Last Day(s)

*Now that we have solid internet back in Barcelona, go back and check out the pictures on our last post*

POWS:

• We didn't have churros and chocolate until our last day! 

WOWS:

• Carolyn has had two long conversations in Spanish - one with our hostel owner who walked us to meet the bus to Sacromonte for Flamenco and the other with taxi drivers in the airport who commented on her Messi jersey to start the conversation. 
• Kebab dinner in Granada last night - cheapest and best meal in Granada (until we had churros today...) When I ordered a Coke Zero and Carolyn ordered a 7UP, the man referenced the score to Spain's most recent Eurocup loss, 7-0.
• Viewing the Alhambra from Sacromonte during our walking tour before the Flamenco show

• We made it to the Barcelona Pavilion with 5 minutes until it closed!

We're headed back to Florida tomorrow! Adios!

Contest Update (we'll calculate winners when we are back in the states)
Sisters: 3 (13 total)
Twins: 0 (1 total)
Other: 0 (2 total)

Granada

This post covers a little more than one day without pictures because the internet in our hostel has not been working on our computer consistently so we are using the hostel's computer. We'll try to add more pictures later!

WOWS:

• Seeing La Pieta in chocolate at Barcelona's chocolate museum days after seeing the real thing at St. Peter's:

• Putting our feet in the Mediterranean in Barcelona

• We have the penthouse with a rooftop terrace overlooking Granada at our hostel

• We remember more Spanish from high school than we thought! No English is spoken at our hostel and very little around Granada. Gracias Senora Ferryman!
• La Alhambra. Period.

POWS:

• Carolyn can't stand drinking sangria through straws that bend and that seems to be all they have in Europe.

• Flying two days in a row. It wore us out, but nothing a siesta didn't fix!
• Peeling, De-heading, and de-tailing our shrimp at lunch today. We prefer to just eat it!

Contest Update:

Sisters: 1 (10 total)

Twins: 1

Other: 1 (2 total)

Pisa

POWS:

• Long day of traveling today: 4 cities, train, plane, bus, walking

WOWS:

• Taking stalker pictures of other tourists posing with the leaning tower. One to share now and more to come!

• Beautiful views of the Mediterranean from train and plane today.

• The tower did not fall on us when we took these pictures. 

• No hospital visits today (I broke my ankle the day that I visited Pisa 4 years ago)

Contest Update:
Sisters: 0 (9 total)
Twins: 0
Other: 0 (1 total)

Florence

POWS:

• Unfortunately, we didn't find out about the Bruce Springsteen concert in Florence tonight until it was too late! But don't worry, we saw plenty of fans around the city showing their support.
• We saw lots of naked statues today. Carolyn wasn't prepared for so much "natural" art.

• Advice to future travelers: Don't wearing anything easily identifiable. The venders like to call you out as you walk through the market. Ex: Carolyn wore a Chicago Cubs shirt today.

• The Duomo in Florence is closed on Sundays, so we're weren't able to make the 460+ step climb to the top! See Campanile WOW for resolution to this dilemma!

WOWS:

• We need to take a minute to add a WOW from our Rome experience yesterday. This one is too good to leave out! While walking through the Campo di Fiori, we saw an old man carving vegetables into swirls with a unique cutting tool. He was very entertaining in his explanations (he even used a rubber chicken to illustrate a meal!). Needless to say, we were sold, and we each bought his fun cutting tools.

 

• When we arrived in Florence, we weren't sure which bus to get on--and we didn't have tickets. Thankfully, Virginia figured out which one we needed to go on, and we ended up getting a free bus ride. God was watching over us!
• Our hostel in Florence is absolutely perfect! They offer a cheap dinner, free breakfast, and the rooms are very clean. Check out the great view of the patio out of our window--

• Leather shopping! Carolyn loves the smell of new leather (she says it reminds her of a brand new softball glove), and we definitely experienced a lot of that today! 
• Florence is much smaller than Rome, so walking around was a less daunting task than the last few days. 

• Since we couldn't go up the Duomo, we climbed the Campanile for an amazing view of Florence. Now we just need an aerial from Pisa and Granada to complete our trip!

Contest Update:

Sisters: 0 (9 total)

Twins: 0

Other: 0 (1 total)

Vatican Day

WOWS:

• Viewing Rome from the top of St. Peter's Dome. 551 steps to the top Robin - I'm training over here too!

• Virginia's risotto at our long lunch near St. Peter's
• We got to sleep in this morning and have a pretty relaxed day today.
• Carolyn "saggin" to make sure her shorts were long enough to be permitted into St. Peter's

POWS:

• We decided late in the day that we were going to try to go to the Vatican museum and got there too late and ended up walking all the way around Vatican City trying to catch a bus back towards our hostel. But can anyone else say they walked around an entire country?! 

Contest Update
Sisters: 1 (9 total)
Twins: 0
Other: 1

ROMA

POWS:

• Rome Rewind 3d IMAX experience was meant for children... we were barely in the mood to halfway have fun after getting up at 3 am and traveling for 4 hours.

• Virginia doesn't know EVERYTHING about Rome. Carolyn bombarded me with questions like I was a guide book. I guess that means she was impressed with what I do know?!?
• We were not dressed enough sit in the front room of the pizzeria we had dinner at tonight. Everyone in jeans (or in our case t-shirts) was brought to the back room. Luckily the pizza was awesome so we didn't care!
• We did not bring any matching outfits to show everyone we belong together quite like this group:

WOWS:

• We had a LONG day with 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and probably even 5th winds. Carolyn's strongest wind came from updating our excel spreadsheet of expenses. Yay for nerd tendencies!
• Representing MTR all over Rome:

• Finding the apartment I lived in 4 years ago and having a traditional Italian multiple course lunch at a neighborhood favorite.

• Carolyn's first Italian gelato experience in Piazza Navona (this was immediately before Carolyn's excel 3rd wind)

• Throwing a coin over our shoulders into the Trevi Fountain so we will return to Rome!

• Making the best of an overcrowded tourist destination. We present "Where are Virginia and Carolyn?" Forget Waldo... if you find Virginia 1 bonus point and 5 if you find Carolyn. Good Luck!

Contest Update:
Sisters: 2 (8 total)
Twins: 0

Other: 0

The "Gaudier" side of Barcelona

POWS:

• La Sagrada Familia wasn't finished in time for our visit (we'll just have to come back in 2026)

• The origin of the word gaudy is not derived from Antoni Gaudí even though his architecture fits the definition

• Small blister on the top of my foot (Instead of 60 miles in 3 days like Robin has done, we're going for 60 miles in 10 days)

WOWS:

• Flamenco show (enough said)

• Viewing the city from Montjuic as part of our bus tour

• Virginia has more or less figured out her way around (we even rode a city bus seamlessly tonight!)
• There is a sudoku puzzle on the facade of la Sagrada Familia (hint: each column and row adds up to Jesus' age when he died)

Contest Update:
Sisters: 3 (6 total)
Twins: 0
Other: 0