We drove from Venice to Siena on Monday morning. It's one of our favorite Tuscan towns and since David had the day free, we thought why not? After an afternoon of exploring and a little bit of rain, we headed to our hotel.
David standing in the square in Siena (They actually run a horse race in this square)
Our hotel for this trip was changed just before we left for Venice because the Indy co-worker that David was to be joining was unable to secure a room there. I had looked up the new hotel on the map and saw that it was quite "out of the way" and voiced my concern. Oh well, said my husband, nothing we can do.
Well, as we drove to our hotel we were driving on a curvy-wurvy one-lane road that kept going up. We had to stop and back up our car several times to a "wide-spot" so that someone could pass us. David doesn't like when that happens. We finally arrived at our hotel. It was nice, but it was literally in the middle of NOWHERE. David, who cannot be ruffled by anything, actually said, "what were they thinking?"
The view from the pool deck at the Hotel Villa Tolomei (Yes, that's Florence in the distance)
We checked into our room and fortunately, they indeed had wi-fi. You had to ask for a code and they printed one out for you. I asked about getting into town, no shuttle service was available, but you could take a taxi. The cost would vary, but would be around 15 Euro each way. (That's $20) We went up to to check out our room.
We had a very nice room with a large bathroom. European hotels all include a bidet....even the tiniest ones. As David was checking his email, I was laying on the bed trying to check mine. The wi-fi was really spotty and if it logged you off, you had to go get another printed copy of an access code from the front desk. After several trips to the front desk I was finally connected. After about 30 minutes my feet started to freeze. I am not a nice "cold" person. We looked around the room.....no vents. No vents= no heat. Okay, well, I needed to get cleaned up for dinner anyway, so how about a nice hot bath....oh wait, the water coming out of the faucet was lukewarm. At this point, my sweet husband offered to get us a different hotel. I assured him that I could handle it. Now it's confession time.
All that was running through my mind was how horrible my week was going to be. I was trapped in this hotel in the middle of the hills of Florence without access to restaurants, shopping or decent wi-fi. I was going to freeze and never have hot water for a shower. BAM!! God gave me an instant attitude adjustment. How many people did I know that would LOVE to have the opportunity to experience the hills of Florence? Don't get me wrong, I still had moments of "poor me", but He turned my stay around.
Dinner was interesting. I ordered a tomato soup (because I was still cold) as my starter. It was chunky, almost like a paste, topped with a pesto/sour cream and a leaf of basil. It was AWESOME. If I wanted a steak, it was going to be $80, so I settled for a $40 Anglerfish entree with broccoli and a cauliflower paste. David's co-worker ordered the same thing. Well, it came and oh my. The fish was rolled up into a "dough ball". It was so undistinguishable that David's co-worker thought that the fish was actually the cauliflower!! Not tasty. Thank goodness for the soup!
I'm going to leave Florence now and take you back to Strasbourg. Another "attitutde adjustment" moment to stay with my post topic. Don't worry, I have more to share about the rest of our week in Florence, as well as Cinque Terre and will post that later.
About two weeks ago, I was expecting a delivery and our door buzzer is broken. I walked out of the apartment to go down to the mailbox and check. As I was closing the door, I noticed a neon pink post-it planted right in its middle. I thought, RATS! The delivery man must've come while I was in the shower and I missed him. Not so.
The note read: "LES TALONS à 5h 48 c'est pas COOL" Hmmmmm. PreK French tells me that at 5:48AM something wasn't. I wasn't sure what "les talons" meant and assumed that "cool" was a french word. Google translate is awesome....just in case you were wondering, "les talons" means heels and "cool" is not a French word, it's the english word. So, you have a post-it note that reads, "The heels at 5:48 are not cool".
R E A L L Y? David leaves for work everyday between 5:45 and 6:00, occasionally, earlier. Our downstairs neighbors are complaining about him walking from our bedroom out of the apartment? My hackles are up!! Do I complain that their children are as noisy as all get out when they leave and come home from school? Do I complain that they "scrunch" our two bicycles together on the rack to make room for theirs? You get the idea. Apartment living for a Kentucky girl is a chore!
Enter God. Through the words of my husband this time. The book of Romans chapter 12:17-21. Can we take those verses out? Probably not. In a nutshell, for those of you who aren't going to look the verses up, God talks about being kind to those who are mean to you. In so doing, you will cause THEM to reflect on what has happened. Happy to report that David passed the family in the stairwell and made a point of "chatting them up" like nothing had happened. I, on the other hand, have wanted to stomp my feet in front of my closet when I can hear them sliding their hangars around looking for something to wear at 7:30 AM. No, I haven't done it. God changed my attitude.
Lastly for today, I told Sarah this story last night while we were FaceTiming and she was disgusted. She agreed with me on the answer to the question, but was disgusted nonetheless. She gave me the go ahead with asking your opinion to the question on my blog.
While at a red light, I noticed a pedestrian (male about 25) waiting to cross the street. He moved his hand across his eye and had obviously removed some "gunk". I'm going to call it an "eye booger". After examining it, yep, I know you are screaming, NOOOOO, because I did, he ate it. I almost lost my breakfast. David had missed the whole thing because he was driving. It took me about a minute before I could tell him what I had witnessed. He agreed, GROSS.
So here is my question....which is MORE disgusting? Eating an eye booger or a nose booger? Aren't you happy you decided to read my blog today? Betcha didn't think it would end like this :)
Love to you all and wishes for your heart to be open for God's little adjustments as you go throughout the day.
Eating optigook and boogers must be a favorite European pastime. I have a similar disgusting experience.
ReplyDeleteWhile in college, for our final project in my Entrepreneur class we had to team up with a classmate and create a business plan. I teamed up with the smartest guy in the class who happened to be a Scandinavian exchange student. So for about 2 solid days we worked on it in his dorm room. THIS GUY ATE HIS BOOGERS! All the time. He’d dig in, pull one out, take a look at it, then put it in his mouth. Grossed me out so badly. I was stuck with 2 days of this nastiness. This was 25 years ago and it still makes me queasy just thinking about it again.
Ross Fazekas
Oh Ross, that is so bad!
ReplyDeleteI am reading this while eatting lunch yuck
ReplyDeleteI have witnessed some of the most disgusting food situations known to man. Never to be as grossed out as I was when I read this. Our friend, nameless, picks her dogs eye boogers out and feeds it to them. I thought that was the worst thing you could do. Wrong! This takes the cake. Just know if I see this while visiting I will barf!
ReplyDeleteIs one really better than the other? When I witness something like this, I try to spin it, in this case I like to think he just got finished eating a french pastry somewhere and it was just a crumb, it just makes me feel better to think that. :)
ReplyDelete