buongiorno!

I've finally returned to my blog after a whirlwind month of planning and then traveling on my long-talked about (for five years), much-dreamed about trip to Italy in October.

Was it everything I'd hoped it would be? How was the wine? Did I eat gelato every day as I was instructed to do by many (many) people? And just how bad is a 9-hour time-change combined with living through the Daylight Savings time-change twice in one week? You will just have to read on to find out. 

But before that, let me just say that I took a lot of notes and photos that I plan to document here. Therefore my entries are going to come in at least four sets -- one per Italian city we stayed in -- over a few days so I can have some hope of getting them posted before 2013.

• Rome
• Florence
• Lampoerecchio in the Tuscan Hills
• Venice

Then, once I'm done talking about Italia, I will return to the long list of blogs I was supposed to write in October covering my adventures in home improvement and the joys of Crumbs cupcakes. (I can't believe I haven't written in so long. Oy.)

But before we head to Rome, just some general travel notes about the trip:

• This was a mother/daughter trip to Italy, and I'm surprised to say my mom and I only got in one tiff the whole time. Shocker. :P And it can be blamed on the 4th bullet point in this list. Apparently, I don't handle stressful driving situations and GPS's + mom's telling me what to do all at the same time well. Whatever. 
• British Airways rocks! It's been so long since I've been on a plane that doesn't charge you for everything except water, I'd forgotten such an airline existed. Free cocktails, 1-2 meals per leg of the trip, and the super awesome movie library, which is a must-have for any flight longer than three hours. I watched three movies from LA to London before falling asleep, and then four movies on the way home on the 11-hour flight from London to LA (London was our connection point on both trips to the shorter flights to Rome and from Venice). And they serve tea! And speak in British accents! SO civilized! :)
• If you're traveling on a budget, or just want to experience a city the way the locals do, then you must find your accommodations via AirBnB.com. My friend Barrett told me about this site one night at dinner and then proceeded to find me a house in the Tuscan Hills with the Tuscan view I'd been dreaming for years about... for $100/night. From there, I found three more apartments in our other destination cities and, while I was nervous at first about how this would turn out, I was super impressed and now would probably never stay in a hotel in Europe again. Our hosts were all very friendly and helpful, telling us about good places to eat and helping us avoid tourist traps. And it was also nice to have a kitchen and a clothes washer at our disposal so we could have breakfast or dinner in if we felt like it, and do our laundry (although apparently Italy has not yet heard about the invention of clothes dryers, which was a bit of a pain. Never had to plan ahead a day to wear clean, dry jeans before :p)
• Driving in Italy is the most stressful experience I had. People there are nuts. And their street signs suck. And they have crazy rules about only certain cars being allowed in certain neighborhoods with special stickers and they take photos of your car from high above and then send you tickets in the mail later that, according to TripAdvisor, are not escapable. (Can you tell I'm expecting at least one, if not three, tickets in the mail from Hertz at some point in the next 2-12 months? Ugh.) I will never drive there again. Sadly, I had to rent a car in order to get to my dream Tuscan house with the view. Next time, I'm joining a Tuscan tour group and letting the bus driver get all the tickets.