Rings, Prospects and Wedding Prep

Now that we've returned there are a couple last steps before we get married. The first is to attend a premarital appointment with a translator a couple days prior to getting married. Second is to pick up our wedding rings and third is to attend the ceremony with a translator and two witnesses.

We had found a translator that was suggested to us by the US Consulate in Italy which was 300 Euro per appointment. When you do the math (€1 = $1.70) and see why we weren't about to spend €300 per appointment. We tried a couple other outlets, but couldn't find someone less than €200, so we decided to try another route. We went up to the reception desk of the place we are staying and asked one of the women there to help us. As soon as we said marriage, her eyes lit up and she agreed. The next morning when we met up with her we found out that she was Venezuelan and had married an Italian in the last year and had since moved to Florence with him. Fortunately her Italian was good and she was excited to help us again for our ceremony. We felt very lucky to have found such a sweet person who was able to get excited with us.

As for our rings, it has always been our dream to get them on Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in Florence. This bridge was once where the meat markets but when a prince came by in the middle ages, he was disgusted by the smell and ordered the shops along the bridge to become gold shops instead. We explored this "gold" bridge for the perfect rings, and the perfect price. The rings we chose are le fedi comede, which translates to comfortable ring. They are rounded on the inside for a perfect and smooth fit. They're exactly what we were looking for.

Our last obstacle was to find 2 witnesses. We sat down for dinner and game of cards, at the bar/patio tables where we are staying, and scoped out the prospects. Our witnesses had to be the right set of people. They couldn't be those who would drink too much and forget what they had agreed to, they had to look like they would enjoy being witnesses and not be cynical towards marriage, and they had to be able to speak English, so they would understand what we needed. We scoped out a couple looked to be enjoying eachother and we had run into her in line at the restaurant and knew she spoke English. When we approached them the first thing the woman said was, "Really? Well I could take pictures, I'm a photographer." Plus, her boyfriend's name was Chris. Can you believe our luck?!? Plus they were excited for us and more than willing to help us out. (We were of course going to give them money for a good dinner, which no traveler can pass up.) We can't believe our luck and are so excited to get married. 8-8-8 here we come!

Love
Chris and Jessi (almost Grass)

Day Trip to Sienna

So we took advantage of our Eurail Pass and made a day trip to Sienna. Simply beautiful and great to be surrounded in a hilly medieval town. Well worth the trip. (Sorry for the short blogg, we just didn't want to forget about Sienna before we got to the next blogg.)

Venice

We spent the last 2 days exploring Venice. In an effort to be thrifty we waited to get the perfect map. One that would be detailed and cheap. Of course we quickly got caught up in the shops and an hour later we were lost and without a map. It took us another half hour to find a map and then we were pretty good until we realized that not only was the map wrong about the streets in our neighborhood, but another couple's map that was different from ours was also wrong. We decided we were in a scene from the movie Labyrinth and the walls were shifting on us (but no Jim Henson characters to taunt us). We were surprised at what a good hunting team we made when we found many stores again the second day that we had wanted to go back to and were off the main routes. It was wonderful to be on the water and away from cars for another couple days. It of course wasn't a complete substitute for Cinque Terre as we noticed that most everything we looked at to buy shared colors with the Mediteranean Sea.

Cinque Terre

The train from Rome to La Spezia was 4 hours and gave us glimpses of the Mediteranean Sea along the way. In La Spezia we hopped on another train and 8 minutes later, after a long tunnel, we came to the Riomaggiore (the southern most of the 5 villages) train station. When we got of the train we looked out over the platform to see that we were 75-100 feet above the sea on the cliffs. At that point we simultaneously expressed our interests in not going to Venice and just staying there. Our pictures couldn't even capture how amazing and beautiful this place is. Our hostel didn't help either. It was a spacious two bedroom appartment with a large living room, kitchen and patio, that we shared with 4 Aussies and 2 other Americans and looked out over the village, half way up the cliffs. We finally conviced ourselves that we could leave when we promissed our selves we would return within 5 years.

A side note: Cinque Terre is 5 small villages in the Italian Riviera on the Mediteranean Coast. For many years the only way to access the villages was by boat. Now there is a train that cut into the cliffs through tunnels. There is also an ancient foot path that zig-zags the coast and cuts through their terraced vinyards and orchards. The terraces stretch far up the cliffs. We saw many pictures of this place and heard we should visit it by many people, but nothing prepared us for how amazing it would be.

On our first day we took the train to the northern most town, Monterosso and hiked the 9k (approx. 6 miles) down to Riomaggiore. The first 3.5 hours were fairly difficult, especially in the hot sun. There were times when the path took us through a little shade or a small brook, but for the most part we just tried not to trip down the mountain as gawked at the breathtaking views. That evening we made our own meal in the kitchen (1st time in 9 days!), hung out with our housemates on the patio and all went for a late night swim in the Mediteranean.

The next day we found a set of rocks at the far end of the Riomaggiore pebble beach and our own private place to sun and swim. That afternoon we rented a kayak and went south along the coast, finding caves and a waterfall. The water was a beautiful deep blue green and clear enough to see atleast 20 feet below.

Cinque Terre was the perfect place to truly relax and be on vacation. It has a great combination of beauty, nature, excursions and character and easily the most romatic place we've been so far. It is worth the trip if you ever get the chance.