Wednesday, we decided to go to 25 Main for breakfast and cupcakes. The breakfast was good and inexpensive. They have a small menu but it is a good variety, frittatas, pancakes, french toast, and various sides. The decor is clean and funky. There are even finches in a bird cake in the window... one has even figured out how to escape. :)
After breakfast, we started on the big Thanksgiving day meal and waited for the tots to arrive. We haven't seen the nieces and nephew for about 4 months so they are a bit bigger. They have so much energy and so many more words in the vocabulary!
The full list of dishes we made:
And of course, sparkling cider. We started preparing food Wednesday afternoon and finished right on time Thursday. The timing worked out well.
We're here in St. George for Thanksgiving this week. Today we visited Zion National Park. We had a great time look
ing at the animals (mostly mule deer, but also big horn sheep, and lots of birds), the plants (it's amazing that those pine trees can grow of out almost nothing), and the magnificent rock formations in the canyon.
tress if there was a chance we could get the recipe for it. 
The waitress returned later with a printout of the recipe for 5 gallons! Sweet! We'll try out skills at recipe reduction and see if we can make a smaller batch at home.
After lunch, we took the road towards the the Mt. Carmel Junction through the tunnel built in the 1920's. On the way we came across the bridge that my great grandfather helped build.
We visited friends and family in Seattle the first weekend in November. We managed to hit some of our favorite spots from last trip, including 
Pike Place of course, and Trophy Cupcakes. We were lucky enough to stay at Aroon and Aarthi's swanky new place overlooking Lake Union.
nteer park housed an amazing collection of flowers and cactii. We all enjoyed walking arou
nd and taking photos. After the conservatory, we went to the Pacific Science Center down by the Space Needle to see the butterfly exhibit. Afterward, we took some night shots from Gas Works Park. And on the way back from there, we spotted the troll under the bridge.
Saturday was our last day in Rome. We had a few more sites that we wanted to check out. Our plan was to check out the National Museum of Rome and San Clemente, plus any where else along the way.
i Portonaccio, left us both completely speechless. So incredibly ornate and it was not even complete. In the explanation it says something about the lid having the faces of the husband and wife who were expected to be placed in it but the faces were never completed and it is unclear whether the piece was used.
bout her but it was in Italian so we did not understand it. The coin area was very organized and they even had some stations with magnifying glasses that moved by pressing arrows so you could zoom in on the coins. Some of the coins were very tiny and some where just giant. I couldn't imagine carrying the giants ones so I think they must not have been for general use.
to walk all around Trajan's Market to get to it. The pizza was just as good. The place is called Caesar Pizza and it is on stairs near Trajan's Market. The lady is nice and the pizza good but the drinks are very expensive. $4.50 (US) for a small Powerade.
This building looked like it was pieced together from several different types of material but it has just been used for so many different things. We walked around one side of it and continued on our way.
despite the protest blocking most of the central area, was just whizzing through the little streets around the area trying to find a way through. Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte is the church dedicated to the burial of the unknown dead. There are skulls and hourglasses decorating the church and it was very quiet. Not many tourists here. There was a nun watering the fresh flowers and music was playing in the background.
a Cancelleria. It had a temporary exhibit showing mockups of Leonardo da'Vinci's works. Some of the pieces were interactive so that was fun.
Friday morning we decided to go check out the Villa Borghese, a park just north of Rome. On our way to the metro station, we stopped at Pan de Zucchero, a tiny pasticceria. According to the guide book, the bobe calde (warm doughnut-like pastries) are legendary." We found it to by quite tasty indeed.
In need of lunch, we headed to the nearest cafe in the park which happened to be over just outside the zoo. Since it was so close, we decided to check out the zoo as well. It's not the biggest zoo, but they have a lot of animals, lots of primates, and big cats too. The Capuchins and Japanese Macaques put on quite a show, all running and jumping around.
We took our bike off road a few times, and through the mud, then ended up out of bounds somewhere past the zoo and rather than turn around, we got out and pushed it up at an angle around the barriers blocking cars and other large sized vehicles (including our double-bike). Back in the park, we continued on and found the lovely ionic temple dedicated to Aesculapius, with a small lake around it where you can rent row boats.
We returned the bike and then walked from the park down to the Piazza Navona where we found a few nice fountains, and some more cool churches including the Santa Maria dell'Anima, the Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza, and the Sant'Andrea della Valle.
Thursday morning we decided to visit the Pantheon in the day, we had seen it Wednesday night on the way to dinner. The columns outside are very impressive and the inside isn't to shabby either. The tomb of Raphael is here. The ceiling has a hole in it, open to the elements and yet the floor is clean and dry. This surprised me.
There were some school groups, which made for some teenager annoyances but for the most part we were able to walk through slowly and could take pictures without anyone in the shots. It was very peaceful here compared to the streets outside. From the underground level, you can take stairs up to a panoramic view of the Forum and from here, get a great glimpse of the Colosseum through the Forum ruins.
From here we headed out in search of food and found some lovely pizza (mmm... pepperoni and cheese with a spiced tomato sauce) at a small cafe near the museum. It was quiet inside, several locals, and in the streets children seemed to be getting out of school. One kid stopped in for a slice rather than play in the street. He ate his slice in the blink of an eye and was gone before I knew it.
ple of Julius Caesar, we started our walk of the east end of the Forum. Here you have several ruins that have been renovated and are now churches. The remains of the Basilica of Constantine and Maxentius really show the grand scale these buildings. You can walk into what would have been the basilica and sitting there can see the huge halls and walkways. The gilded tiles and marble ceiling ornamentation had all been recycled by popes long ago.
a good route for walking. You get to see part of the Emperor's box, some seats, and the area under what would have been the floor. The area under the floor is said to be where the animals were housed.
lso less people in general in this area. You can meander and view Augustus' house and the Farnese Gardens. Augustus is said to have lived a simple life and his house was really modest. His succesors did not follow suite though. They built palaces. The gardens are not original but still contain an interesting assortment of plants, including a prickly pear cactus.
eekend. What we didn't know was that the pope has a regular Wednesday morning audience. The bus was jam-packed with people and when we got to St. Peter's square, there were met
al detectors, barricades, guards, and thousands of people. Oh well, we figured with everyone there to see the pope, maybe the Vatican museums wouldn't be as packed. This turned out to be true, and as we 
read in the guidebook, Wednesday mornings around 10:30am are an ideal time to visit the museums.
through the museums is mostly one way, culminating at the Sistine Chapel. Tour groups at choke points make it a very slow journey with many areas wall to wall people. Still, we saw a lot of cool stuff and the Sistine Chapel is really amazing. No photographs are allowed inside the chapel, and it was amusing to watch people whip out their cameras and take photos anyway. The guards would clap at them, yell, "no pictures!", and sometimes even make their way through the crowd and escort people out.
e not-so-great pizza (compared to Italy/Rome). Then we headed to St. Peter's square and the Basilica. The line here was similarly tiny. The basilica is utterly massive, and extrem
ly ornate. It comes across as much more of a palace than a church.
We headed out from the Vatican to check out a local market area only to find it closed (too late in the afternoon). We looked for pizza instead, some truly Roman style pizza to counterbalance the crap in the Vatican cafeteria.
After pizza, we headed to one of two metro lines that serves Rome and used our 3-day metrobus pass to take the metro to Spagna to see the Spanish Steps. The fountain at the bottom of the steps is really cool, designed like a leaking boat. We were amused to see people come and drink from the fountain... gross. We searched our guidebook, but couldn't find anything about special luck from drinking the fountain water.
On our way back to the Trevi, we stopped in at the Santi Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso church which has in the back behind the altar the actual shriveled heart of San Carlo. It's been there for hundreds of years.
We ended the evening with a fantastic meal at a restaurant recommended by one of the guidebooks, il Bacaro. Misty had a pasta dish with pumpkin and bacon sauce with parmesan cheese and I had beef strips in balsamic vinagar, rucola, and parmesean cheese and a salad.
Today we flew from Barcelona to Rome, our final destination of the trip. We went to breakfast with Kevin, got croissants and dipping chocolate for them, and said our goodbyes. We headed back to their apartment to collect our things and prepare to head out. A quick metro ride and the train to the airport and we were ready to go. The new "Terminal 1" of the Barcelona airport is very spacious and nice. We brought lunch from the cafe where we ate breakfast.
Our flight was early and nearly empty, a rarity. At Leonardo Davinci Airport, we called the apartment owner to arrange a meeting time and then took one of the very expensive taxis into town. There must have been a little bit of a miscommunication about where to meet. We figured he would meet us outside, but he was inside and was waiting for us to buzz. There are no names on any of the six buzzers, so I couldn't guess which to hit. After 20-30 minutes Misty asked a nearby restauranteur if we had the right address. He confirmed and then called the number on his cell phone and spoke to him, which is when we found out he was upstairs the whole time. W
e returned the karma back to the restaurant guy by eating at his restaurant that very night.
can barely stand up in due to the low ceiling). I can't understand why they didn't make it just one large bathroom, that would have been really nice. The sofa out in the living room has a folding bed, so I guess you can have two couples here. The other drawback is that the water heater is microscopic and probably set to a pretty low temperature. We run out of water pretty fast.
After checking out and being impressed by the accomodations, we headed out to look at the Trevi fountain, just a stones throw from the front door. From there, we just wandered around a little bit, and bought some groceries for breakfast the next day (milk and cereal). Along the way, we bought some freshly roasted chestnuts from a corner gentleman. Then it was back to the room for a good night's sleep.
We purchased tickets to go to Montserrat on Sunday so that we could get an early start on Monday, and not have to wait in any lines. We got up early and were able to get on all the right trains, thanks to Kevin. The train was long and we were lucky enough to get a 4-pack of seats together so Laurel and I had time to knit and I even dozed off a bit. The sights are varied once you get out of Barcelona. There are cool fields and houses and there are also slums and industrial areas. There were a lot of people on the train but most of them got off before Montserrat.
We arrived at the top and had just enough time to look around and check out a quick slideshow set to recorded music about the monastery, the history, the culture, and the people.
We grabbed a quick snack, croissants, and then headed into the basilica to hear the boys choir. The guy we bought the tickets from said they started at 1:00. We read in the guide book that it is very popular and the place fills to standing room only. It said it gets so busy that you might only hear them and not see them. We must have timed it just right because we were able to get seats in the main section. There was a traveling group, German I think, that started singing first. They were sort of a warm up band. They had the crowd clapping and some even sang along.
They cleared the stage and the young men came out. I would guess they were 10-14 years old and they were very good. They only sang two songs and then they left. Brief but so beautiful. You can tell they train them well. The other group did not even compare.
We decided after the choir to get some things for a picnic at the top. We grabbed some sandwiches and rode the funicular up an even steeper track. We were lucky enough to be at the front of the line and thought we were clever by running to the lower car to get the better view going up. The lower car was unfortunately blocked by the train so we had to crouch on the ground to see the views. We recommend getting the very top car for the best non-crouching views. :)
At the top there was a calico cat. She is definitely well fed. The views were amazing and the weather was pleasant. We walked a brief bit to the top and then proceeded to walk back down to the monastery. We ran out of time to walk down to the cave were the 'Black Virgin' was found, the statue that is one of the reasons why people pilgrimage here. It is just a statue with an orb that has darkened over the years.
We managed to catch a train to Barcelona. We were all a little worn out from the jam packed days of touring so we decided to grab a bite to eat out at a Lebanese place that K&L like. We all ordered duren kebob. I had falafel and cheese, a really good one and I forget the name, and then they put on a bunch of fresh veggies. It was so good and quick. The place was beautiful too, mosaic mirrors and friendly staff. Definitely a keeper!
