Our trip to Italy

We had quite the whirlwind trip last week! I'll give you the readers digest version ;)
Our original flight out on Thursday was cancelled, leaving us scrambling to get on an earlier flight to Newark instead of Dulles (as it was snowed in). We were able to make a 4:30 flight out with lots of help from my FIL and Scott's fellow teachers who covered his classes so we could leave early. We checked in for our flight and all was well...until we landed and found out that our flight from Newark to Munich was delayed...by 19 hours. There was a snowstorm in Munich as well and the flight that we were supposed to go on never made it to Newark. Boo. So after waiting in line forever we finally got some vouchers for food and a hotel room to hold us over until the flight the next day. We waited (again) for our luggage, as I was NOT going to leave my stuff there overnight, when we found that the airline had broken the handle on my bag. So off we went to ANOTHER line to deal with that. They wanted to give me another bag and move all of my stuff over to that one. At this point it was around 10:30pm and I was DONE. I said no, and we got all the numbers we needed to deal with this situation when we got back to Indy after our trip.
So we hop the shuttle and go to the hotel room, drop our stuff off, and go to the restaurant to get something to eat...with the 300 other people who were in the same situation as we were! There were 2 waiters working, and after waiting 30 minutes and going no where in the line, we opted to order for take out and cut our losses. 30 minutes later we were eating dinner...it was now midnight.
The next day we hop the shuttle and spend the next few hours waiting in line with 300 of our best friends trying to get boarding passes. Finally, we were successful, and we celebrated with some Chilli's (all on the airlines voucher). From Newark we flew to Munich, and then on to Florence (in the smallest plane ever...seriously). By the time we finally go to Italy, it was around noon on Saturday. We had missed several things on our tour already, but our tour manager picked us up at the airport and got us to the hotel. After a quick shower we all went and got something to eat before meeting up with the rest of the group for a wine, olive oil and balsamic vinegar tasting. It was very educational and fun :) After that, we continued with a short tour of Florence and then we were off to our cooking school night. We put on our aprons and got down to business! Scott and I made a caponata, while other members of the group made a lemon pasta, braised pork loin with a Parmesan cream sauce, and Tirimisu for dessert. It was all delightful and I even have the recipes!
The next morning we hopped on a bus and went to San Gimignano, a hill town in Tuscany that is known for it's medieval towers. It was gorgeous! It was quite a hike up some of the hills, but the view was worth it! After walking around there for awhile, we went to a nearby farm for a tour and lunch. This was a working family farm where they raised cows, grew vegetables and also made their own wine and olive oil. Everything that we ate at our lunch there was from the farm, and it was delicious. After being stuffed, we got back on the bus and went to Sienna (where Scott and I visited last summer). It was lovely to walk around and NOT be incredibly hot this time ;) We were there in time for carnival and lots of little kids were walking around in costumes, throwing confetti and spraying silly string at each other. It was cute. Soon it was back on the bus and back to the hotel. We quickly changed clothes and got ready for our big end of tour dinner. Dinner started about 7:30...we finished at midnight! We had a 4 course meal, paired with 5 wines! By the time the 3rd course was served, I think I ate about 3 bites. I was STUFFED. But then they brought out dessert- a dark chocolate cupcake with molten chocolate in the middle, served with a raspberry sauce. I HAD to eat that ;) By the time we got back to the hotel and packed, we got about 3 hours sleep and then it was off to the airport at 4:45am :( Lots of other people in our group had their flights cancelled, but miraculously, ours went fine. I was feeling pretty sick most of the day, but that worked out to my advantage when it came time to sleep on the plane. I just sort of passed out every once and a while ;) We must have gone through security 20 times in 3 days. I promise people, I'm safe! Our longest flight from Munich to Chicago was on what I would call a crappy plane, with very substandard food and flight attendants. And did I mention that I was in the middle of the plane, in the middle seat? You know, the WORST seat EVER? For 9 hours I was stuck in that seat like a sardine, shivering under 3 blankets and praying for it to be over!
We finally got home though, and the kids waited up for us. That was great! We defiantly have some memories from this trip, and most of them were good :) Until next time...