The Most Magical Christmas: Disney World 2015

EuroTrip: Florence

Like I have said, I had mixed feelings about returning to Florence since the last time I was there I felt as though it was such a bust. I was also 19 then and it was also March...and it snowed and rained and was cold.

This time Florence came alive for me. Our first trip into the city, we went to the same leather works store that I was in the last time I was there. This time though, I bought a puzzle ring. A puzzle ring is something from Florentine culture that husbands used to give their wives as their wedding band. A puzzle ring falls apart and is actually pretty hard to get back together, so Florentines did not take them off and if they did, it would obviously fall apart and would be evidence that they were cheating...because who takes their ring off?

I am still trying to figure out how to get mine back together. I had it home for about a month before I had two little girls visit me and in playing dress up, the ring went to pieces. Must love kids! Haha. This is where the real teasing of Phil began too. Every girl that was close to us on the trip began to give Phil a hard time for not proposing in Paris for my birthday and then not in Florence on my birthday. It didn't help that I bought myself this ring.

This still is probably the most fun I had on the trip. We had the most delicious pizza that because of the Italian way, got for free. In Italy they have a receipt system where you order at one counter and then pay at another. We had come late so they messed up our checks and never put our food on it. Our waiter was also so annoyed that he would not come back for us to tell him he forgot to put us on it. We stood and waited for 15 minutes, even bought gelato from their ice cream counter and waited for him to come over. He never did and so we left. 

I also do believe that this lead to the run in with the gypsy woman and the beginning of our bad Italian luck because we were sitting on the steps of a church getting WiFi and Phil came over to get money out of the secure bag and was followed over by a gypsy woman who once she saw money exchange between us, began asking us for some. Phil told her to get the hell out of here and she totally gave him the stick eye of death before she went away. His mom got a very nice gift, but it was there that the Italian curse began. 

We walked around for the rest of the day and hit more shops and Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, which will always be one of my favorite cathedrals because it was the first one I have ever visited. Phil also snapped this ridiculous picture of me:

"I wish I were a real, girl!"

We went back to our campsite, changed clothes and relaxed for probably 10 minutes before we went back into the city and enjoyed a Tuscan dinner. This is also where everyone sang me happy birthday and Phil and I split the tartufo that they had put my candle in. We also had too much red wine and this this picture now exists...it's actually one of my favorites:

Florence is beautiful. Pizza is delicious and when you get to celebrate your birthday there with the man that you love, it's just magical. This was a dream come true within my dream come true. I fell in love with Florence and even more in love with Phil.

We headed back after dinner and fell asleep very quickly. The next day we were up early because we were leaving for beautiful, Roma! 

EuroTrip: Le Chateau de Cruix et le Beaujolais!

I was pretty sad leaving Paris because I just love that city so much. I had some of my best memories there in college and then again with Phil. I was excited though to leave because our next stop would be in the Beaujolais. As a former French teacher, I taught my students all about the Beaujolais nouveau and how this is such a big thing. Obviously we were there in summer so we missed the festivities, but we were still going to stay in the wine region and we were going to be sleeping in a chateau. I have always had a love for chateaus, I always found them to be so beautiful and I loved the history behind them and how families would pass these homes down through generations. We stayed in a chateau that is now owned by our tour company, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a racy past...

Chateau de Cruix. 8/2014

It was originally constructed by the Sarron family, a notorious family plagued with scandal in the medieval period before being sold to the Bellet family where it remained until 1936 when it was again sold, this time to the Bernard family who sold it in 1955 to a cruise company that used it for their employees before Contiki purchased the property (and pretty much turned it into a party house) in 1980. It was a pretty neat place to walk around, there was even an old chapel on site and the architecture was amazing. It's fairly empty now with bunk beds built out of two-by-fours crammed into rooms that were crappily divided to fit in more people. In it's day though, it must have been something. 

I felt okay walking around though you could feel the building's history around you and I am sure it is haunted to some extent. We had windows that would just close on their own. I didn't feel anything sinister there, but Phil did have this weird nightmare about something trying to pull us out of our window as we slept. That night, the window kept rattling even though there was no wind and if you looked at it, it would stop. Creepy!

The views are still amazing. I spent a lot of time outside. It was pretty cold still, but I didn't mind. 

Beyond the Chateau. 8/2014

My favorite time though, was at night. It was just so quiet and beautiful. It was beyond romantic to be there despite all of the craziness that other people staying there created, it was simply magical.

Twilight at the Chateau. 8/2014

After we arrived at the Chateau, we were rushed into the cuvage, where we had our first wine tasting of the trip. Beaujolais wine is young wine and it is red. So, if you like red wine this is where you buy it. We bought a bottle for Phil's mom and one for us. We're saving it for our anniversary in January, but every time I look at it sitting on the dining room hutch, I just want to sneak a little sip. 

Phil, forever being the star of most things, got volunteered to be in the demonstration of how they cut the grapes from the vines. I really wish I had videotaped it, but I just got pictures:

Phil, the grape man. 8/2014

After the demonstration we had wine and hung out for a little and talked. I also am not big on being in huge groups for very long so I started to wander around and take more pictures. I got some more of the grounds and then the view from our window:

Chateau roses. 8/2014

Beaujolais road. 8/2014

From our window. 8/2014

Afterwards, we made our way down to the dining room for dinner. My birthday is still upcoming so we buy a bottle of white wine (which is also delicious) and we have it with dinner. Then we all sat outside drinking wine and getting acquainted with one another. Looking back our time at the chateau is where we all began to bound as a group. Later that night, Phil and I would get separated. I spent much of the night outside because I was just so in love with being in the wine region while he had a fun time in the chateau's basement that they turned into a club. To me, though, it reminded me of every frat basement party I had ever been to over the course of my time at Rutgers. I was okay in missing that. Kelsey would spend much of the night running into either Phil or me and asking us where the other was. We finally found each other long enough for him to give me our room key and for me to go to bed. He eventually followed.

The next day, we stayed by the pool and just hung out with Kelsey while Ellie went on a hike where it seems everyone got lost doing. At the end of your hike you got a small lunch that they were nice enough to bring back for us. The one thing I did not like about the chateau was how wine fueled it was, but if you were hungry there was no food and there was no place to walk to to buy it. A good portion of our tour was prepaying for food, but Contiki meals sucked. They often were flavorless and insanely small portions especially when they took you to the Chateau where the only meals were their meals and you had to wait for specific meal times to then be fed things that weren't all that wonderful. I would have liked to not have had to pay them any money for food and just bought my own as we went. I also did not like how when you were in a Contiki property, they would pick people to serve the food and to bus the tables, on their vacation that they just paid all of this money to do. I felt especially bad for the people who in real life are servers and were enjoying not having to do that while they were away.

Panorama of the chateau (and Phil). 8/2014 

Regardless though, our time there was beautiful and I just loved getting to have that experience as a whole and with Phil. I became very relaxed there and just enjoyed it which was huge for me because coming into our trip, I was totally burnt out from moving and from my job. I really needed to get away and have a fun time with the man I love and we did just that. 

Disclaimer: I really love France and Chateaus. I blame Lifetime and Danielle Steel because growing up I saw the Jewels mini-series with Anthony Andrews and thus began my adoration for this place and my dream that one day I would marry a duke...

EuroTrip: Bonjour, Paris!

Even after the entire trip, as I look back Paris is still my favorite part. I had lived there in college and had creamed about going back there. And now, I had finally made it back. Only this time, it was even better. I had Phil with me and we got to have a lot of alone time in Paris.

Phil & I. We survived snails! 8/2014

Before leaving London, Phil gave me my birthday present early. I saved writing about it until now because he had planned to give it to me in Paris at the Eiffel Tower because he knew that many years ago when I had lived there and was wide-eyed and not even 21 yet, that I had made a promise to myself that I would return to Paris with the man I would marry and finally climb the Eiffel Tower which I had visited a lot, but never went up.

Eiffel Tower. Typical Tourist. 8/2014

Instead though, Phil gave it to me in our hotel room in London. It is a beautiful necklace with a heart charm. In it, there are two amethyst hearts meaning him and I and then around it is a bigger gold heart that represents our love and the bigger heart has diamonds in it, showing our future. He said it's our promise necklace that once we're both better situated, that we will get married. It was perfect. I absolutely love it and it really made London okay even after all of the crap we went through.

I wore it for the rest of our trip.

I wore it our first night of Paris too. We had dinner with our group and then had a bus tour of Paris before we stopped and had champagne and escargot. I had never had it before and probably will not have it again, but it was not as awful as I thought it would be. It tasted like butter and garlic and had a bouncy consistency. Phil swallowed his like a pill out of disgust.

Our next stop was the Eiffel Tower were we took so many pictures, but my favorite is the one of us together.

Phil & I. Eiffel Tower. 8/2014

We decided to head back to the hotel early and spend time alone. We got to bed early because we knew the next day we were going to pack everything in and do something special for my upcoming birthday.