Buongiorno!

Well, we're about halfway through Italy! The food here is soooooo amazing. We would normally go out to eat only every other day or so, or at least we'd get something small, and for awhile we were buying salami, cheese and bread like crazy. But here, no. Here, we eat. Tortellini, gnocchi, calzone, pizza, tagliatelle, lasagne, ravioli - we'll have to try it all. And we've decided that we're going to have our own Thanksgiving by going out and doing the whole shebang - antipasti, first course (which is usually a big plate of pasta), second course (usually some meat, and I'm sure we'll choose steak), and dessert. I'm already excited!

Some things we've been up to... in Valencia, like Ali said, we had the Italian roomies. I can't remember if they had been traveling anywhere else before, but for being in Valencia for 4 nights and for being a pair of (we think) straight men, they had a lot of luggage. And, I happened to run into a guy I went to school with at Lewis & Clark! It was crazy - I wasn't entirely sure it was him, and I kept staring at him and debating whether or not I'd approach him, and then later we did actually talk and confirm our identities. We also found a film store store where we could rent DVDs, so we tried to watch Twilight since our hostel had a TV and DVD player, but about 50 minutes through the movie (apparently before it gets really good), it stopped, and we eventually figured out that the player was broken. We did all manage to finish reading (or re-reading) all 4 of the books in Madrid. And okay, yes, the last book was pretty good. The topics of vampires or immortality frequently come up in our conversations now. We took a free tour there in Valencia and learned a bit about the history, which was cool to finally learn about the buildings and things we'd been seeing every day. And we went to the beach! I walked there one morning, and it took well over an hour and a half to get there (and I think I even made it back before Sarah and Ali were up!).

Then we had a LONG travel day. It was about a 3- to 4-hour train ride back to Barcelona, and from there a 15-hour night train to Milan, and then a 3ish-hour train to Venice. And on the night train, we stopped around 6 a.m. at the French-Italian border, and the French border police boarded the train asking for our passports. They searched through some people's bags and even made 3 harmless looking people get off the train!! Ali was in a sleeping car, and a woman in her car had to leave as well, but apparently she might have actually been a criminal! Sarah and I just slept on the reclining chairs, sort of. At one point, I woke up and noticed Sarah wasn't in her seat, and she still hadn't come back from the bathroom or wherever I thought she was about 15 minutes later, but then I found out that she was just sleeping on the floor in the back of our car. So after a long journey, we made it to Venizia! We finally did a little bit of shopping there - what with all the Ventian glass around us, how could we resist?

And we were just in Florence this morning! Last night, we climbed up to the top of the Piazzale Michelangelo and looked over the city and some of the Tuscan landscape under the setting sun. It was beautiful! We did see the David at the Academia Museum, and yes, he was impressive. The detail was just incredible on him, all the veins and muscles defined on the marble. And it was also cool because there was a Robert Maplethorpe exhibit going on too, which complemented Michelangelo's work really well. So we got our art and culture in for the city. And along with all the pasta and pizza, we've eaten a lot of extremely delicious gelato. The gelato stands are just amazing - bright colors of gelato all molded into enticing waves with bits of fruit or chocolate as added decoration.

So here we are in Roma! We still have Cinque Terre (we'll be in Riomaggiore) and then Switzerland! We're definitely still excited for the remainder of our trip, but we've also been preparing ourselves for going home and getting excited about all the things we want to do there. To our families, be prepared to eat lots of European-inspired meals for awhile! I think our other plans include rollerblading (we really should have done that in Nice), walking everywhere, scrapbooking (or at least I will, since I've been saving every little scrap of paper along the way), and reading at the library. We've been making all sorts of lists in our journals - movies to watch, food to make, things to look up regarding Europe or miscellaneous things, etc.

Lots of love to all of you! Ciao! (After seeing Inglorious Basterds, we got really excited for saying 'arrivederci!' in Italy, but we usually just say 'ciao.')