Hello family and friends! I wanted to blog about our trip while everything is still fresh. This trip was perfect and was just what we needed to revamp our lives. We will always remember the memories we created together and cherish our last few months of just us together. This trip we have called our "babymoon" but actually it was a celebration of Spencer graduation with his Master's. He worked so hard, especially this last year. The whole time we've been married, he has worked in jobs that allowed him to utilize his engineering skills and went to school full time. I have been very impressed by how he handled everything. He graduated with honors and in the top 10% of his class in a very hard program. I let Spencer pick where he wanted to go and was surprised when he said Italy and France. When we booked it, we had eight weeks to get everything ready. Those eight weeks went by rather quickly and we were both excited and nervous to leave the country.
We left Utah early on May 7th and arrived back home late May 18th. We had 10 days of walking our bums off and even getting blisters while hitting up all of the touristy things to do. Before we went, we had so much to prepare for. Being pregnant, a diabetic, and having Celiac disease, we knew we were in for some rough patches. After my OB/gyn gave some great pointers of getting up every hour on the plane, wearing compression socks, and drinking LOTS of water, I felt better. We hit up Costco for some juice boxes, beef jerky, nuts, fruit snacks and granola bars for snacks. (Secret, we usually just ate the snacks for lunch, instead of buying lunch). These literally saved us several times throughout our trip, especially those juice boxes and granola bars. Before we would go out for the day, we would look up gluten free restaurants or places that had GF items near the attractions we would see. TripAdvisor is amazing in this way and helped us be able to find the best ones around.
Our first night in Rome, we had walked around a bit after our small nap to catch up on the time difference (8 hour time difference). We didn't go far and we didn't even do much, but it was well worth it. We ventured over to Piazza del Papolo, which was about 10 minutes from our hotel. We learned very quickly that the guys walking around with flowers, bracelets, or other "trinkets" were all trying to get money. So word to the wise, if you go there in the future and someone ( I am not trying to discriminate, but those from the Middle East, India, or Africa) comes up to you and says "Welcome to Rome, here these are for you" just shake your head no. They will try to get money from you, even if they say they just want food. Our first "meal" was very interesting. Ha I am laughing while I am typing this because it was actually hilarious! We walked into this little bistro that was very authentic. Our first question was "Do you serve Gluten Free food?" (We had been told no by three other restaurants). They quickly responded yes! They motioned us to find our own table and gave a menu. Then the chef came out right as we were sitting down and was asking us what we liked in his broken English. He asked Spencer if he like tuna and asked me if I like quinoa. We both responded yes and continued looking at the menu, thinking we still had time to order. Before we knew it the chef brought out our meals. We both looked at each other and were like "Did we order?" It was so funny! My dish was actually really good, it was quinoa with chili and some sort of verde sauce. Poor Spencer got a practically raw slab of tuna, some reddish beans, and steamed spinach. I finished mine no problem, but there was not enough salt and pepper and water for Spencer to finish his. We found out later that this restaurant was organic and raw. Don't you worry though, we quickly found a Gelato place to complete our Italian palate.
Our second day in Rome was fabulous! We walked to the Vatican, upgraded our tickets to get a tour of St. Peter's Basilica, The Sistine Chapel, and surrounding places. Before our tour time started, we walked over to Saint Angelo's Castle, it was cheap, like 10 Euro total to tour. It was amazing. So old, yet so much to tell. We didn't know a lick of Italian, but somehow got by with all the people trying to talk to us. When our tour started, we had a pretty funny tour guide, he said many things three times. For those of you looking to go to Rome, I highly recommend getting a tour package, it will save you hours of waiting time, and you get to see more. I was in complete awe the whole time. It was beautiful to see how much love the Catholics have for their chapels and churches. The history alone speaks for itself. My jaw dropped to the floor several times. To witness the magic of another religion was rewarding. We finished the evening at an all gluten free restaurant, Mama Frites. We had the best pizza, donuts, and salad.
Our third day in Rome was busy. We walked all over! We explored ancient Rome. The Colosseum and the Forums are way neat! We didn't have a tour guide and we were just fine. From there we walked to Trevi Fountain, had some Gelato then found Vincenzo Street. For those of you who don't know, Vincenzo is a nickname that Spencer was given when he was younger. It was awesome!! From there we walked to the Spanish Steps and saw the most expensive stores ever. From there we walked to the Pantheon and found dinner. We went to Voglia Di Pizza, where we enjoyed our first legit Italian pasta, that was gluten free. I was in Heaven. The next day we enjoyed some other statues in piazza's and more and more Gelato. Our favorite place, that just happened to be 3 minutes away from our hotel, was La Romana Gelato and Pastries.
From Rome we flew to Nice (pronounced like niece) and took a taxi to our destination of Cannes (pronounced like can) France. This is where the film festival occurs each year, and it was a million dollar city". It was a very pretty city and much cleaner than Rome. We mostly window shopped here and walked around the sandy beach. It was way relaxing. We had some macaroons and Baby E started jumping in my belly, thank heavens she likes treats! From there we took a 5 hour train ride to Paris, France. Our first night in Paris (May 14th) was fun. We checked into our hotel and ventured out to find food. We walked up a huge hill to B Boys and shared a hamburger (I didn't eat the bun), and some fries, and a Mango shake. The next morning we walked so much. We walked to the Sacre Coeur. We walked up a million steps, I was seriously sweating and my belly got so tight. The hike up there was worth it. You could see the whole city of Paris, which seemed to stretch for miles and miles. We walked to the Louvre, an all gluten free pastry shop (NoGlu, I highly recommend this place because it's way cheap and delcious!), from there we walked to Notre Dame, and the love lock bridge. We got a selfie with Mona Lisa's selfie and it was funny! We found another GF place for dinner called Loulou's, which was really good.
The next day we took a train out to Versailles and enjoyed touring the palace and gardens. The actual palace you had to wait forever in a line to get in, but it was pretty neat. Going in, I didn't know much of what happened there, but learned a lot. The gardens were my favorite part. They went on for many acres of land. This day was actually a really hot day and I could not drink enough water. Unfortunately we had to cut our garden tour short so I wouldn't get dehydrated. We finished the day by going to the Eiffel Tower and watched the sunset. It was beautiful and so dreamy. We stayed long enough to see it light up the sky and take some pictures. Oh Paris, you sure are way more romantic than I thought you would be. Our last day in Paris was a quick one! We met up with our Uncle Brent, who was there on business and had lunch at a GF crepe place. Yum!! After we went to Arc de Triomphe. It was a quick trip out there.
The next day was crazy. We knew it would be long day, starting at 4:30 am when a taxi came to pick us up to go to the airport. When we got there, the airport wasn't even open... boo! With a turn of events the flight that we were supposed to take to Amsterdam was delayed with no estimation of when it would depart due to technical problems. The flight we were supposed to catch in Amsterdam to make it back to Salt Lake was the only was and we ended up missing that. I was not happy at all. Luckily Spencer was able to change our flights. We ended up flying to San Francisco (bleh like 11 hours) then caught a flight to Salt Lake. We flew with AirFrance to San Fran and it was so different than any flight we had ever taken. There were two floors of seats, we are estimating about 1000 people were on this flight. The meals were okay, but the flight attendants seemed to have gone a-wall in the middle of the flight. They left snacks out in the middle of the plane, in which you could help your self to (way weird). My favorite part was the ice cream they handed out! By the time we were descending in SLC, we had been up for 24 hours. I got so sick, and it was way embarrassing. The seat belt light was on, the flight attendants were seated, and we were about to land. I shot up from my seat and had to try not to get sick all over the bathroom. Luckily I was able to stop just in time to land. For all you pregnant ladies, I don't know how you travel via plane. I am sure most of this was due to exhaustion as I came home and slept forever and felt way better.
We seriously had the best time and can now check many things off our bucket list. I love my Spencer and love how we are able to enjoy so many wonderful things together. This will be a trip I will always hold close to my heart and one that will always put a smile on my face.
Enjoy some pictures... there were far too many to upload all of them, but these are good ones!
Go forth and do!
We left Utah early on May 7th and arrived back home late May 18th. We had 10 days of walking our bums off and even getting blisters while hitting up all of the touristy things to do. Before we went, we had so much to prepare for. Being pregnant, a diabetic, and having Celiac disease, we knew we were in for some rough patches. After my OB/gyn gave some great pointers of getting up every hour on the plane, wearing compression socks, and drinking LOTS of water, I felt better. We hit up Costco for some juice boxes, beef jerky, nuts, fruit snacks and granola bars for snacks. (Secret, we usually just ate the snacks for lunch, instead of buying lunch). These literally saved us several times throughout our trip, especially those juice boxes and granola bars. Before we would go out for the day, we would look up gluten free restaurants or places that had GF items near the attractions we would see. TripAdvisor is amazing in this way and helped us be able to find the best ones around.
Our first night in Rome, we had walked around a bit after our small nap to catch up on the time difference (8 hour time difference). We didn't go far and we didn't even do much, but it was well worth it. We ventured over to Piazza del Papolo, which was about 10 minutes from our hotel. We learned very quickly that the guys walking around with flowers, bracelets, or other "trinkets" were all trying to get money. So word to the wise, if you go there in the future and someone ( I am not trying to discriminate, but those from the Middle East, India, or Africa) comes up to you and says "Welcome to Rome, here these are for you" just shake your head no. They will try to get money from you, even if they say they just want food. Our first "meal" was very interesting. Ha I am laughing while I am typing this because it was actually hilarious! We walked into this little bistro that was very authentic. Our first question was "Do you serve Gluten Free food?" (We had been told no by three other restaurants). They quickly responded yes! They motioned us to find our own table and gave a menu. Then the chef came out right as we were sitting down and was asking us what we liked in his broken English. He asked Spencer if he like tuna and asked me if I like quinoa. We both responded yes and continued looking at the menu, thinking we still had time to order. Before we knew it the chef brought out our meals. We both looked at each other and were like "Did we order?" It was so funny! My dish was actually really good, it was quinoa with chili and some sort of verde sauce. Poor Spencer got a practically raw slab of tuna, some reddish beans, and steamed spinach. I finished mine no problem, but there was not enough salt and pepper and water for Spencer to finish his. We found out later that this restaurant was organic and raw. Don't you worry though, we quickly found a Gelato place to complete our Italian palate.
Our second day in Rome was fabulous! We walked to the Vatican, upgraded our tickets to get a tour of St. Peter's Basilica, The Sistine Chapel, and surrounding places. Before our tour time started, we walked over to Saint Angelo's Castle, it was cheap, like 10 Euro total to tour. It was amazing. So old, yet so much to tell. We didn't know a lick of Italian, but somehow got by with all the people trying to talk to us. When our tour started, we had a pretty funny tour guide, he said many things three times. For those of you looking to go to Rome, I highly recommend getting a tour package, it will save you hours of waiting time, and you get to see more. I was in complete awe the whole time. It was beautiful to see how much love the Catholics have for their chapels and churches. The history alone speaks for itself. My jaw dropped to the floor several times. To witness the magic of another religion was rewarding. We finished the evening at an all gluten free restaurant, Mama Frites. We had the best pizza, donuts, and salad.
Our third day in Rome was busy. We walked all over! We explored ancient Rome. The Colosseum and the Forums are way neat! We didn't have a tour guide and we were just fine. From there we walked to Trevi Fountain, had some Gelato then found Vincenzo Street. For those of you who don't know, Vincenzo is a nickname that Spencer was given when he was younger. It was awesome!! From there we walked to the Spanish Steps and saw the most expensive stores ever. From there we walked to the Pantheon and found dinner. We went to Voglia Di Pizza, where we enjoyed our first legit Italian pasta, that was gluten free. I was in Heaven. The next day we enjoyed some other statues in piazza's and more and more Gelato. Our favorite place, that just happened to be 3 minutes away from our hotel, was La Romana Gelato and Pastries.
From Rome we flew to Nice (pronounced like niece) and took a taxi to our destination of Cannes (pronounced like can) France. This is where the film festival occurs each year, and it was a million dollar city". It was a very pretty city and much cleaner than Rome. We mostly window shopped here and walked around the sandy beach. It was way relaxing. We had some macaroons and Baby E started jumping in my belly, thank heavens she likes treats! From there we took a 5 hour train ride to Paris, France. Our first night in Paris (May 14th) was fun. We checked into our hotel and ventured out to find food. We walked up a huge hill to B Boys and shared a hamburger (I didn't eat the bun), and some fries, and a Mango shake. The next morning we walked so much. We walked to the Sacre Coeur. We walked up a million steps, I was seriously sweating and my belly got so tight. The hike up there was worth it. You could see the whole city of Paris, which seemed to stretch for miles and miles. We walked to the Louvre, an all gluten free pastry shop (NoGlu, I highly recommend this place because it's way cheap and delcious!), from there we walked to Notre Dame, and the love lock bridge. We got a selfie with Mona Lisa's selfie and it was funny! We found another GF place for dinner called Loulou's, which was really good.
The next day we took a train out to Versailles and enjoyed touring the palace and gardens. The actual palace you had to wait forever in a line to get in, but it was pretty neat. Going in, I didn't know much of what happened there, but learned a lot. The gardens were my favorite part. They went on for many acres of land. This day was actually a really hot day and I could not drink enough water. Unfortunately we had to cut our garden tour short so I wouldn't get dehydrated. We finished the day by going to the Eiffel Tower and watched the sunset. It was beautiful and so dreamy. We stayed long enough to see it light up the sky and take some pictures. Oh Paris, you sure are way more romantic than I thought you would be. Our last day in Paris was a quick one! We met up with our Uncle Brent, who was there on business and had lunch at a GF crepe place. Yum!! After we went to Arc de Triomphe. It was a quick trip out there.
The next day was crazy. We knew it would be long day, starting at 4:30 am when a taxi came to pick us up to go to the airport. When we got there, the airport wasn't even open... boo! With a turn of events the flight that we were supposed to take to Amsterdam was delayed with no estimation of when it would depart due to technical problems. The flight we were supposed to catch in Amsterdam to make it back to Salt Lake was the only was and we ended up missing that. I was not happy at all. Luckily Spencer was able to change our flights. We ended up flying to San Francisco (bleh like 11 hours) then caught a flight to Salt Lake. We flew with AirFrance to San Fran and it was so different than any flight we had ever taken. There were two floors of seats, we are estimating about 1000 people were on this flight. The meals were okay, but the flight attendants seemed to have gone a-wall in the middle of the flight. They left snacks out in the middle of the plane, in which you could help your self to (way weird). My favorite part was the ice cream they handed out! By the time we were descending in SLC, we had been up for 24 hours. I got so sick, and it was way embarrassing. The seat belt light was on, the flight attendants were seated, and we were about to land. I shot up from my seat and had to try not to get sick all over the bathroom. Luckily I was able to stop just in time to land. For all you pregnant ladies, I don't know how you travel via plane. I am sure most of this was due to exhaustion as I came home and slept forever and felt way better.
We seriously had the best time and can now check many things off our bucket list. I love my Spencer and love how we are able to enjoy so many wonderful things together. This will be a trip I will always hold close to my heart and one that will always put a smile on my face.
Enjoy some pictures... there were far too many to upload all of them, but these are good ones!
Go forth and do!
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