Where to Begin?

Wow. I don’t even know how to begin recapping our trip to Italy last week. I’m still sorting through photos and videos and trying to remember the details of everything we saw and experienced. I think I’m going to try to do a day by day recap since I took over 1,100 photos and direct you to Flickr to see more.
It absolutely was a fantastic experience, and although I felt like my feet were going to fall off, and that the dark circles under my eyes would never go away, and that my poor knee that’s had 3 surgeries would never forgive me for climbing an uncountable number of steps, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
DAY ONE – The Atlanta Layover
Woke up at 3:30 a.m. and had my brother-in-law take us to the airport at 4:30 a.m. Steve and Ginger spent the night at our house to save time in the morning. Our flight got into ATL around 8:30 and we headed straight for the Marta and went downtown to the Coca-Cola Museum. It was really cool to see all the old advertisements, and to taste all the Coke products sold around the world. We were excited to taste the Italy version of the soft drink Beverly, but it was awful. As far as strange versions went, we like the UK “Kinley” drink best.

After the museum, we met our favorite former education pastor, Paul, for lunch at the Chick-fil-A Dwarf House. This was the first CFA ever, and we had a blast checking out the different menu, which also had hamburgers, and visiting with Pablo. He drove us back to the airport, too, so we didn’t have to worry about dealing with the Marta again.

Our flight left around 5:30 p.m. Atlanta time, and we set our watches 6 hours ahead to Italy time. We all tried to sleep on the plane, but it was hard. It was over a 9 hour flight, and I had the unfortunate middle seat in a 3 seat row. And somehow, no matter what flight Robert and I are on, we always seem to be near the obligatory screaming child on every flight. Thank goodness for our earplugs.
Next up: Milan