I'm baa-aack!

Hey everyone! I'm back!

Ok, I'm not THAT excited about being back... although the weather here isn't much different than it was the whole time we were in Italy and France (30+ every day).

There are a lot of stories to tell and I took over 500 pictures! I will try to post some in the next few days, although I do have to get some work done in the meantime so bear with me. Overall I had a great time. The countryside in Italy is breathtaking and seeing Flo in France was pretty great. Not knowing the language very well was a bit of a barrier, but after giving people the usual 'blank stare', they understood that I didn't understand. We also ended up lost a lot, including driving down narrow streets in Sienna where we weren't supposed to be with a car (which became evident since it didn't even fit down some of the streets). We couldn't get out and felt like total rats in a maze. Yikes, it was pretty hairy as I made tight turns and squeezed through narrow streets lined with 3 storey buildings so we couldn't see our way out. If you are ever driving and see the sign "traffico limitato", for God sakes, turn the hell around!!! The downtown part of many of those places have streets that are just wide enough for a scooter or Smart car sized vehicle to get through. People were shaking their fists at us as we meandered through the crowds at one point. When a lady saw that I was on the edge of breaking down in tears, she graciously explained to the most aggressive and vocal fat dude in Italian that we were very lost and then she explained to us in English how to get out. It wasn't that easy. We still couldn't find our way and were scared we'd bury ourselves deeper until we finally found a very very very nice man who told us to follow him in his car. He was a lifesaver. We'd still be there now if it wasn't for him!!!

Funny thing... I just checked the Audi website and watched the movie ad about the car we drove, and it's apparently designed for "maneuvring the downtown maze." It also shows many of the stunts I pulled off in Europe... And here I thought I was a just a good driver!!! There was a reason they didn't have a Yaris that day and we got upgraded after all!