Almalfi Coast, Italy

Time to wrap up our trip to Italy.  This was the final part of our journey...meeting up with family in beautiful Positano.

upper right and lower middle are the views from the house.

The hubby, girls and I were still in Mennagio, so we needed to catch a couple of trains from northern Italy to the south.  The day started off fine...we got a ride to the train station and then...waited.  The train was late.  Really late.  Once we finally got loaded and moving Matt and I realized we were barely going to make our connecting train...if we made it at all.
So here we were, pulling up to the train station...we have three large suitcases, a couple of carry on's, a back pack, two kids, and their little rolling luggage.  We stood at the ready and bolted as soon as the doors opened...
And when I say bolted, I mean we flat out ran!  I had a death grip on Lily basically dragging her along the station and yelling at Sara to keep up.  Sara is crying as she's running.  Matt is behind us...pulling a crap load of luggage...which at the moment one bag decided to lose both of its wheels.  We keep running, keep dragging...and we actually make it.  By all of 2 minutes.  Now, we weren't the only idiots running through the station to catch this train, but I'm sure we made the most commotion.  Could we have caught another train?  Sure...at some point, but we wanted to get to Positano before it was the middle of the night.  We still had to get our taxi to drive us to the house.

All said and done, we made it all the way to the house in Positano.  My mom and stepdad and Aunt and Uncle were waiting for us.  The house we had rented was incredible with a killer view.  The only downside is that Positano is very, very hilly...so lots of hiking up and down stairs.  Ah well, it worked off the pasta and wine!  :)  

a few of the rooms and the two patios of the house.

The rest of our trip was spent touring the Almalfi Coast.  The highlight of the week was taking a private boat out for the day.  It was our baby girl's birthday (already 4!) and we wanted to make it special.  (seeing as how her sister got to spend her 5th birthday at the top of the Eifel Tower).  The boat ride was amazing.  We all felt like superstars relaxing on the nose of the boat as we skipped across the water to the Isle of Capri.  We toured around there a bit and then spent more time just jetting around the coast line.

upper middle and lower left are in Capri.  Other shots from Positano.

We stopped to do a bit of swimming, but found that the water was already occupied...by jelly fish.  My poor mother got stung but good right on her wrist.  That put a little damper on things...but not too much.  We sang happy birthday to Lily while anchored in the Mediterranean Sea.  That was pretty awesome.
Another highlight of the trip was this amazing amazing restaurant we found.  This place has been owned by the same family for over 30 years.  They send a car to pick you up and bring you to the restaurant.  It's a fixed menu, so you get what you get.  But, oh my, what a feast!  Everything was so good.  It was a three course meal with wine included.  Each course included anywhere from 6-10 plates of different dishes.  They grow their own veggies right outside the restaurant.  It was so good we went there twice in one week!

We spent time shopping, went to Ravello, and chilled on the gorgeous beach.  Even rented a stand up paddle board and took the girls out on the water.  Positano is just so beautiful and we enjoyed every day.  It was a wonderful way to end an incredible 5 week trip to Italy!  Can't wait to go back next year! :)       

all of these photos were taken in Ravello.

Last day in France...plus train trouble...

Well, it's our last day in France.  Tomorrow we head off to Egypt.  I'm kinda sad today...knowing that its our last day in the "normal" world (yes, we're going to Egypt next, but that doesn't even come close to normal anymore than Saudi does...wait for the next post...)

I've loved sitting around people watching, eating all the yummy foods, drinking wine...but again, we wouldn't be here in France if we weren't living in Saudi right now.  huge double edged sword.

So, anyway, today was to just a flat out fun day for the kids.  We decided to take them to the zoo..they love animals and so do we.  Coolest part is that the zoo we went to has the only two Panda's in the whole of France.  It was a cloudy, cold, day, but we had fun anyway.  Saw the giraffes, rhinos, tigers, bears (oh my!)... the girls loved watching the monkeys and could have sat there for hours.  My favorite were the gorillas...I could have sat there all day.  They had a brand new baby gorilla...who was hanging out right next to big daddy silver back.  At one point, the silver back scooped up the little baby and...kissed him, right on the head.  Had to be one of the sweetest things I'd ever seen...big scary ass gorilla planting a kiss on a head that he could crush with his hands.

The panda's were awesome and had their own really cool Chinatown section of the zoo.  After half the day at the zoo it was time to head out.  We stopped in Amboise on the way back to have our last dinner.  Found a great little restaurant and I made sure to order in style...baby back ribs...oh yeah.  Back home we packed up and made sure we were ready for the morning...

And so begins the crazy day...

We woke with plenty of time to spare...the train didn't leave until 9am.  No worries...right?  wrong.  We were tearing out of the house at ten after 8...it would take at least 30 min to get to the station...Matt drove quickly....I barked out directions from the iPad...we got to the station at ten till 9....tried to find where to leave the car...and then it happened.  We got stuck.  We went into a parking area...(took a ticket and all)...then realized we were in the wrong spot...tried to exit...and...nothing.  The damn boom wouldn't go up.  No matter what we did, the stupid thing wouldn't budge...then we heard the worst sound...the train leaving the station.  (here's the part where my usually mild mannered hubby lost it....with a slew of swear words and fist pounding)  Once calm resumed, we managed to get out of the stupid parking lot.  Found where to drop off the rental and headed into the station.  Matt got us tickets on the next train (leaving in 2 hours) for a fee of course.  We parked ourselves in the little coffee shop and ordered beer.  Yep, beer at 9 am...and it was well deserved.  The rest of the morning passed easily enough...we got on the next train and made it to the airport.  After standing in a monster line at EgyptAir, we were checked in and went in search for food.  The Paris airport isn't like what I'm used to in the States...with restaurants all over...instead it was little deli counters...got a couple of sandwiches and some wine.  Good enough.  

And of course, good ol' EgyptAir was delayed...again.  But, the next thing I knew, we were in the air and on our way to Cairo...

(trust me, you don't want to miss the next post about Egypt...what an experience that was!!)