Anyway, I’ll have to post an abbreviated version. Trying to retell the entire vacation is probably boring. Instead, I’d rather sort through all the pictures and share them.

I was able to go through the Rome set and cut out 2/3 of the unwanted pictures. The result…400 pictures to share. Between the two of us, we had 2 cameras. I haven’t even begun to look at the pictures from the other camera.

This is Rome – Days 1 and 2.

My thoughts, it’s unfortunate that the Tiber is so neglected. Not only can you see the ever-present graffiti on the wall, but the water was murky. I read somewhere that after one of the major floods, the Romans built a high wall and dam and forever neglected it. It’s too bad, but I’m sure 2000 years ago, it was probably beautiful.

Since I’m picking on Rome, the other atrocious thing was the traffic. I wouldn’t dare to drive around in Rome. Those drivers were insane. I think the only rule is not to hit a pedestrian.

Despite all of this though, the sites made up for it all. It was beautiful nonetheless. I have to say that we were captivated and “romanced” by the city. We headed back towards our neighborhood and found a local ristorante called Vito’s. I ordered the quintessential pasta carbonara, and Brian ordered veal marsala, we also split a pizza topped with prosciutto as a appetizer. The pizza was plenty of food. Here’s a dining tip, restaurants charge a cover fee, and the bread the place on the table also cost you money. Rick Steve’s gives a good overview on dining in Rome. The food was good, but the pasta was a little too al dente for my taste. I found this “quality” everywhere we went. Italian food in Rome is not what you expect, be prepared. I’m not saying it wasn’t good, it’s not like your local Buca di Beppo. Everything tasted fresh and handmade. The restaurants are run by families and are typically quiet.

That pretty much wraps up day 1.

Day 2… We had an early morning start. We caught breakfast at the hotel, and were picked up by Grayline Tours at 8:00am.

The first excursion of the trip was a Classical Rome tour. Our tour guide was great. The bus took us across town to the center of the classical sites. We got off the bus and on foot, they took us to our first stop, the Trajan column.

Next up was the famous Trevi fountain, where we got to take some pictures. Bernini is a genius. His work is found nearly all over Rome. We each threw a coin into the fountain. Of course the legend states that if you throw the coin using your right hand over your left shoulder, you will most certainly come back to Rome. Since it was early morning, the site was pretty quiet.

After we got our 15 minutes at the fountain, we headed up the the highlight of the tour. The Pantheon. Of course we saw other stuff in between, but you’ll have to see the pictures once I’m done going through all of them. The Pantheon epitomizes the engineering skills they had 2000 years ago. Not only that, but it’s the most well preserved site probably in the world. I actually got chills. It was grand and beautiful and perfect. Also, something I didn’t know, the oculus at the top is actually open, so when it rains, it actually rains into the building, but the Romans were smart enough to build in a drain inside the building.

We made a 20 minute “pit stop” at the gift store, after the Pantheon. These pit stops seems to be a scam since we certainly didn’t need 20 minutes at a gift store. But whatever. We headed out to the other side of the river to see St. Peter’s Basilica.

And since it was Wednesday morning, the Pope was actually there leading the mass. How cool is it that we saw the Pope. There was a large crowd, so we walked around. We didn’t spend too much time there, since we were going to come back on our own. So we waited around the bus.

The tour ended after 3 hours. At that point they dropped us off at the location of our choice. Since we had pretty much half a day left, we decided to have them drop off us at the Spanish steps.

We found a restaurant in between the many shops off located right off the steps and stopped for lunch first. I ordered pasta carbonara again while Brian got some other pasta dish.

I’m not sure what the purpose of this spot was, but I guess it was just a place for people to sit. We decided to go up the steps and explore an old church and take in the views. The crowd around the steps was pretty large. We even saw a few puppies and one that looked like Reesey. We couldn’t resist taking a picture.

After being sweaty from walking all day, we decided to walk back to our hotel. We crashed until dinner time.

I’ll have to finish up Day 2 later…

Flight to Rome. At the last minute the agent changed our flight for a better deal. So we got to fly Lufthansa for the first time. The plane ride was smooth. We tried to sleep the entire way there, but of course it was rather cramp and uncomfortable. The service on the plane was definitely great. They serve alcohol for FREE! I had a couple of cups of wine hoping that it would help me sleep, but of course that just gave me a headache. At least the movie selection was good. I fell asleep here and there, but it certainly wasn’t refreshing. 1/3 of the way there, I just sat there tracking the flight on the monitor…”only 4 hours to go”….

We finally landed in Frankfurt but had to board almost immediately. For some reason, being in Germany scared me. Maybe because everyone was 1 foot taller than I am?

Anyway, after 1.5 more hours on the second flight, we finally landed in Rome. We grabbed our baggage and found our driver. Unfortunately we had no change, so we couldn’t tip the driver :-(. The same thing happen with the Parking Spot driver. All we had with us were Euros on the way to the airport. :-(

Despite feeling like a jerk we finally arrived at the hotel. We stayed at the Visconti Palace Hotel which is somewhat modern compared to everything else in Rome. It was built in the 70s. The rooms were small, but I expected that. The one thing that mattered was that the bathroom was modern and clean, which it was. It even had a bidet, which grosses me out by the way.

We unpacked, changed, and decided to explore the neighborhood. First up was lunch. Since it was already quite late for lunch, we wanted something small. After walking up and down the streets we found a tiny pizzeria. You pretty much had to stand and eat. The pizza didn’t look very tempting, so Brian got a calzone stuffed with sausage and rice, and I got some weird fried thing. I rate it a 1 out 5. Actually it was rather gross. It was cold and flavorless. Ick. Here’s a picture of Brian trying to be nice. “Mmmmmm”. With the disappointing lunch, I was hoping we’d find something better for dinner.

With that said, I’ll have to finish day 1 later…

An ideal vacation for me is to experience the sights, the food, the culture, and of course relaxing the whole time. I’m not sure how any of that can be balanced especially if you throw in relaxation.

I’ve been putting together an itinerary, hour by hour itinerary. I’ve even gone to google maps to see what the scenary will look like if we walked from point A to point B. I am after a project manager :-p. Maybe I should stay home and enjoy the trip from my laptop ;-)

Brian on the other hand thinks it’s silly and refuses to acknowledge it. He thinks we should just play it by ear when we get there. We already have 50% of the activities planned. UGH. I don’t want to spend the trip trying to figure out what to do or where to go. If I just lay it out, we can always veto things when we get there.

I’ve got the first two days planned out. Last night I had asked him if we should plan having breakfast out on the third day because we have something at 2pm. But since breakfast is already included with the hotel, should we save the money and eat there? He looked at me as if I was insane. I get his point…

This will be an interesting trip :-)

It’s not bad at all, but I do prefer to come home and zone out in front of the tv or cooking for my husband or reading.

I’m currently reading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. Life as a chef is quite dysfunctional. I’m glad I don’t aspire to be one.

I have been trying to stick to my diet, but I’ll have a failure every now and then. I certainly can’t make good choices when we go out. So I need to bring my lunch in more often and cook at home more.

My birthday is in 2 weeks. I thought about doing a dinner with some friends, but I don’t think I’m going to keep it low key. The stress of trying to plan anything (although shouldn’t Brian be doing that?) is unnecessary.

Anyway, we just paid off our trip and now I get to go shopping for it. The weather will be nice a cool. Hopefully it won’t be too cold. We need another carryon bag and Brian and I vehemently disagree on what to buy. He wants the five star quality and I could care less. Bah. Maybe we should stop at one of the outlet stores and see what they have to offer.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got.

Brian and I have been trying to get healthier. I know we talk about it all the time, but this time we’re pretty serious. He and I bought lost 12 lbs each. I’m doing the biggest loser competition at work and so far I’ve managed to get 3rd place. My coworker friend and I have been working out like crazy over the past 4 weeks. I can definitely tell my endurance is getting better since my heart rate isn’t as high when I’m doing plain cardio. I need to start mixing in more weights so that I can increase my metobolism. We’re also trying to eat cleaner and have the appropriate serving. The only challenge with eating is finding the time to cook the proper food since I don’t get home from the gym until after 7 and sometimes 8. I think once our weekends slow down, I can probably try to plan it better. I have been consuming lots of fruit since it’s in abundance. I told Brian that if I reach my ideal goal, I should get a new car. :-)

Speaking of car, my check engine light is on again. Grrr. Hopefully whatever they find tomorrow isn’t a big deal.

Leah and Reesey are doing well. Reesey spent 2 weeks with her grandparents. We went and picked her up over the weekend after visiting with Brian’s new nephew. Baby A is tiny by the way. Congrats to the new parents.
Speaking of kids, we still haven’t made plans yet, but we keep going back and forth with baby names. It seems our first choice has gotten too popular. My mom keeps pressuring me to start but we both still feel so young. Everyone should check back in a couple years to see where we are with that thought.

Work is still the same. Nothing new for either of us. I’m still very grateful that we’re both in a good position both financially and with our jobs.

In other news, we finally booked our big trip to Europe. 11 days in Rome and Paris in Sept. This is our anniversary gift to each other I suppose even though it’s a few weeks after. I’m super excited, but I guess it hasn’t sunk in yet since it’s still far out. Of course this is the first of many trips.

My next goal is either Japan or China. But I think we may have to make a trip to Cambodia and Thailand since that’s where I’m from and all.

I’ll be sure to blog our excursion while we in Europe.

Other than that, that’s all I’ve got. I’ll try to post more, and hopefully I’ll have interesting things to talk about.

I leave you with pictures of us at a Central Market cooking class enjoying a souffle we help make. I totally recommend their courses. Very entertaining and the hands on aspect is well worth it.

1. Brian got a new car.
2. Dad got sick and was hospitalized for 2 weeks.
3. We got puppy Leah.
4. I traveled to Richmond for work.
5. Both my parents health has been stabilized.
6. We went to San Diego for vacation.
7. My maternal grandmother passed away. Click here to see neat a mausoleom my mom’s family built in Cambodia.
8. We bought a dining set (my half of the deal since Brian got the new Macbook). Only one more room to fill – formal dining room.
9. We threw a holiday party.
10. Took a much needed vacation where I did absolutely nothing.

So here’s my personal resolution for 2009. I know it’s silly to make resolutions especially when they’re broken in about 2 months, but hopefully, just maybe I keep these resolutions.

1. Workout 4-5 times a week
2. Learn how to meditate
3. Read at least 1 book a quarter
4. Eat more veggies
5. Eat out no more than once a week at work
6. Cook more
7. Blog more
8. Wake up earlier and begin a morning routine (ie. do chores, walk the dogs, eat breakfast, chill, then get ready)
9. Organize our closet
10. Do more gardening
11. Read the news more
12. Organize the stuff in our cabinets
13. Fix the hole in the ceiling of our dining room
14. GO TO EUROPE

I think all of these are attainable, with the exception of the last one. We’re hoping to plan a big trip for the fall, but I haven’t even begun to do my research. I was hoping I was going to get some that research done during my holiday vacation, and I suppose I still have a couple days left, but the task seems to be overly daunting. Maybe I should just call the travel agent that a friend recommended.

Happy New Year everyone!

Anyway I am going to miss the weather here in San diego. There were days when it was a bit too hot nut the wind made it bearable. I don’t think it ever got over 75 degrees. On thursday, we decided to forego a trip to legoland due to the ticket prices and instead opted to go to LA instead. The traffic in LA was horrid. Since it was just a day trip, we only had enough time to drive to Hollywood Blvd, go to Rodeo Dr, and drive through Mulholland Dr which was the highlight of the trip. Then it was time to head back to SD. I am sure there are other things to see and do in LA, but we will leave that for another trip. It I’d sad to see that the entire city is covered in smog. You could barely get a glimpse of the Hollywood sign because it was so bad. Oh well.

Yesterday, we headed down to Pacific Beach, had lunch on the boardwalk, took a walk along the water, then rented a couple of bikes a rode down the boardwalk. I haven’t been ok a bike for maybe 15 years so I was a little wobbly, but only because the bike was too tall for me. We met a friend of mine for drinks before heading back to the hotel. The trip wasn’t as relaxing as laying on a beach all week, but overall we had a great time. I can see why people want to live in Cali. However I am glad to be going home. Too bad it is over 100 degrees the rest of the week.

Yesterday Brian and I toured the USS Midway. It’s interesting seeing an actual navy ship. I think it’s the navy that’s on sea… We spent half the day doing that. Then after lunch went back to the room before heading back out again to La Jolla. Unfortunately the clouds were out do we didn’t get to enjoy the sunset. But we did lay around a park at La Jolla Cove and people watch/read our books. It then got too cold to sit there, so we gathered our stuff and headed out. We couldn’t find a place to eat in La Jolla so we decided to go out for burgers at In-N-Out burgers instead. Excellent choice.

Today plan is getting a massage, followed by a walk around gaslamp and exploring the rest of downtown. Then we’ll be going to a ballgame at Petco Park.

Then on Saturday, we spent a couple hours at my parents place before heading out to the ballpark in Arlington to watch the Astros and Rangers. The Rangers won. We haven’t been to a ballgame in a two years, but it was fun and we’ll have to do it again. The only reason why we went this year was because I got the tickets from work. Too bad the hotdogs and nachos we had sucked, but Brian did enjoy his cotton candy which he reluctantly shared it with me. And…shame on me for having processed meat! I suck at trying to be vegetarian.

Anyway, we left the game after the 8th inning and went to a friend’s house for some drinks. After getting tipsy some more and eating more junk food we finally headed home at 3am and crashed until lunchtime the next day. By the way, these people’s house makes me want to redecorate. It had a lofty feel to it, which is the total opposite of our decor.

On Sunday, I had to finish up my cupcakes for the cake decorating class. Before the class, we went to Chili’s for lunch and I for some reason craved their fried stuff, possibly because I was eating lousy all weekend long. My body definitely paid for it last night and this morning because I didn’t sleep well at all and woke up with a stomach ache.

So this week, I need to get back on the healthy routine. I had a veggie sandwich for lunch, and need to plan what to have for dinner since we have nothing to cook with at home.

I also need to do a better job of meal planning. I haven’t been cooking as much which isn’t a good thing. On top of that, I need to start going back to the gym and doing some of those free classes. I enjoy those much more than the boring cardio workout. I think I’ll go to yoga tomorrow morning at Sunstone. That is if I can wake up at 5:30 am….

The other to-do is finish planning our trip. We’re undecided between a fancy hotel or the standard economy hotels. I know we won’t be spending too much time in the room, but it is a vacation afterall. I looked at the rates for the Solamar Hotel that Terri recommended, but I think it’s too much of a splurge. I did see some good rates at Temecula Creek Inn, but it seems out of the way. The Hyatt Regency in La Jolla had some good rates. If I had it my way, I’d go with the Hyatt, but Brian had some sticker shock only because he doesn’t do any of the planning and didn’t realize how expensive stuff was. I guess we’ll figure it all out tonight.

This year however, I think we’ll finally venture out to the west coast.

I totally suck at trying to find the best deals, I always end up just purchasing the entire package from expedia or travelocity. I don’t really know how people compare between what you get on these sites or the actual hotel website, etc. I guess after finally picking a location, everything starts to look the same including the price.

So the question is should we try to stay in a boutique hotel or a corporate hotel in San Diego? And what location should we be staying in?? And do we want to do all the touristy stuff like the Zoo or Seaworld? I know we should since it’s supposed to be awesome. But I’d also like to venture off and do something offbeat. Not sure what though?

Before I want to book anything though, I need to pay off this month’s credit card bill. It’s higher than normal but that’s because it included the new office furniture, car maintenance, and other random big purchases. I think we blew the tax rebate payment before we even received it.