*Warning* lengthy travel post ahead

In spite of my good intentions to keep my blog updated while traveling, there just wasn't enough time to sleep AND write. When there's a contest between sleep and almost anything else...sleep wins. The sad part is I know there are 100 funny stories I probably won't remember. But if I had been sleeping all day and writing all night, there wouldn't have been any stories at all. You see the dilemma.

For those of you who don't know, Steve and I just returned from three wonderful weeks in Europe. Well, the Mediterranean, to be more precise. We spent about a week in northern Italy (Venice to Rome), and the next two between Greece and Turkey (Istanbul and Kusadasi/Ephesus). Since Turkey is part of the Asian continent, that means I doubled the number of continents I've been to in less than 3 weeks!

This was my first trip to Europe. It was also my first trip to a country (or countries) where I don't speak the language. Italian and Spanish are close enough that we did fine, but Greek...that was a bit of an adventure. You know it's going to be rough when the alphabet isn't even the same. I at least managed to learn a few phrases, which is more than I can say for Turkish. After half a week in the country, I was still limited to "hello" and "thank you." (Although I at least mastered the pronunciation enough that one store owner started speaking to me in Turkish. When I just stared back at him blankly, he laughed and said in English, "I thought you were Turkish! You said 'Merhaba'!" Probably just flattering me. It worked.) Luckily, almost everyone we met in Istanbul spoke at least some English.

I'm sure I'll share some more detailed stories in the next week or two, but for now I'll just sum up a few highlights in a lovely bullet list.

• Most memorable piece of art: Hands down, Michelangelo's David. I love art, but I'm not any kind of an expert, so when I heard people talking about what an amazing sculpture this is, I figured I'd think it was cool, but I didn't know if I'd understand enough about it to get the major "wow' factor other people talk about. I was not expecting the reaction I had when I walked into the room. I'm not sure how to describe it, except to say that I just felt like it was perfect and inspired. Art is a lot like writing in that when something is "finished" is sort of arbitrary. There is nothing arbitrary about the David - it is certainly complete and to have added or omitted anything would have diminished it. It's probably good that we weren't allowed to photograph it - no picture could capture what it was like to be in that room.
  

• Best site for historical ruins: This one is tough - we saw a LOT of Greek and Roman ruins. Ephesus definitely stands out though, particularly the Library of Celsus. The Colosseum was, of course, incredible as well, and it was unreal to walk where Paul did - Mars Hill and Ephesus again.
  
  

• Most fun: This is a tough one too. I'll go with crusing around Santorini on a scooter (which we lovingly dubbed Kermit).
  
  

• Most stressful to navigate: Athens. I guess you could also call this one "Most adventurous travel." Inaccurate subway maps, limited information on city-to-city transportation, "information" employees unwilling to help you, stretches of non-functioning railway. Also a slight communication barrier and lots of people who said "I don't know," even though we knew they did. Oh, and even when you have the directions, good luck finding a street sign.

• Most picturesque: This is a toss-up between Venice and Santorini. Venice was beautiful, but a little strange because everyone there is a tourist. It almost felt like a very beautiful and historic Disneyland.
  
  
  

• Most relaxing: Greek islands. After two weeks of running our feet off, it was incredible to cruise around on a scooter without any agenda except finding good beaches and great food.

• Biggest surprise: Geting a 52 Euro bill (about $75) for two plates of sea bass, a Coke and a Fanta. If you order fish charged by weight, be smarter than us and make sure it's in a unit of measurement you understand!

• Biggest food obsession: For Steve, Italian gelato and European Coke. For me, Italian pastries, Greek salad and Fanta.
  
  
  
  

• Least favorite food: Honest-to-goodness Greek yogurt, unflavored. The picture on the container leads me to believe it was sheep yogurt. I will NOT try it again in a few years to see if my taste buds have matured.
  
  
  
  

• Most amazing moment: Sitting between the Haiga Sophia and the Blue Mosque at dusk and hearing the call to prayer from 5 different mosques.
  
  
  
  

• Best sunsets: Santorini.
  

Physics question

We had crepes for dinner on Sunday. A few with ham and turkey (just so we could reasonably call it "dinner") and then several delicious fruit and dessert crepes. At least, I had several. Mmmmmm....

Anyway, I melted semi-sweet chocolate chips on the last crepe I cooked and ate it in the kitchen (because who are we kidding, I am for sure not enough of a grownup to eat in the living room without spilling). I then took the bag of chocolate chips into the living room where we were playing Monopoly with some friends. And that is the full disclosure of my chocolate contact for the evening.

I should note before continuing that I was wearing a mid-calf-length dress so my knees were covered for the duration of the Monopoly carpet-sitting.

When I was getting ready for bed later that night, I found melted chocolate BEHIND MY KNEES. Nowhere else. Not on my hands, not on my dress, not even on my face. Also not on the carpet or the kitchen chairs. Just melted into the creases behind my knees. And it wasn't just a little bit of chocolate. I had to get in the bathtub to wash it off.

Can someone please explain how that's even a little bit possible?

WTH? Again?

For those of you not familiar with Utah slang, "WTH" would be "What the heck?" And before I continue this post, I just want to clarify that I am not pregnant. Because apparently, when your brain totally craps out on you, that's the first thing people assume.

If you've visited SYA before, you may remember a recent post about me leaving 4 hours early for a baby shower less than 5 miles away. (I'm not linking to it, just look down. It's like 2 inches below this.) Well, I've already topped it. And it hasn't even been a month yet.

One of my dearest friends from high school is getting married next month, so a few of our other friends threw a bridal shower for her (naturally). I looked forward all week to seeing Katie and our other high school gal pals. And I had a super cute present for her. So I told Steve to make plans with the guys and planned my day around the shower.

And then on Friday, Steve picked me up from work. We ran some errands, went to dinner, and then he dropped me off at home to hang out with my sister in law while he went out with the guys. And I totally FORGOT to go to the bridal shower. WTH?!

I woke up Saturday morning and saw the invitation on the fridge and that's when it dawned on me. I missed it. Totally, 100 percent failure. I almost cried (yes, that's true and no, for the second time, I am not pregnant).

And that's it, that's the story. I lose :(

It's arrived!

Have we all noticed that SPRING is here? Well my allergies haven't yet...shhhhh....

Somebody get this girl a planner

On Saturday, I went to a baby shower for one of my college roommies (because EVERYONE I know is having babies right now - but that's beside the point). I hadn't seen this particular roommie in almost a year, so naturally I planned my day around the 10 a.m. shower. I set my alarm for 9 (you know, just in case I had a particularly late sleep in), but in my early morning grogginess, I set it for 9 a.m. Monday - Friday and didn't even touch the weekend settings.

I woke up at 9:30, noticed the time, and promptly began panicking. I jumped out of bed, sent Steve to run an errand for me, showered fast, wrapped the present (well, put it in a purple bag. Apparently I used all the tissue paper at Christmas or something. Whoops.), waited for Steve to get back with the car, and then dashed like a mad woman out the door. Half way to the car I turned around to get the invitation (and accompanying address). Scanning for the location, I noticed the phrase "from 2 until 4 p.m." Um...what? That's right folks, not only was I not going to be late, I was going to be 4 hours early.

Steve gave me the "you are silly" look, and fair enough, because this isn't the first time that's happened. (Yep, TWO stories in one post! Brace yourselves.)

We went to Cancun on our honeymoon. I knew our flight home left at 7:00 a.m., and since it was an international flight and we had a long shuttle ride to the airport, I scheduled the pickup for 4:45 a.m. We packed everything the night before, showered, and layed our clothes out so all we'd need to do at 4 a.m. was stumble out of bed and put some shoes on.

We arrived at the airport close to 5:30 and got in line to check in for our flight.

"I'm sorry, we don't have you booked on this flight."

"Um...what?" (Maybe that's a common phrase for me. So what?)

After some severe panicking and a bit more research, we discovered that we were, in fact, booked on a flight home, just not that flight (which, btw, wasn't even going to the right state). Our flight left at 11:00 a.m. and we couldn't even check our bags in until two hours before.

Why I was so certain our flight left at 7 is beyond me, but we had to tote our luggage around the tiny Cancun airport for nearly 6 hours. We ended up buying ridiculously overpriced breakfast just so we could sit in the restaurant for a couple of hours. I should mention that because we weren't allowed to check in and clear security yet, there were no chairs. There was floor, and there was ridiculously priced restaurant seating. So after nearly an hour of people looking at us like we were hobos, we opted for the latter.

I was pretty sure any husband of less than a week would contemplate leaving a girl right then and there, but Steve was a good sport about it. We did agree though, that on future vacations HE would be in charge of our travel itinerary.

I have to admit, I thought it was a fluke at the time. But after a repeat performance I'm not so sure. Turns out it might just be...me. Is that a personality flaw? Or can I get away with just being a little quirky?

Welcome to the club part II

One of the quirks I tease Steve about (besides bachelor-style cooking of course) is his tendency to over-explain situations. He's a friendly guy, which is one of his best qualities, but sometimes it leads him to let complete strangers in on a little too much detail.

Once, we were out at a nice dinner and couldn't finish our meal. We both had to get a to-go box and our plates must have looked basically untouched to our waiter. I probably would have said something like, "We weren't as hungry as we thought we were." But Steve, not wanting this man we'd never seen before and will probably never see again to think we didn't like the food, narrated our entire afternoon, including feeding times.

"...and we were really hungry earlier, so we had some sandwiches, and then ended up coming to dinner sooner than we thought..."

Like I said, friendly. He knows the look you get when you've over-explained though. The one that says I'm not really sure why you just told me all that, but I'm too polite to comment about it. And when he gets the look, he invariably turns to me and says, "I over-explained, didn't I?"

A little.

Well, today at work I resolved a minor billing discrepancy that I had mentioned to my boss earlier. I walked all my paperwork down to my boss's desk and proceeded to explain to him exactly what the error had been and how it had been resolved. When I finished and looked up from all my show-and-tell material, the look was unmistakably present.

"Um...that's fine...I trust you to do your job..."

Translation: "I really don't need to know every tiny detail of what you do every day. 'It's resolved' would have been fine and then I could have had those 5 minutes of my life back."

Yup. I have to say though, if it's between being being constantly hovered over (as in my previous work situation), or occasionally getting the look because now I'm trusted with *gasp* my actual job, I'll settle for the latter.

Welcome to the club

Steve used to have a job that involved being on the phone a lot. Apparently, people used to mistake his name for "Pete" rather frequently. I thought this was funny, but secretly thought he probably mumbled or something.

Last week, I was ordering some flowers over the phone. When we got to the part about what the card would say, I told the sales lady what the text should read and then "With love, Steve and Kate."

"Pete and who?"
"No no, Steve and Kate."
"Oh, Steve, short for Steven. OK. Steve and who?"
"Steve and Kate."
"Steve and Pete?"

Um...maybe he wasn't mumbling.