Missed Stops and a Tuscan Farmhouse

For our first three nights in Tuscany, we stayed in a renovated farmhouse about 15 km outside of Florence.

Due to some distracting, on-train toddler shenanigans, we missed the stop where our host was planning to collect us. Thus far in the trip, we’ve resisted getting sim cards for our phones, which is generally fine. Occasionally, though, we end up in situations where a working cell phone would be immensely useful, such as when we find ourselves at a rural Italian train station with no way to reach the person who was expecting us at a different rural Italian train station.

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Coffee in Zagreb

I officially declare the coffee in Zagreb fantastic. Probably my favorite since the amazing lattes out of the back of a truck in Ireland.

(Also, this cafe’s wi-fi password was clinteastwood.)

Books Set in France (that I read in France)

Paris: The Novel, by Edward Rutherford

I’ve read many Rutherfurd novels, and this one was probably my favorite thus far. As usual, he weaves together the lives of several families through many generations. Unlike many of his novels, though, this one jumps back and forth through time. While it would sometimes take me a moment to orient myself, I loved how his departure from strict chronological order let me see an event and then later discover the family histories that sparked it.  Plot-wise, my favorite story was at the end, set during World War II.

While reading this book in the Les jardins du Palais Royal, I realized that I was serendipitously reading about the building of the Palais Royal.

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Mending

Theo and Brian’s jackets were missing some buttons, so we pulled out the sewing kit we bought back in Ireland to fix them. For some reason, Theo decided that the thimble was his “wedding ring.” I decided to just let him go with it. 

Holiday Giving

Brian and I celebrate the winter holidays mainly by acknowledging just how very fortunate we already are. (So, lovely family members reading this, please don’t feel the need to buy us any gifts. We’d ask this even if we weren’t planning on carrying around our worldly possessions on our backs for the next year and eight months.)

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