Florence, Italy - Day One

When my mom decided she wanted to come visit me we came up with a plan to leave Ireland so that I could see another country, and so that she could stay in Europe for longer without feeling like she was staying in the Winkelman's house for too long. Florence was the perfect solution. My mom has already been to Florence a few times and loves it so much that she wanted to show it to me. I don't think I'll ever receive an (early) birthday present as amazing as this trip. Plus being able to share this experience with my dear mother is something I'll cherish forever.

The night before we were supposed to leave I wasn't feeling well, which made me weary because the stomach flu was going around Dublin, and Owen had been throwing up earlier that afternoon. I'm a pretty dramatic person when it comes to throwing up, so doing that on an airplane is a recipe for disaster. I woke up shortly after I went to bed and definitely had the stomach flu. Knowing that I had to get on a flight the next afternoon was enough to give me a small anxiety attack. I kept googling, "what to do when you are getting on a flight with the stomach flu" and I could not find a single bit of advice. I guess it's just not something people do ;) Bryce and Mandi heard me in the bathroom so MJ sent me a text and asked if I wanted Bryce to give me a blessing. I was so grateful for the offer and quickly obliged. After the blessing I started to feel even more sick, but I just kept telling myself that I needed to have faith that if I got on the plane I would be okay. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say it was a rough night, and I was only able to get a couple hours of sleep. The night and the morning all blended into one and I was still feeling terrible. Walking from the living room to the bathroom took all my energy and I could barely sit up to reach the toilet. This made me worried about the mile walk from my house to the bus stop (we had to take it to get to the airport). I was also really stressed because I hadn't packed yet. I managed to throw stuff in my suitcase but forgot some important basics like oh, you know, a bra! As I was packing I started to feel better and I was able to walk to the bus without a problem which in itself is a pretty big miracle! As we got to the airport I started to feel nauseous again but I just kept thinking of the blessing I was given, and I knew it would work out fine. When I got on the flight I was able to fall asleep before we took off, and didn't wake up until we landed :) I am so thankful for the power of the priesthood. It's given me much needed comfort on many different occasions in my life and it really is a testament to me that Heavenly Father's looking out for me, even in the minor things. 

We flew into Pisa because our trip was booked somewhat last minute, and flights into Florence were crazy expensive. We planned to take the train to Florence, but there happened to be a non-stop bus waiting outside of the airport going to the train station in Florence. It was only 5 euro a person so we couldn't pass it up. When we got to the train station we walked to our hotel right by the train station. My mom hadn't eaten anything all day in case she caught the stomach flu as well, so by this time she was starving. Before she went out to grab food we witnessed a very passionate lovers quarrel outside of our hotel window. I'm sure it was a pretty nasty fight because the girl was running down the street screaming, trying to get away from him, but that's all I can tell you about it since I don't speak Italian. She got away in case you were wondering ;) After witnessing that fight I decided I didn't want my mom to go out by herself so I joined her for dinner. We found a little pizza joint by our hotel and shared a margherita pizza. It instantly made me feel sick, and I was so shaky when I went to pick up my sprite that I dropped my glass and it shattered all over the floor. It was embarrassing, haha. There was an insane thunder and lightning storm in the middle of the night that made it sound like Florence was under attack. There was also more passionate yelling in the middle of the night when a woman was hitting homeless people with a broom outside of our window trying to get them to get off of the streets.  I promise we didn't stay in the ghetto :)

I find uncomfortably large spiders in our house on a weekly basis, and this one just happened to be by me while I was lying on the floor by the toilet. I thought about killing it but I didn't have the energy and I didn't want to make it mad. I took the 'kill him with kindness' approach instead ;)

 My poor mom flew out all this way and ended up having the lamest travel companion. She was a good mom though, and really took care of me. Bless her heart forever and ever and ever!

 When this seat opened up in the waiting area I was in heaven. It was the first time I had been comfortable all day (and night).

Isn't she lovely? I'm trying not to think about how much I miss her already! :(

 Random cafe we ate dinner at.

 The greatest woman around.

 Sprite has never been better.

I made a little video of some of my trip to Spain. I didn't take very much video footage while I was there, and I am no expert at iMovie but it's fun to look back on this trip!

You can click here to watch it if you want. Just be warned--you may get a little motion sickness from my shaky hands, and everyone's not as short as they appear in the video, can anyone tell me how to fix that!? :-)

Copenhagen, Denmark

I went to Copenhagen the last week in July (yes I am really behind on blogging) and it was a gooood time. Mandi's parents, Craig and Linda, joined us and it was so fun to have their company. Getting to Copenhagen went pretty smooth. We did lose the pack and play which was bad news for Jacky B, but with a little help from the security guards Bryce was able to retrieve it. 

We arrived in Copenhagen pretty late, and headed straight to our hotel. Mandi made it sound like we were going to be staying somewhere really ghetto, but it was actually really nice. We had this awesome balcony with a great view of the city, and both of the rooms were right next to each other, so we could all be in one room while the babies slept in the other, and we were still able to hear them if we left the windows open. I stayed in Craig and Linda's room which had a separate room for me and a nice big bed. I was s-p-o-i-l-e-d! There was no air conditioning so I slept with the door open, which caused me to wake up at 4:30 in the morning, every morning, to the best sunrise. Seriously though, it was unreal. Anywhoosies back to the point--our first night we were all starving so Craig and Bryce brought us back some delish pizza and Ben and Jerry's. We sat on the balcony and ate it and I was seriously giddy.

 Our balcony view

 On our first full day we went to a bakery for breakfast and tried all kinds of pastries. Everything was delish but my favorite was this soft pretzel (almost more like a roll) covered in sugar. We ended up eating at that same bakery every day we were there because we felt the need to try everything they had, but still get our favorite thing as well. After breakfast we walked for a few minutes to find Linda's great, great, grandfathers house. He had a special experience in that house and so it means a lot to the Kjar family.We then continued to explore the darling streets, scoping out different shops we wanted to go in while the kids were napping. After a while of that we decided to go on a boat tour that we had read great things about.

As we were trying to find the boat tour someone stopped and asked us if we wanted help. He pointed out the building we were standing in front of, which happened to be The Church of Our Lady where we were planning on stopping at to see the original Christus. We were so grateful that not only did the stranger stop us just because we looked confused, but he saved us from having to walk all the way back to get to the church. I've always loved that statue, so it was cool to see the real deal!

It took us a while to find the right boat tour to hop on. We read that the first ones you pass while walking down the river are a pretty big rip off, and we wanted to be smart tourists and get the good deal. We finally found the right place, and we didn't have to wait very long for the next tour. It was pretty magical to go down and see all of the colorful buildings and homes, but I was also fighting sleep the entire ride thanks to my waking up at 4:30 to the sunrise ;)

After the boat tour we hung out in downtown, let the boys go to the Lego store, and watched some street performers. I love street performers, and I hope that someday I see as many in SLC as I do in other cities. Torill maybe you and your break club could get on that ;-) Bryce and Craig took the kids back to the hotel while the three of us shopped. I bought a zillion postcards that I still need to send out, a little danish toy for my nephew, and of course some fruit from a fruit stand. I am seriously passionate about fruit stands. Why aren't the streets of SLC lined with fruit stands?

Stuff like this make me laugh so hard

I love hot dogs, like really love them. But man alive you need to try a Danish dog if you ever get the chance. It did not disappoint. 

After experiencing the joy of seeing a floating man in Portugal, I am on the look out for them in every country I go to. I have yet to see one in Ireland, but I've seen them everywhere else! 

 On Thursday night we went to Tivoli gardens. It is supposed to be this magical amusement park with great restaurants, live music, etc. etc. The first five minutes in this place truly were magical, and we kept saying that Disneyland should be more like it. Disneyland! We took our words back about 10 minutes into the evening. I don't really want to go into too much detail but let me just tell you that we didn't have the right experience there. I think maybe if you go with your lover and go on all of the magical rides and eat home made ice-cream and enjoy a magical concert and eat at a delicious restaurant then you are experiencing Tivoli the way you are supposed to. But that just didn't happen for us. 

Really though- I think this place must be important because when my bag was being searched at the airport (I forgot I had hand sanitizer in it when I went through security) the security guard asked me if I went to Tivoli gardens while he was making all kinds of conversation with me. And come to think of it, most people asked if we went, so if you are ever there don't take my word for it, and just go :) 

On Friday we took a train to the Fredricksborg Castle. This is where a lot of the Carl Bloch paintings are displayed. It was a really cool castle but the boys didn't enjoy it, which meant it was hard for us to stay for long and still enjoy ourselves. There are hard things about traveling with kids, and there are lots of great things about it! I have a pretty short attention span so sometimes it's nice to be working around the attention span of two four year old boys and a one year old.

After we walked through the town and stopped and bought some fruit from a fruit stand. You know how I feel about this. I devoured my raspberries and nectarine. I have a pretty big obsession with nectarines these days.We sat and ate lunch by the water with the castle in view and then headed home. This was pretty much the last of the trip for me because I babysat the rest of the day/evening. Don't worry, I felt like I had seen all of the city so I was happy to do it :)

 Schmoudee anyone?

Can anybody tell me how this works? Because I really don't know.

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen!

We headed home the next morning and had one heck of an airport experience. Once again I don't want to go into too much detail but to sum it up when we landed Mandi asked Isaac how the flight was and he looked up from his show and said, "It was good. And mom, I peed in my pants."

And it all went awry from there ;)