Things we will miss about Florence

What will we miss about Florence???

What a loaded question!

Answer: Almost Everything

Here are a few of the things we will miss the most about living in Florence:

Our Apartment (duh)

Borgo Degli Albiz 27

This was our wonderful oasis from the hustle and bustle of the city center. We will miss it here so much! We will also miss our landlords, the Mori's.

We will really miss walking everywhere. We did not have a car and did not really miss it. We loved walking to supper, the theater, to our friend's, to the stadium...

to this view...

Santa Croce.

We love this church.

We will miss eating supper on this square or stopping on a bench to eat our gelato.

We loved turning the corner and to see this view, we will miss that.

Catching a beautiful sunset out our window.

We will miss Fiorentina games at the stadium.

We will miss all the stares J get when he is in his "official" Fiorentina suit.

We will miss the random "Jorgenson, Jorgenson" chants aimed at J who apparently resembled the Fiorentina player.

Coming across a "picture perfect" moment over the Arno River.

The entryway to our building. I felt so safe here.

This clever drying rack over our sink (the wet dishes drip into the sink - genius!)

GELATO

Again, another "duh"

Shopping at the San Lorenzo Market. I will especially miss shopping for purses! J. Won't miss shopping for purses.

The Duomo

When J and I first moved here, we decided that we would never take the beauty of the Duomo for granted. And we didn't! Every time we walked by it, we stopped to acknowledge the beauty and to be thankful we lived so close to something so cool!

We will miss "our bar" - the Lochness. And our favorite bar owners, Trine and John.

We will miss stopping to see Bente and getting a Cafe!

The pasta!

And eating in general!

We ate SO well in Italy!!

We will miss having a fresco in our courtyard. Also, the fountain with the goldfish. Actually, we will miss having a courtyard in general. So beautiful!

Lemon Soda... yummm.

It is fizzy lemonade. Not to sweet, yet very refreshing!

Wood ovens for cooking pizza.

And PIZZA! (Florentine pizza is the best in all of Italy!)

Our favorites: Quatro Formaggi, Buffalo Mozzarella, Diavola, Florenitna (ok, my mouth is watering now...)

Our Cafe.

La Loggia.

Best Cappuccino in Florence! And their pear croissant isn't bad either.

We will miss walking up and down our street - Borgo degli Albizi. (However, we will not miss the hordes of people, lost tourists or the drunk exchange students making noise...)

I will miss walking by this wedding dress shop and checking out the new (and often outrageous) wedding dresses.

Our favorite Viola (Fiorentina) shop.

We got to know the owners and a few employees, so we always got a good deal! We will especially miss stopping to chat with our favorite Swede living in Firenze, Fanny.

We will miss the many Davids around town. Both the original and the replicas. I was lucky enough to go and see Michelangelo's original David just about a dozen or so times in these 18 months. Every time it took my breath away!

The Duomo

We will miss it so much, it had to be mentioned twice.

Ah, Firenze.

The city of food, wine, art and love.

We had some rough times but we also had some incredibly amazing times! These past 18 months have been life-changing for us. Living in a different country and experiencing a new culture and way-of-life has been an unbelievable experience - we have been truly blessed.

We will miss this city so much. We will miss our life here. We will miss our friends. We will miss having each other to ourselves. We will miss.... SO much!

This is not goodbye forever, it is goodbye for now. Fiorentina still would like to work something out with J, but for right now, J and I need to be back closer to family.

We have loved our time in Florence and hope to continue the adventure again soon!

Thanks to all of you who followed our blog and coming with us on our "Italian Adventure."

Going Away Party

We had our Going Away Party at our favorite restaurant, Lo Scudo. Lo Scudo is really close to our house and had really great food. We got to know the waitresses and the owners and felt that this was the perfect place for our party.

Me, Trine and her son, Daniel.

The whole group. It was such a fun (yet sad evening).

Delicious grilled meats and veggies. Mmmmm... I will miss eating this!

One of the wonderful waitresses, Gabriella. She is such a sweetheart.

After supper, we went to see Bente at her bar. We were really sad that she wasn't able to make it, so we had to go for a visit (and a lemoncello).

It was a great evening. We made some wonderful friends during our time here. We are so sad to leave them. We are happy we met them and we are sure that we will see them again and continue the friendships!

Fun in Florence!!

We definitely made the most of our last couple weeks living in Florence. J was done working at the end of May, so we enjoyed spending the whole day together with no obligations or plans. It was really nice! We enjoyed walking around, visiting a few museums and spending time with our wonderful friends.

Hanging out at Bente's bar on Piazza Republica with Trine.

We had "World Cup Fever" this year. It was fun because we actually know players which are playing, so it made us want to cheer even harder! We went to the stadium to watch an Italy match. They had huge screens and tv's set up all over. Sadly, it was raining so everyone had to crowd under the covering, but it was fun to watch the game among such passionate people!

We had a game night with some friends! We had a lot of wine from all the vineyards we have visited, so we decided to share it all with our friends.

We played a pretty rousing game of Mexican Train! We were happy to introduce the game to Italy!

Lorenzo is perhaps the best scorekeeper ever... he drew all of our pictures! I love it!

And what game night is complete without a dance party?! J even did the worm!

We had a fun dinner at Giova and Reiko's apartment. Reiko made us wonderful Japanese food, it was quite a treat!

Mustache Night at Lochness!!

Who knew wearing a mustache could create so much laughter and fun?!

We met for brunch at the Diner (an American Diner serving awesome blueberry pancakes).

Per's biggest fan, Daniel. I don't think Daniel breathed throughout the whole meal, he was so overjoyed to be sitting next to Per!

Another night at the Lochness.

John P and John B

Three Swedes....

Well, 2 real ones and one descendent.

Leslie, Fanny, Sara

Giova, Reiko, J, Leslie

Lorenzo's birthday celebration!

Our favorite Spanish restaurant in Florence. The bartender/waiter is the biggest Fiorentina fan (he has Fiorentina tattoos all over) and he loves J. We are treated very well every time we go!

Florence is such a fun city and it is even better with such a good group of friends. We are really going to miss all of our fun times in Florence!

Bratislava, Slovakia

Our most recent travel adventure landed us in Bratislava, Slovakia. I never thought I would get the chance to visit Slovakia, but the opportunity came and we jumped on it! Martin has been one of J's friends and patients for many years. He came to Italy for a visit and treatment just over a month ago. He plays hockey in Germany now, but he is from Slovakia. His wife and kids are spending the summer at their house in Bratislava and opened their house to us.

Martin picked us up at the airport then took us to his house to meet his wife and their two little babies.

Then we headed to see the Devin Castle. We ate lunch and then walked up the hill to these castle ruins.

This castle was blown up by Napoleon's troops in 1809. It has remained ruins ever since.

From the top of the castle, the views are amazing! You can see across the river to Austria and in the horizon is the Czech Republic. This is also the point where the Danube (the longest river in Europe) and the Morava Rivers converge. You can see the two colors of water where they meet.

This is not what I expected Slovakia to look like. This area was so beautiful!

While we were up enjoying the views, Martin (who is just about the same age as J) started telling us about growing up under Russian communist rule. He remembers barbed wires and armed guards being all along the river to prevent anyone from swimming across to Austria. It was really interesting to hear his stories. How differently we grew up...

And how different Slovakia is today!

Such beautiful landscape!

The next day, we all went out to historic center of Bratislava. Much of the old city was destroyed during WWII and never rebuilt during the Russian occupation. We started at this castle, the major focal point of the historic center.

The Castle has been through many changes and different rulers. It was very pretty and a definite landmark of Bratislava.

Nice views of the old center merging into the modern city. There is still a lot of evidence of the communist rule, including the big cement housing building.

The six of us. Lydia and Martin's kids are so darn cute. Henry is 20 months and Julius is just about 2 months. So cute and fun!

We then headed to the Russian monument. Martin and his brother were telling us about the love/hate relationship they had with the Russians. On one hand, the Russians saved the country from the war but on the other, after the Russians saved them, they enforced an oppressive rule.

The Russians made this memorial and basically forced people to come here to thank them. Martin remembers coming here every year during school.

J with our tour guides - Martin and his brother.

Cumil

This is an interesting sculpture. I like the explanation that he has a smirk on his face because he is stealing peeks up ladies dresses!

The Old Town Hall

On the yellow tower you can see to the left of the first window above the door is an original cannonball that was has been lodged in the building for years and years.

St. Michael's Gate

The only remaining original gate to the city.

We had such a fun time watching Henry - he is very entertaining. Hockey seems to be in his blood. He plays for hours smacking any ball he sees into the goal. He is so coordinated, I can't believe it! Here is Henry rejoicing over his "goooaaaaalllll!!!"

The BBQ got a little out of control! Haha!

Our final day, we set out for another castle. This one was about 1.5 hours outside of the city.

Cerveny Kamen

We had a nice tour (in Slovak) of the inside and the cellars. It was really interesting!

The crest for the family is made up of a deer and a broken wheel. The story is the family was returning home from a party late one night. As they were going through the woods it was so dark they couldn't see anything. Randomly a deer ran by and hit the coach wheel and broke it. Since the family could not continue the trip home they slept there for the night. When they woke the next morning they noticed if they had continued they would have driven off the edge of a cliff. So because the deer and broken wheel saved their lives they made it there crest.

There were peacocks in the trees! It was crazy. They make such a loud and annoying sound! I have never seen a white peacock before. Quite beautiful!

Outside the castle.

Cute Julius with mama.

He was such a snuggler, I definitely got some good baby snuggle time in!

We had a wonderful trip to Bratislava. Martin and Lydia are amazing and fun hosts! Thank you SO much for showing us around and teaching us so much about Bratislava. We has an amazing visit!