Hotel Update

B bought his plane tickets last night. Which definitely implies that he's serious about going. I've updated the Venice & Florence hotel reservations to doubles with no problems, and luckily found a cool new hotel to try in Siena. 18th century palazzo turned hotel. Georgeous huh? It's about 1/2 mile outside of the town center, so it'll probably be rather quiet. Now to make the Rome reservations. After Rome, I'll be on my own again for some lazy beach time on the Almafi Coast. 58 days left...

New Siena Hotel Hunt

Much to my chagrin, I've discovered that the hotel reservations I made for Siena, in the lovely Albergo Bernini, have to be cancelled, as they do not have a double available for the same time. I'm incredibly happy that B is coming along on the trip, but a little frustrated that he hadn't gotten his ducks in a row (and still hasn't) enough for me to try to change trip reservations before today. Luckily, the Venice apartment already has room for 2, so I just need to inform them of the change, and the Florence hotel is still showing vacancy, so I'm waiting until plane tickets have actually been purchased before trying to change those. Now I'm waiting to hear back from yet another hotel in Siena to see if they can accomodate 2. Hopefully the place we end up with have character and not just be a place to sleep and bath.

Countdown is at 60...2 months...better get going on the rest of my hotel reservations.

Nothing to report

It's been awhile since I posted anything new, as I haven't had anything interesting to say. No more hotel reservations have been made. The last two weeks of travel hasn't actually been firmed up, from an itinerary viewpoint. The boy is now talking about coming with me, or actually meeting me there, for the middle two weeks of the trip. That would be the Venice, Florence, Siena, Rome part of the trip. The juicy museum filled bits. Class and beach time would be my own. And if that's the case, that means that there might be brand new posts on hotels for all these places...would need to get in contact with them to reserve doubles instead of singles. And they have two twin beds...don't worry. Anyhow, I have auditioned and selected my day bag/carry on. It's from REI and fits a change of clothes, drugs, bathroom stuff, guide books, electronics AND passport. In short, perfect. And it's a pretty color, rather unique looking, and hopefully won't immediately scream AMERICAN TOURIST...RIGHT HERE...STEAL FROM ME. Hopefully. So that's the current news. I'm sure I'll be updating soon. Only 71 days left.

On a side note, I took a short, 6 session Italian language class at Highline. It was not quite what I expected. The teacher, an actual Italian, was a great teacher, but he taught Italian like we were going to continue taking classes and become fluent, not Where is the train station? So I was a little disappointed and bailed on the last 2 classes. Shame on me. So I'm back to acting like a dumb american or listening to tapes. On the other hand, I can conjugate verbs like a pro.