Thanksgiving 2011

2011...what a great year so far! On Saturday Jeremy and I leave to go back to the states. CO first for a few days, then Oklahoma. I have been in Italy for almost two months! Crazy, where does the time go? It has been very strange pretty much "living" in Naples. It has been kind of like an extended vacation. Jeremy has been very good to me while I have been here, he is going to make an excellent husband! Let me update you since I last posted...

Chamonix, France

Back in August Jeremy got really excited because he told me he booked airline tickets, a rental car, and accomodations for us over Thanksgiving. This was before I even booked my flight to come to Italy! He didn't tell me where the destination was, he wanted it to be a surprise. So all I knew is that I was going somewhere that you only had to take one flight to from Naples, which is slightly limited. I had no idea where we were going even after we got to the airport. Our boarding tickets just had the airport name on it, not the city. And then once our flight landed we still had to drive two hours to get to where we were going. Turns out he was taking me to Chamonix, France! Its a very cute, little mountain town snuggle against Mount Blanc, the tallest mountain in Europe! Such a great choice in a surprise trip! He said if he could have waited to propose to me this is where he would have, but he couldn't wait that long.

Our flight went from Naples to Milan, then we drove through the Italian Alps into the French Alps. It was a really cool drive, we had to take lots of tunnels through the mountains. The last tunnel that goes through Mount Blanc was over 11km long! And it cost 35 euros! Ridiculous!

It was such a nice little trip! We did a little hiking and geocaching. We took a day and went to Geneva, it was only 1.5 hours away. We discovered that it is true when they say how expensive Switzerland is. The dollar does slightly better compared to Swiss Francs than Euros, but the prices in Switzerland are expensive!

My CO Mountaineer travel bug I left in Chamonix

The hike we took getting to this geocache that I hid the travel bug in was not very long, but we decided to take the more direct route since we weren't sure if the trail eventually went the right way. We ended up climbing up this very steep hill, scrambling over branches and rocks. It was definately worth it to leave my bug in this cache!

Italian/French Alps (Mount Blanc is far right)

There is a very wide gondola system in this area that takes you up and around many parts of the mountains. The big gondola goes up next to Mount Blanc that I really wanted to do, unfortunately we just happened to be in Chamonix in their only offseason month apparently. November was the only month of the year that the gondola isn't running. So depressing. It is an excellent place to ski/snowboard too, unfortunately too early for that. Guess we just have to decide if we want to go back someday in the summer to hike or in the winter to board.

Took this pic for my mom! The houses look like those little cuckoo clocks!

We got to walk around the town a bit. It is a very cute little town. Didn't seem too busy, since we were there in the off season. But you can tell it is a very touristy place. There are a lot of hotels and restaurants. Lots of ski gear, outdoor sport shops. Very tempting to buy stuff! Surprisingly they had a little farmers market while we were there. Lots of goods, even fresh vegetables and fruit. This surprised me because it was so cold there, didn't know where the stuff came from. We tried to get a French experience and got some wine and cheese that they said went well with the wine. The wine was good, but eating the cheese later we discovered how much it stunk and kind of lost our appetite for the cheese. I tried to eat some of it so we didn't totally waste it, but it was a little tough. Guess we can't pretend to be like the French, liking stinky cheese.

Statue of first men to summit Mount Blanc


Jeremy finding a geocache beside the church

Pic while driving through the Swiss Alps

Found a cache next to this lake. This structure was cool, it has little stairs going down to this tunnel leading to the water. Interesting way to get on the boat!

When we were in Geneva we thought about going to get Fondue, but then decided since Fondue is so expensive anyway, we should just get it in France since in Switzerland it will be twice as expensive. For lunch in Geneva we both got bagel sandwiches and drinks. It cost $27!! There are a lot of places to eat Fondue in Chamonix, as well crepes. For some reason we ran out of meals to eat there so our last night in Chamonix we had cheese Fondue and dessert crepes afterwards. I was so stuffed!!

Jeremy has discovered that geocaching is a great way to explore a city. This is how we explored Geneva! He looked up specific places he wanted to go to the night before as well as geocaches. So we found a few caches in the city as well as visited a few churches, museums, and starbucks! There aren't any starbucks in Italy, so I wanted to go to one. Guess how much my drink was? $10!!! No wonder starbucks is so rich!

In Geneva, we got ourselves into the middle of a riot. It was pretty interesting. We have no idea what they were protesting, but it was just a bunch of lower class working men holding flags and blowing their whistles. It was cool to see, never been in a protest.

Sunset on Lake Como

Jeremy decided driving back to Milan he wanted to take the scenic route through Switzerland, going down to lake Como. I figured this would take a while so I told him we just needed to leave early. It tood a lot longer than we expected it to. It took us two hours to drive to Chamonix, six hours to drive back to Lake Como. It took forever! We knew it would take maybe an hour longer driving through the mountains the whole time. But that was ridiculous. So we ended up only getting less than two hours to spend at Lake Como (northern Italy). It was worth it. I have been wanting to see this area. I didn't realize how populated it was. Probably not somewhere I would want to spend too many days at. The lake is gorgeous though and it would be really nice to do some hiking around here.

This is where they filmed some of Star Wars. Recognize it? There is a mansion that you can't see too well in this pic that was on Star Wars.

Lake Como

Church in Geneva

Where we had our first meal in Chamonix, it was delicious! I had the best French Onion Soup!

Church in Chamonix

It was sad not being with any family for Thanksgiving, but this trip was amazing and Jeremy did a very good job surprising me! I look forward to going back sometime in the future...

The past few weeks has been filled with parties and music. If I can remember them all in the past few weeks we have been to Halloween party (this one was in Oct of course but I'm still counting it), Thanksgiving dinner party, our engagement/Jeremy's birthday party, Band party, and Christmas party. I think that's all of them, I may be missing one. And then Jeremy has had five gigs or so the past few weeks that I have been to, most of them being Christmas gigs. So we haven't really gone anywhere the last few weeks but we have been doing quite a lot. I told Jeremy this is the most parties I have ever been to in a year! I don't know if I will ever go to so many parties again! I have definately been able to spend a lot of time with his coworkers! It has been fun.

One more day then Jeremy and I leave Italy. I am sad to leave, but am ready to go to CO and OK. Jeremy hasn't even met my parents yet, so I am looking forward to spending time with them and then with his family.

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas! I hope your holidays are wonderful and you get plenty of time with family! Love you all!