Our Italian Honeymoon Adventure

Well, I know that you guys wanted to know all about the honeymoon and to see some pictures, so yeah, I am going to post some of them here. Be warned, there are going to be a lot of pics here – which is unusual for us. My husband (eeeeep) and I don’t do the pictures and camera thing at all, but made the concerted effort to do so when we were out there.

Now, Italy was an experience, let me tell you that. We had such a blast!

Alright, so we got married on a Saturday, and on Monday we drove up to Johannesburg to catch our flight to Dubai, and from Dubai to Rome. We were on those planes forever! Luckily there was a really great entertainment system on the planes, so I managed to watch some movies and what not. Arriving in Rome, my phone hit up the Wi-Fi and I had a super freaked out Natasha demanding to know where I was making my connecting flight, to find out that Brussels had been attacked that morning. It was really not nice, but explained the tightened security at the airport.

Navigating a new, foreign country is pretty daunting when you do not have a working phone or the ability to belt it in Italian, but we managed to come right and organise a shuttle to our apartment. We arrived and the first thing that we thought was that we were in the ghetto and were going to be killed. Seriously. Back home, areas that have that much graffiti in them are super sketchy, the kind of places you avoid. We learned fast enough though that in Italy, but especially Rome, tagging things is sort of like a right of passage or something. There is graffiti everywhere.

We ventured out that night and got a sim card, which automatically made us breathe easy because we could at least communicate. Walking around the neighbourhood was amazing. We pretty much can’t walk anywhere here at home, not even kidding. It was the most liberating feeling in the world to get up and walk out of the apartment whenever we wanted and it was safe to do so. Also, another thing to note is how clean it is out there. I was shocked. There were thousands of people, but no trash and junk lying around. Amazing. And such a police presence!

We downloaded an app and we marked all the points we wanted to explore for each day on there, and took a bus from where we were staying to where we needed to be, and spent each and every day walking to all the different sites, seeing all that was around us. It was truly an amazing experience. Rome really is a lot smaller than you would think – once you are at any given site, the others are a stone’s throw away. One thing that did suck, however, was our currency exchange rate when we went over. Urgh. Thanks to our delightful fuckwit President Zuma, the exchange rate went up from R12.50 for €1.00 to R20.00 for €1.00. It was sheer lunacy, but we made it work and had tons of fun, though it did limit a lot of the things that we could do.

Also, the pizza out there. Like oh my goodness. I am not usually a pizza fan because (I am saying it) there is usually too much cheese going on and a sloppy base. In Italy? Crunchy, wood fire pizza, minimal cheese and delicious toppings. You can taste everything! I must say though, the few pastas we did eat out there were really bland, which surprised me. Soda is also super expensive out there, and it is not refrigerated (just the little cans are). I was shocked, too, by how you can buy liquor (and not just beers, the hard liquor, too) anywhere. I mean it. Cafés, grocery stores, sweet shops, anywhere, they all had liquor. Like, everywhere.

Let’s not forget to mention the architecture out in Italy, because that would be a crime. You know, pictures are all impressive and stuff, but it just doesn’t compare to seeing the actual buildings, statues, monuments, doors, etc. I was overwhelmed by how tiny I felt – the architecture, the age, it all drives home how ancient and amazing things are. I travelled thousands of kilometres to see this, and so have millions of other people, over so many years. It really is something to take in.

From Rome we went to Florence, and man, I fell in love. While Rome might have been the more entertaining of the two purely because there is an inordinate amount of things to do, Florence is hands down the more beautiful. It is clean, the people are insanely friendly, it was cheaper there than Rome or Venice, and it, too, was small. Totally more my speed. We drank wine, ate pizza, explored every day, and I loved every moment of it. We did the tours, the photos, the walking… seriously, I walked through two pairs of shoes while I was out in Italy. I was so stoked to be able to walk anywhere at any time, so I took advantage of it like crazy. I have also always wanted to see the Duomo, and I was not even remotely disappointed. It was so beautiful and vast and impressive and… I don’t actually have words for it. WOW.

Lastly, we moved on from Florence to Venice, and that was something I was interested in seeing. I remember my wedding photographer asking how long we would be in each of the places (she had gone to Italy before), and when we told her we were in Venice for three days, technically four because our flight was leaving so late, she sucked in her breath and said that even two is overkill for Venice. Now that I have been there, I can see what she meant. Venice is beautiful and magical and an experience, it really is, but Venice is also really small. We spent four days traipsing all over Venice and hiding out in the apartment when we just couldn’t anymore, and when we left on the last day, we were actually really looking forward to coming home. That is  how I knew we had a proper holiday – when you get to the end and you have had a great time and you are all good for exploring more, but you are also perfectly fine with going home, sleeping in your own bed, on your own pillow, not living out of a suitcase anymore or burning through ridiculous amounts of money. We were there.

Anyway, there is just way too much to say on the adventure, too much for one post. The experience was overwhelming and awesome and heck, so much fun! I do not regret it, and would go again in a heartbeat!

Gelato… you can’t go to Italy and not live off the stuff. It is GLORIOUS.

BUT there was one thing I missed so much while we were out there it was like a physical pain, and it was the first thing I purchased when we got off the plane back home, even though the airport is crazy expensive about it.

Review: Playing With Fire – Tess Gerritsen

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

SYNOPSIS: A beautiful violinist is haunted by a very old piece of music she finds in a strange antique shop in Rome.

The first time Julia Ansdell picks up The Incendio Waltz, she knows it’s a strikingly unusual composition. But while playing the piece, Julia blacks out and awakens to find her young daughter implicated in acts of surprising violence. And when she travels to Venice to find the previous owner of the music, she uncovers a dark secret that involves dangerously powerful people—a family who would stop at nothing to keep Julia from bringing the truth to light. – via Goodreads

I was so stoked to get approval for this novel, I always enjoy reading something from Gerritsen. What I did not expect was how well this whole book was going to come together. It started innocuously enough, trundling along, nothing special or amazing. Then it got interesting when Julia plays this handwritten piece of music and her three year old daughter kills the family cat. I mean whoa, things escalated quickly. It has this horror/supernatural vibe going for it, and it works for the story. Out of nowhere, the story flips to a character named Lorenzo, and his part of the story is set in Venice in the 1940s. The story takes on a whole new feel altogether, and tells us about a young Italian Jew who is a phenomenal violinist, who is tasked to work with a young woman named Laura to compete in a musical competition. The tone is totally different in Lorenzo’s sections, and the book has another feel altogether when reading Julia’s sections. I was far more engrossed when reading about Lorenzo, his family, his Jewish roots, the Nazis occupying so many of the countries around them and moving in on the Jews, the steadfast Italian belief that they were safe, and would be fine. Having Italy as the backdrop for the Holocaust is something different, a lot of novels concentrate on other areas of that time in history. It gives a different outlook altogether. Reading about Lorenzo and Laura was wonderful – it was not painful, in your face and soppy, but there was such a beautiful relationship that blossomed between them, birthed by music. Being wrenched back into Julia’s present problems of her daughter going scary and insane and violent, it was always a heavy transition to make, but you slip back into it quickly enough. I was enthralled pretty much from the beginning – while Julia and her situation interested me, it was Lorenzo and Venice in the 1940s that enchanted me. The books flows nicely and puts out a beautiful story, interspersed with thrills when you see how the past and the present become woven together. The two differing times really have two totally different feelings, but for me the past side was far more influential, and most of this review refers to that section. The book is chilling, strange, intoxicating, thrilling, romantic. Granted, neither story really needs the other, and Lorenzo’s was definitely the more captivating story (I could have read just about him and his affairs), but the two stories ultimately do come together. The ending was not something I saw coming, and it worked so well. I enjoyed this book far more than I was expecting, and I cannot recommend it enough. It is Gerritsen’s first standalone novel in ages, and definitely her best work in quite some time.