed Christmas music and I was saying that I couldn't wait to start playing it. Well, luck be to us, Lorenzo just happened to have Christmas carols on his Ipod and we were able to listen to them for the hour car ride back to Florence. It was very nice and I now I can't wait until Christmas!

Gelato: 1/2 Caramel & 1/2 Choc chip
Temp: a beautiful 19 degrees today

From one extreme to the next

I decided to hit up the markets again this past week. I was on the lookout for a specific shirt and I have been looking for awhile now and haven't been able to find one. As of yesterday, I was at the same market 4 days in a row! lol I was also lucky enough to finally find the shirt that I so desperately wanted.... a black t-shirt with a big 1up green Mario mushroom on it! Score!!!

Now, I know your are laughing and thinking that I am a bit lame here, however let me explain. Although I was a child of the 70's my friends and I did like to partake in the occasional video game. Nintendo was our game system of choice. We didn't play them all of the time like the kids now a days, but we did play them. I bought myself my first GameBoy at age 13 and its been Mario Brother's ever since. When I came here and seen that they had these cheesy 1-up shirts available, I knew I had to have one.

I have also noticed how things change around the markets. The purses/bags for instance. Every few weeks the selection of bags changes. Once it does though the older ones get a bit lower priced and the new ones are promoted. Just like in a regular store really. The same goes for things like scarfs, trinkets, etc. Things are always changing.

I do enjoy my time though in the markets and realized that I had yet to take some pictures. So, I went out the other day and snapped a few. I needed to take my pictures from the eurochocolate event into the office so they could copy them and just happened to have my camera along. I actually was a little worried about my pictures from the festival but in the end realized there was nothing to worry about as she loved my pictures. Yeah!

I decided today to leave the city and check out a place called "The Mall". It is a big area filled with name brand stores (Gucci, Fendi, Diesel and more). I hadn't been and thought it might be worth a look and possibly a purchase or two. ;) Well I hopped on the bus at 11am and arrived at "The Mall" by 12pm. After my first stop in a very high end store (I totally forgot the name), I already realized how out of my league I was. I continued though to go in and out of over 50% of the stores. I am pretty sure I was getting some funny looks as I was just walking in, checking out the price tag on a purse that I was thought was cute, realized that it was approx. 300e above my budget and then walked out. Needless to say, I burned through the stores in record time. I think I had the quickest shopping trip ever as I realized that it was only 12:30pm. lol I had looked into approx 12 stores in 30min. I decided then to go and wait for the next bus that was scheduled for 12:45pm. I made it back to Florence before 2pm without a bag in my hand!

On my way back to the apartment I skimmed the suitcase vendors to see if there was any that caught my eye. I was just about to head home, suitcaseless when I seen it. My new hot purple large suitcase and for the low low price (after bartering) of 15e, it was my kind of deal. :)

Living in Europe definitely opens your eyes to the extremes of shopping, sometimes all in one day!

Gelato: Yogurt Bosco (sorry, I kept on forgetting to add this for awhile)
Temp: 15 today, raining and humidity 78% Brrr....

4 Months down

Well, today hit my 4 month mark here in Florence. It totally doesn't feel like 4 months here most days and then others it feels like I have been gone from home forever! I can say I have done a few more things that I wanted to, which is great, but I still have a few more to go. With that, here is my monthly what I have done and what I have left to do list. :)

The last 30 days has brought many fun things. For starters, I had my one and only visitor. Jeanette and I had so much fun together. We went to 3 museums, as well as did a wine tasting. We tried Florentine steak and visited Rome for 4 days. I also had the opportunity to go to the Netherlands to visit a friend, which was a lot of fun. I hit up two zoo's in two different countries in less than two weeks, along with an amusement park. I have eaten WAY to much deep fried food and chocolate the last 30 days, but did you notice that it still made it on my fun things I did list?!? I made 3 trips up to the town of Fiesole in hopes of hitting the market but that never once happened. I did however, end up with some nice pictures of Florence. All in all, the last 30days have been great and I look forward to the next 30.

Now for the bad or the what I haven't done yet list. I still haven't made it to a night club/bar. Now, if I don't actually make it to a club before I leave I'm not going to be heartbroken by any means. If I do make it though, it might be a fun time. I also had the misfortune of loosing a lot of money this past month. Its a bit of a long story and I did make the choice not to blog about it, but I ended up having a moment of weakness here, be it me being naive and to trusting or what, but I ended up trusting someone with a bunch of money who ended up being a scam artist (or so we believe). I was very upset about this for quiet a few days but realized that everything happens for a reason and I wasn't going to let it ruin the rest of my Italian experience. So, I picked myself up and moved on. The only other bad thing this past 30days has been the weather. It has been a very cold fall here, colder than it should be. It has been around 13-17 degrees for the last few weeks with lows being close to zero. Normally I am told it should be around the 20 degree mark so definitely colder than past years. Lets just say that I am really looking forward to the heat being turned on November 1st! :)

So, what am I looking forward to in the upcoming month? Well for starters I am going to Paris next Wednesday so that should be so much fun! I am really looking forward to it. I also will be going to Venice and possibly a few other day trips around Florence and Tuscany if I have the chance. The rest of the month will be spent just hanging out around here and enjoying my last 55 days in Europe as much as I can.

Eurochocolate... sounds yummy doesn't it?

I headed out to a town called Perugia today where every year they have a 10 day festival called Eurochocolate. I seen it on the FlorenceForFun website and I decided to sign up. I was also taking pictures for them while I was there today which then gave me a huge discount on my day ticket...free! :)

The train ride was long (about 2.5hrs) and we arrived in Perugia around 10:30. I had 6 hours to take some pictures, try a bunch of chocolate and take in my chocolate experience. I definitely have some good and some bad things about today, which of course I will share.

Lets start with the bad (just to get it out of the way). It was so crazy crowded with people. Now I don't mean people standing in line waiting, I mean 100 people all pushing and shoving their way to the front of the Lindt chocolate line up just to get a free chocolate. It was Crazy!!! Now, I need to interject here to say that yes, I was also in the line up/chaos to get one of these free chocolates, but COME ON, do you blame me?!? This was the same scenario at every booth and it didn't get any better as the day went on. The other bad thing was that I was trying to find some chocolate bars here that have a soft creamy caramel center and that is IMPOSSIBLE! I was told by many vendor people today that that's just the way it is in Italy. They have hard caramel and chocolate that tastes like caramel but no soft caramel center bars. Sigh...

Ok, now on to the good! There was about 30 booths all with chocolate in them you could buy. It was crazy! You can buy pasta that tastes like chocolate (which I did), you can get liqueurs that taste like chocolate and you can buy pretty much every type of chocolate and thing mixed with chocolate you could think of (except caramel). ;-) When we first arrived, our tour leaders gave us a card that entitled us to discounts on chocolate as well as free items at various booths throughout. This part was pretty cool as about every second booth was giving out free samples of something. Mmmmm C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E!!!! The first booth I squished my way up to had hot chocolate but very soon I realized that everyone was eating it with a spoon. I then found out that this is how Italians have hot chocolate. They eat it with a spoon because it has the consistency of pudding. After eating my pudding/hot chocolate, I made my way to the next booth and just kept on snacking all the way down the line.

I did however, stop and have an actual lunch because I thought that chocolate for lunch and possibly supper would be a bit much for me for one day and I was right. By the time I got back on the train to go home, I think I had consumed about 3 chocolate bars (which doesn't sound like much but it really was) and hadn't even touched the chocolate that I bought for me to eat. oh well... more for me to eat another day I guess. ;)

Wax, Booze and Sex... Amsterdam Oct 12th

I arrived in Amsterdam at 10am. The fist thing I had on my agenda was to take a canal cruise of the city. I actually didn't know this before, but Amsterdam is built on a bunch of canals, much like Venice. The cruise lasted a little over an hour and I was hitting the streets by 11:30.

Now most people when they go to new cities tend to go to the more historical sites, like the Van Gogh Museum. HAHAHA not I! I wanted my day in Amsterdam to be filled with fun so I did take in 3 museums while there, but not the types you are thinking. ;)

My first stop after grabbing a quick bite to eat was the Sex Museum. Yup, I thought, why not? It ended up being, well lets just say, very interesting. There were some things that made me laugh, some that made me a little shocked and some that I couldn't even believe would make it into a museum at all. There was some crazy stuff. After a few pictures and a few laughs I was on my way to the next museum of choice... the museum of Bols!

The museum of Bols is a museum where you get to smell, touch and taste how this particular brand of alcohol is made. It was pretty cool. Once inside the first room was the taste area. There were two samples to try which actually were just a samples of berries. the second area was the smell. There was 30 jars set up that you could smell. These weren't smells of alcohol but the ingredients in them. So fruit, herbs, extracts, etc. The third area was were we actually got to pick out the drink we wanted to try. The lady tending the bar made me my drink, which was actually pretty cool to see being done. She actually put 2 strawberries and 2 orange slices in my glass and then just smashed them up, added the sugar and the alcohol and my drink was made. Pretty cool. After I was done my drink (which took about 3min) I went back up to the bar where I got to taste test 2 other types of alcohol they had there. I picked the Blueberry and the Raspberry to try...both yummy! So after about 10min and 3 drinks later I was on my way to the next museum.

The third and final museum on my list for the day was the Madam Tussuad's Wax Museum. Inside you will find celebrities, presidents, etc and they are all made out of wax. Super cool! It took about an hour and a half to get through the whole museum but it was well worth it. As you can see here I ended up getting my picture taken with George after all! Can you tell that we are having a deep conversation?!? I also had my pic singing with Elvis, hugging MJ, standing with Princess Diana and as you can see, Spiderman is saving me from off of a wall.

Once I was back in Helvoirt, Brent and I decided to go find us some chicken as it was as close to turkey as we were getting. We cooked it up and had a great meal.

All in all my trip to the Netherlands this past weekend was very fun. I had fun every day and the country itself is very beautiful. The people also were very friendly and everyone was very helpful. I was glad to have gone and a little sad to have left. I'm not sure if I will ever make it back or not but either way I can now say I have been and had a great time overall. I would highly recommend to the Netherlands to everyone!

A Day at the Zoo! Oct 11th

Today we headed out for the zoo. Now I know I just went to one when in Rome but COME ON, IT'S A ZOO! Whats not to love about going to see animals? We arrived there by 11:30 and off we were looking at all kinds of animals. This was the biggest zoo I have EVER seen and totally kicked the Rome's zoo ass!!! lol It was huge! It actually had 6 different area's that specialized in different types of animals. For example, there was an Ocean which of course had all types of fish along with a few sharks. There was also a Safari where I got to see more "Rafs" some rhinoceroses as well as some zebra's. I seen Aardvarks, snakes, monkeys, meerkats, warthogs, lions, cougars and more. It was really, really fun.

For lunch we stopped and had some baby pancakes that were smothered in icing sugar and butter. Mmmm.... Trust me when I tell you, the food in Holland was GREAT!!!

All in all we ended up spending over 5 hours at the zoo on Sunday.

Being a kid again... Sat Oct 10th

Today we were up fairly early and headed to a town about an hour away. They have this really big amusement park and both of us thought it would be a very good way to spend our day. Who doesn't like fairs?!? Before actually heading to the amusement park though we stopped in at this bakery shop for a very popular type of pastry. It is called a Bosschebollen and was the best tasting pastry I have EVER had in my life! It basically looks like a giant (about the size of your fist) cream puff but totally round. Then, once cooled, it is dipped in chocolate and WOW was it yummy. We grabbed one each and made our way to Efteling where the amusement park was.

The first thing we did when we got to the park was eat our chocolate balls. usually people eat these with a fork and knife but we decided to eat them walking into the park so we were covered in cream and chocolate and everyone around us was laughing at us b/c they totally knew what we were eating and how messy they were.

Once inside we looked around for a bit and then went on our first ride. It was really funny because we didn't actually know what the rides were until we were about to get on them because they were all written in Dutch but that was part of the fun. So, the first ride we ended up on was called the Carnival ride and it was a kids ride but turned out to be fun and we laughed a lot. Secondly we went to the roller coaster. I have never been on a roller coaster before and I was pretty scared. This one was pretty big and you couldn't even see a chunk of it from where we stood so we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. It was one of the scariest rides I have ever been on. The only nice thing was that it was very short. we went around 2 loops and was sideways for a bit and then it was pretty much over (which was good).

We ended up going on about 4 more rides, which some of them were actually quite scary. We also had some pancakes for lunch which were awesome! They tasted soo good. I tried some with bacon and onion and then the dessert one had caramelized apples on it. YUMMY!!!! I also was able to find some cotton candy (which they call some weird 12 letter word) and then it was almost home time.

Once back in Den Bosch we decided to go for supper and have a few drinks. I again had a great tasting meal and the wine was also very tasty. We were back at the house by 11 and I was in bed fairly early as were getting up early the next day for another fun filled day!

Arriving in the Netherlands...Friday Oct9th

The plane ride into the Netherlands (aka Holland) today was good. I ended up sleeping most of the way. :) I arrived into Eindhoven by 12 and had about 4 hours to kill before I needed to head out to meet Brent. Once downtown at the train station, I locked up my suitcase and headed into town for some shopping! ;) I was very surprised at the number of things I seen that I wanted but refrained pretty well I think. I only came out of my 3 hours of shopping with one sweater which was a steal of a deal at 12e and then I found myself a jacket for the upcoming winter here... yeah!

I then headed out on the train to Den Bosch and then caught the bus to Helvoirt where I would be spending my next 4 nights. It was very easy to find and Brent got off work just as I was arriving so it worked out perfectly.

We went to a little fast food joint for supper and I tried some local cuisine which consisted of fries with onions, some type of sweet and sour chili sauce and a type of mayonnaise on them. Different at first but I really liked them. I also tried a deep fried something (can't remember the name) but to be honest I didn't really like it. It had a really mushy texture and just really wasn't my cup of tea.

After supper we just took a walk around town, played some cards and I went to bed early as I was up at 5am.

Buscapedes...

So yesterday I decided to head downtown and do a little running around. My first stop was the post office. The day before last I went out and bought a box (about the size of a shoe box and a half) and yesterday I filled it and went to send it home. I thought this was going to be a slightly cost effective way of getting some of my random stuff that I have been collecting back home safely. Well I should have shown better because I have noticed (and maybe you have also) that things aren't always how I think they should be here in Italy. :{

I got to the post office with my 5kg box and explained to the guy behind the desk that I needed to mail this as slowly as possible back home. He told me the quickest way was by air and it was going to cost me 39e. I said, no sir, I want to be really cheap and take as long as possible. He then retold me that if I send it by air it will only cost 39e and get there in 10days. ugh! I ended up having to go to a different post office across town and see what options they have for shipping because from what I understood each post office can only send so many parcels a certain way and the "slow" style was all finished he kept telling me. Does this make sense to any of you because it sure didn't to me. Anyway, I lugged the box (which by now was starting to feel like 10kg instead of just 5) on buses and managed to get to the other post office. Once inside the nice lady at the desk told me the quickest way was to go by air and cost only 39e. Can you believe it? It's only 39e by air! Wow that's great to know the next time I want to send something by air!!! After talking to her for a bit she told me that I could send it snail mail but it was still going to cost me 30e, so I would save 9. Well to be honest, I still wasn't willing to spend 30e and so I decided to bring the box home with me. I now have a yellow box filled with stuff holding up a shelf for me in my closet. ;) Solution here? I'm buying a second suitcase and bringing it home myself!

After dropping my box back off at home I decided to go to the local English book store that you can buy and trade in used books. I made it there in record time and got some store credit. I was looking for a particular author and book title. I had already read 2 out of the 4 in her series that she had wrote and I was trying to find the other two. Well, just my luck I found one pretty much right off the bat. I took it to the counter, used my credit and off I went with my new to me book.

So, I decided to head back up the hill today on the bus and go to Fiesole again where I went on Sunday but just rode the bus around instead of actually getting off and looking around. Well, I had a seat on the bus so I took out my new book and thought I would read a bit as I had about 1/2hour. As I read the first couple of sentences I realized that the book was sounding very familiar to me. Would you believe that it was the SAME book that I had just dropped off at the book store not 20min earlier? I exchanged my book for the exact same one! LOL I felt like a complete moron. Now, just to make myself feel a little better here, the books had different covers on them and were different sizes. Should I have looked more closely at the name? yes. But really, I was just so happy to have found one of them that I just grabbed it and went. ugh!

Anyway so I ended up instead listening to the make-out couple beside me. What is it with me, buses and people making out? I have never seen so many people suck face in all of my life as I do here. I'm all about the occasional PDA, but COME ON! And people aren't quiet about it either. They make out loud enough that anyone with ears and within 10ft from them can here them. Its rather disgusting.

Once up at the top I got off the bus and realized that there were no markets today. It must be just a weekend thing and I really wanted to see the markets so I turned around and got back on the bus. lol Yup, second time up on the hill and still haven't actually taken a picture or looked around at all. In the end I wish I would have stayed up for a little while longer because on the way back down I gave up my seat to a little kid and his mom so I had to stand. Not only that but 2 girls (about 16) decided to sing songs in English at the top of their lungs all the way down. Now I wish I could say they were good but really what it was, was that they thought they were good. It was so unpleasant I decided to put my Ipod on so I could hopefully drown them out. Well no luck there either as my Ipod was dead. So, there I was, standing beside the Beyonce want-to-be's and had no way of escaping them!

I arrived home with only little ear damage and decided that again it was a 2.5e gelato day! Mmmm

Poor Poor Puppy...

Wow, I can't believe I have been slacking on my blogging so much lately. Chalk it up to being busy and when I wasn't busy, nothing was happening worth blogging about. ;-)

On Sunday I decided to head down to the markets just to wander around. I needed to get out of the apartment and get some fresh air and the markets are always a fun place to go. Hundreds of tourists all wheeling and dealing to get a bargain on whatever item they are trying to purchase. Some of them get pretty grumpy when they can't get the price they think that item is worth and others just pay full price without even blinking an eye. Its perfect for someone like me because I'm a people watcher. I love to see the happy people with there new items and I chuckle at the grumpy ones who thought paying 5euro's for a t-shirt/hat/trinket/fill in the blank was way to much. I have witnessed tourists argue over .50cents and others walk away over it. I however have pretty much come up with a tried and true method of getting a little deal. Because I have had the time to wander through the markets day in and day out over the last few months, I know how much things are and which booths are a little cheaper than others. They all carry pretty much the same things. There are booths that have T-shirts, ones that have bags/purses, ones that have jewelry and the ones that have souvenirs. If on the off chance though I have found something at one booth that may be a euro or two more than a previous booth I first ask for a deal and if they say no, I say, "no worries, I can get it back there for Xeuros. Thank you" and I start walking away. They know that it is cheaper else wear and so they always end up giving it to me for the same deal that I would have gotten at the other booth. It's great! :)

After doing some people watching and zero spending on Sunday I hopped on a city bus and rode up to a town directly above Florence. I have heard it has very beautiful views from up there and it is very easy to get to, so I thought I should check it out. I didn't actually take my camera with me though, nor did I get off the bus. lol I just rode up, looked out the window and thought I need to come back up here with my camera and then rode back down. It took about 1.5 hours to make the whole journey but really, what was I planning on doing at home anyway? Facebook poker? FarmVille? So, I have decided that I think tomorrow or Thursday I will take the bus back up and get off the bus, check out the market up in that town and take some pics. Should be good fun.

Ok, so today I just took a quick ride to the station because I needed to pick up a box at the post office to mail home. I took the bus, as always and ended up seeing the funniest (well I think so anyway) thing. I was standing by the doors on the bus and as we were stopped at a red light a little old couple walked by with a small (I believe a Shih Tzus type) dog. I was just minding my own business and watching this cute little doggie and then all of sudden he got far enough up ahead of me so that I was looking at his back end. This poor doggie (definitely a boy) had the biggest boy parts dangling behind him I have EVER seen on a dog. This was not right! I'm sure they looked about the size of an adults hand made into a fist. Now ok, I know I shouldn't laugh because I'm sure the poor dog was in a lot of pain but COME ON! So there I was, on a public bus surrounded by a bunch of Italian strangers and I was laughing. Out right laughing. I couldn't stop. It was really very funny. Then I looked up and another man sitting close to me also noticed this poor dog in "distress" and he said something in Italian (which I can only imagine what it was) to his friend, made his hand into a fist and started laughing as well. So not only am I laughing about this poor doggie but now there are 2 other people on this bus laughing and joking in Italian. It really was quite the site. Anyway, we drove off and they continued on there walk. Thinking about it now still makes me chuckle a little. I sure hope his owners get him the help he needs. ;) lol

On my own again...

Well, Jeanette has left and made it home ok. It's weird to think that my visitor is gone. It was so great having her here. We had a great time going to Pisa, checking out Museum's and parks around Florence and touring Rome together.

We ended up heading to Rome last Sunday. The trip itself wasn't so bad but it took about 2 hours to find our hotel and was very very exhausting. We checked in and both decided to take a nap. lol about 2 hours later we got up and thought we should head down for supper. After supper we were both really tired again and decided to just go to sleep early.

Monday we had tickets for going on a tour of the Necropolis (under the Basilica). We finally found our way there with only about 8min to spare and started our tour. The tour was really interesting as we were able to see some tombs and many other historical things. The pathways were very small and it was a little hard to breath but all in all, a very cool experience. After our tour we just walked around the Basilica and then headed into the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. We were a little rushed as the museum closed only an hour after we got in so we did a very quick walk through but it was worth it. Once out of Vatican city, we hoped on the metro and made out way to the Spanish steps and the Trevi fountain. I have to be completely honest here and say that we were both a little disappointed with the Spanish steps. In all of the pictures you see the steps are so beautiful and free of debris and people but what we saw was not how it was portrayed in pictures. We seen about 500+ people crowded on the steps, sitting/eating/smoking and it was very over run with garbage and just not the best picture. We then walked over to the Trevi fountain which was a much better experience. It was a beautiful fountain and we made sure to take lots of pictures and also throw our spare change in. :)

Tuesday was a bit quieter as we decided to book a Colosseum tour instead of trying to do it on our own. We met up with the tour guide at 3 and for about 2-3hours she took us around to some ruins as well as the Colosseum. It was really a cool thing to see and we were both glad we did it with a tour guide. After the tour was finished we decided to buy tickets for the hop on hop off open top buses and tour the city by night on one of those. It was well worth it. The open top double decker bus was cool in itself but to see Rome by night from the bus was a real treat. We got off at a stop near our hotel pickup point and was back at the hotel by 9:45.

Wednesday was a very mellow day for us. We didn't want to do anything to stressful so we decided to go to the zoo. I was very excited about this as I love zoo's. We got a little lost finding our way there but once there it was well worth it! I took tonnes of pictures of the 'rafs' (my nephews nickname for the giraffes). We also seen zebra's, hippo's, elephants, camels and more. It was really fun and I was sure glad we went. After the zoo we walked to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch (well supperish) and had a great meal. We then just decided to go back to the hotel so Jeanette could pack and we could just relax the night before she left.

Thursday morning we were up early, and at the airport by 10am. I hung out with her until she had to go through security and then I just came back to Florence. I was back here by 3pm. Found out later that night that she made it home ok with no problems (which is always great to hear).

I am definitely sad that Jeanette is no longer here but I have quite a few things to look forward to in the near future and I am really looking forward to them. On the 9th I am heading to see a friend in the Netherlands. We met on my Contiki trip and because he is living in the Netherlands right now (actually from Canada as well) we thought it would be fun for me to come and visit for a weekend. So it looks like my Thanksgiving will be spent with a fellow Canadian in the Netherlands. Weird huh? Then, around the 20th or so of Oct I am going to hop a train and head to Venice for a night. After that I am heading to Paris on the 28th for 3 nights and then my October will be done. Its only 10 weeks tomorrow until I come and its hard to believe.