Prego!

I think we've pretty much shouted this one from the roof tops so it probably isn't news to anyone but we got really great tickets to Venice/Florence in a couple of weeks. AerLingus was having a mad sale. Not only that but we found great places to stay for 1/2 to 1/3 the price of their normal room rates. We're pretty used to staying in budget places and blowing our money on the sites and food so I totally feel like we're splurging. We're staying 2 nights in Venice then taking a train over and spending 2 nights in Florence. We'll report back after we've got lots of photos to make you jealous with! In the meantime, check out our hotels (Venice/Florence).

Dude!

This might be the craziest thing I've ever seen. Click the link to watch these guys gliding in wingsuits. My favorite part is when the guy is talking about what they were doing and says they got "bored." Awesome!

The Old Year

As this was our first full year in Europe it was fun to look back on all the places we went and things we did. We were away from our friends and family which made all our traveling bittersweet but thanks to everyone that made the long haul over here to stay for free and see bits of Europe...uh, I mean visit us. In all seriousness, we are very thankful to everyone who visited and you are all welcome back in 2009. We started 2008 in Rome, saw the West coast of Ireland, London, Cambridge, Manchester, Edinburgh, Loch Ness, Paris, Bordeaux, Barcelona, Bacharach, Kusadasi and Athens. We've decided we better get started this year if it is going to live up to last year so hopefully at the end of the month we'll be visiting Salzburg. Egypt and Maldives are also on the agenda before June.

We visited Dana's family in Minnesota/Wisconsin for an early Christmas. It was nice to spend the time with family. I got some sweet cigar books for Christmas including a diary to record and rate various cigar experiences. I started last night after dinner by smoking a Rocky Patel Sun Grown which was a real treat, and to make it better I rang in the New Year by smoking a Kahlua as my first cigar of 2009. If anyone is planning to come and see us this year and has somewhere they want to go let us know! We are basically living one day at a time with no long term plans, just planning the next trip. We'll see what I have to report a year from now and from where I'll be reporting!