honestly had the best 10 days of my life over there. there isn't a single thing or day where i was like "man, this is a bummer."

Rome: i wasn't expecting to be blown away and i was. Absolutely incredible city. From the Ruins to the churches to all of the piazzas and then the Vatican. The whole city is just so overwhelmingly amazing that its easy to fall in love. It's easy to be a tourist or to wander down a side road and feel like you're in a neighborhood that hasn't changed in 100 years. The food is incredible. Pizza al Taglio is special. The tiny neighborhood of Trastevere(our AirBnB) is more local than touristy. wander into a restaurant and it's just a living room where the chef/owner takes your order then cooks the food for you. had 3 incredible dinners in Rome that i won't ever forget. The wine is all time cheap. we got a carafe of house wine for 10$(it was more than a whole bottle). Another place we got a bottle of house wine for 6$. The last dinner we had the bottle of wine was 18$(expensive!).

Cinque Terre is a tourist trap through and through, but its an amazing one. The towns are a lot of fun to walk around in. very small and very hilly. What makes Cinque Terre amazing is the hiking that can be done. All but 2 of the hikes were open. The two that aren't open are because of landslides. Its an absolutely incredible journey from town to town that is so breathtaking. It's a view and experience that you probably can't get in America hiking. I would definitely like to go back and spend another few days hiking into the more mountain areas of the towns. They have these little hand tanks that go along the trail for them to deliver food and water. one of them was loaded up with a half keg of beer and was like a mile away from the next town. a hell of a way of living.

Florence has some special stuff in it but overall is somewhat lame. The Uffizi is out of this world. The amount of classical statues and 15th century artwork will live you speechless. The churches and Duomo are incredible. The city itself is tiny. Since it's so tiny you can't get away from the amount of tourist traps. There's no respite from standard pasta place to pasta place. Even the 'guides' online are rife with touristy places to eat and drink. So as a whole i felt slightly cheated. Our AirBnB was kinda lame as well(no air). Overall it's still a place i would recommend going but it takes a little more research than the other places we went. Wish we got to do more museum stuff there than we did. I could have spent another 4 hours in Uffizi and i would have loved to do the Dante museum. The Cupola was a major downer. took us 3.5 hours from standing in line to standing in a tiny staircase to tiny hallways to finally get to the dome. then only to get stranded on the top of the dome lookout. a very stressful experience that didn't have nearly the same rewards as climbing the Cupola at St. Peters Cathedral.

We spent 3 days in my fiances family farm in Abruzzo. that was just an absolute blast. meeting all of her relatives to the big family lunches and dinners. going from the Farm to the beach to the "ancient" city of Lanciano then a 4 hour drive into the mountains to visit a family grave site. Saying goodbye was very hard. Its very hard to feel as welcomed as i did into a family that doesn't speak english. They went out of there way to treat me like i've been part of the family. My fiance can speak OK italian and i took some lessons prior to going so i can follow along to some stuff. But with such an language disconnect i didn't feel like i was on the outside at all. The way of living of her family over there is just so 'old world.' Generations of families under one roof. the 100 gallon drum of olive oil. the fields of grapes, olive trees, tomatoes and other produce. The lemon trees in the backyard. Homemade pasta and limoncello and wine for every meal. its has this idyllic quality from a novel that doesn't seem like a real place.

the whole trip feels indescribable despite my PTK level of words used. i can't wait to go back in a few years.

some galleries:
Panoramas(don't miss the church one thats kinda hidden on the left hand side halfway down):
https://goo.gl/photos/C6hx4PkdNVvgvShCA

Trip summed up by Google:
https://goo.gl/photos/GGJc2PSNXUQH89NL7

that's awesome. I'm glad you had such a good time.

(likes this)

Woooo sounds like a blast

Not that I needed a trip there promoted but that was an especially good promotion. Awesome.

guess one thing i should have noted was the amount of time we stayed in each place.

We opened our trip with 2 nights in Rome. Got on an early train and went to Cinque Terre. We did 2 nights in Cinque Terre then got another early train to Florence. We did 2 nights in Florence. Another early train down the coast of the Adriatic and spent 3 nights on the farm. We got a morning bus out of Lanciano(3 hour bus ride) to Rome and spent another night in Rome. Our flight was as at 11:30am saturday morning. Arrived in Philly at 3:30pm. Our times in each city and our scheduling was pretty good. I never felt rushed or that we didn't do enough. You can easily spend more time in each city but for a quick jaunt around a country you can't go wrong with spending 2 nights in each city and hitting the highlights then packing up and moving on. Its also nice to get back on a saturday in the afternoon. No need to rush around getting stuff unpacked and washed in order to head back to work on Monday.

gahh, i'm still super geeked out.

Good stuff dude. Sounds the best.

Jumping on the morning beach drinking trend. Started with vodka shots this morning at 10 and been drinking ew/coke all day on the beach. This is a good day.

applied to be an air traffic controller.

is that something you can just apply for on a whim?

ReadingPhilly wrote:applied to be an air traffic controller.

Seriously it's the best job. Email me your resume. I know a lot of instructors at the academy. jreyno24@gmail.com.

jamiethekiller wrote:is that something you can just apply for on a whim?

They're hiring a ton right now. There's a big PR campaign going on.

You have to be open to moving including to OKC for awhile for training.

There's a guy next to me on the beach ... With no arms ... Smoking a one hitter. Dedication.

I can smell people dying outside

momadance wrote:

jamiethekiller wrote:is that something you can just apply for on a whim?

They're hiring a ton right now. There's a big PR campaign going on.

What's the salary like?

momadance wrote:

jamiethekiller wrote:is that something you can just apply for on a whim?

They're hiring a ton right now. There's a big PR campaign going on.

Interesting. Maybe I'll apply when I get laid off in a few months

slugsrbad wrote:

momadance wrote:

jamiethekiller wrote:is that something you can just apply for on a whim?

They're hiring a ton right now. There's a big PR campaign going on.

What's the salary like?

You start pretty low but you get locality pay depending on cost of living where you work. By the time you retire you'll be making over 100k. Closer to 120k to over 150k right now. Their union is incredibly strong.

jamiethekiller wrote:

momadance wrote:

jamiethekiller wrote:is that something you can just apply for on a whim?

They're hiring a ton right now. There's a big PR campaign going on.

Interesting. Maybe I'll apply when I get laid off in a few months

there was an article in the newspaper about it so i figured what the hell. i think it is only open for one week and it closes tomorrow. also think you have to be under 31, though maybe there are ways around that. i'm sure moma knows.

moma, how soon do you think i'd be able to get back in the area? that'd be my only hang up. just got done with 3 years of a long distance relationship and i'm not not too anxious to restart it. seems like a hell of a career though. i'll shoot you my resume when i get home. thanks.

Also you only actually work half of your shift. 30 mins on 30 mins off or something like that. But the training isn't easy.