June 14 - June 23, 2005 :: Florence, Italy

Florence, Italy...arguably one of the most beautiful cities in Europe (and the world in my humble opinion)was where the traveling E2k Team (a team I was part of at work that was responsible for implementing the new email system across 70,000 users worldwide) called home for two-ish weeks. The picture in the upper left corner is of me standing on top of the Campanile which is a huge tower attached to the Duomo (a famous church in Florence). In back of me you can see a good chunk of the city including their city hall (you can make out its tower) where the Statue of David lives. As promised, here's a more in depth look at this trip and the adventures it contained. (PS: click on any of the pictures to make them much larger! Use the "Back" button to come back to the story.)

6/14 - 6/15 :: The arrival
I got to Florence on 6/15 in the morning after a fabulous 10 hour plane ride, changing over in Milan. Andrew was my last-minute life saver dropping everything to bring me to the airport on the 14th as my original ride wasn't able to make it after all. We got there, though, with plenty of time to spare (even after the 15 mile trek through the airport to get to the international gates!).

The trip itself wasn't so bad and I didn't really suffer from jet lag since I was able to time my sleeping on the plane to get a good 6 hours and then wake up as if I was back home around 8a local time. As many know I am definitely not challenged in being able to sleep just about anywhere so I used this to my advantage ;-) We met up with Megan (see picture on right) after work and walked around Florence to a restaurant inside the old city walls. First taste of real Italian food...YUMMY!

6/16 :: A night to remember in Pisa
The next day after work Megan arranged a small band of us to go out to Pisa where it was their Lumminare festival (the festival recognizing the patron saint of the city...the festival of lights). Boy what a blast! Part of our small "band" was my former roommate from when I lived in Connecticut; a happy reunion for both of us to meet up in Italy of all places! That's him on the left...Tim. The festival in Pisa was like a huge block party that took over the entire city. We were outside eating and drinking Italian wine (which is much better than any I've had in the States), there was music playing from all over, and they had fireworks over the river at night. At about midnight when we were finally walking back to our cars (which were parked right by the leaning tower), we all stopped to get gellato (ice cream...there are more ice cream places in Italy than gas stations, grocery stores, and ATMs combined I think... :) Someone in the group ordered champagne, also, so we were drinking that outside the Leaning Tower of Pisa, at midnight...INCREDIBLE!

6/17 - 6/18 :: Karma
So, nothing in life comes without paying for it. For example, we had a great time in Pisa the night of the 16th. However, we didn't get home till 2:30a, had to be up at 6:30a to get into the office for work, and since that was the big migration weekend for our team, we didn't end up leaving the office until 12:30p...THE NEXT DAY! It was a long 31 hours of work after 4 hours of sleep...but we all agreed on one thing: it was worth it! Megan met us for brunch on the 18th. She told me on the phone that she wasn't ready to go out and had just woke up. I reminded her that we hadn't even gone home to sleep let alone woke up...somehow that made it OK for her ;-) We took a cab to some well-to-do brunch spot where most of the team (including myself of course) fell asleep sitting up eating. It was quite the site! Prior to actually getting back to the hotel and sleeping a few hours, I had only slept when I literally passed out at the keyboard somewhere around 5a while in mid sentence talking to Casey (the program manager for the migration). I guess after a half hour or so I got right back up and started working where I left off. Hehe :-)

6/18 :: Chianti in Chianti!
Like I said, we only had a couple hours of sleep on Saturday as well. Before I knew it my cell was ringing and Antonio, one of our partners based in Florence, was asking me if I was ready to go to the small town of Chianti where we were going for dinner and wine tasting. After a quick spring to action and a crazy car ride around some windy streets on the side of a veritable mountain with no guard rails in case you were to get close to the edge of the road (heh...), we were at this randomly placed small cottage-like restaurant in the countryside. It was breathtaking! The food and wine was amazing also! What a great reward for a really hard worked weekend!

6/19 :: Site seeing, Florence Style
Megan, our ambassador of Florence tour guiding, met up with Casey and I on Sun for a bit of a walk around the city to see the sites. We walked all around, guide book in hand :), and really just relaxed and took in the day. It was beautiful and there was some random celebration going on which included a marching band of sorts and some dancers. Haha it was fun to watch! We found the world's best gellato that day (which Casey loved especially because they don't use milk to make their berry flavors so she could enjoy some as well since she was on a non-lactose diet). We also found our way to il porcini (in the picture on the right). Legend has it that if you put a coin in the porcini's mouth and rub its nose, you'll be sure to come back to Florence...needless to say I donated to the cause :-)

6/20 & 6/22 :: Work work work
These two days were pretty much just work days. I was able to get some time with Megan, Tim, and some of the interns that were over there, which was great! Other than that we just lived the Florence life. I wanted to move there :)

6/21 :: When in Rome...
On Tues the 21st, Gina and I took a train down to Rome to see what all the hubbub was about down there :) We got on the first train in the morning and took the last one back at night. We had no idea, really, what we were going to do there, but when we got off the train we got a guide book to the city and started the adventure. We made our way to a couple awesome basilicas, got a tour of the Colosseum, saw the Circus Maximus, went to Vatican City, got a bus tour of everything else, and had an awesome, and PACKED, day! I even got pick pocketed on the subway by a little girl whom I caught and retrieved my wallet from before a nice Italian gentleman kicked the girl off the train. :) Man! Like I said, when in Rome...!

6/23 :: Home again home again jiggity jig jig
I spent most of Thurs the 23rd traveling back to Atlanta, GA. AJ was kind enough to pick me up from the airport (thank God) and bring me back home when I arrived. The seat on the trip back home wasn't nearly as comfortable as the one on the way over, but luckily I didn't have to sleep on this plane ride in order to avoid jet lag. I just stayed up into the late hours of the night by going to the Atlanta Idol finals with Gabe to see Jeanine sing and give her the snow globe I promised I'd pick up :) I'm such a sweet heart!

So that's it...the details on Italy. It was a trip to remember, and I'm pretty sure I will for the rest of my life. Hope you enjoyed reading about it!

Ciao ;-)

M@