Thursday finally arrived and the entire Cody family was excited about seeing Rome.  After another early start, we were made the 1 1/2 hour drive (maybe a bit longer once we hit the Rome traffic) from the port in Civitavecchia to Rome with our tour guide, Andrea, who made very clear that although his name in the US was a feminine name, this was NOT the case in Italy and certainly did not describe him.  Apparently Andrea is a very popular male name in Italy.

Once we arrived in Rome and maneuvered through the VERY crowded streets, we met our local tour guide, Adele, and began our tour.  Our first stop was at the Roman Forum, which was the city square and central hub of the Roma civilization.  I should mention that in many of the pictures, you will see us with lanyards around our necks and earphones in our ears.  The earphones allowed us to hear our tour guide talking and explaining the different sites as we walked so everyone could hear and we didn’t have to try to huddle together to hear what she was saying in the large crowds of people.  After spending some time learning about the Roman forum and some of the structures, we headed to the Colosseum.  We started a few blocks away and ended up right next to the structure where we could see the aracades.  The Colosseum is in its present state due to earthquakes and stone robbers, but we also learned that large metal plates that were part of the construction were removed and used for other construction, which left holes in certain areas of the Colosseum.   Did you know the Colosseum was made from travertine stone?  I did not know that until our tour guide told us about the construction.  Just adjacent to the Colosseum was the Arch of Contstantine.

After visiting the Roman Forum and Colosseum, we returned to our van and drove to lunch.  Along the way, we passed by the Ikea trucks who were apparently delivering catalogs or something.  How interesting!  We also passed by the most photographed person in Italy, and some union protesters.  After enjoying a quiet lunch at a first class Italian restaurant, we made our way to Vatican City.  Vactican City is it’s own city-state within Rome and is the smallest independent state in the world in both population and area.  Citizenship must be granted to people and usually consists of those who work at the Vatican (and may include their spouse and children)…so mainly the Pope and certain clergy.  Citizenship is revoked upon termination.  The good part about being a part of a small excursion tour was that we had a reservation to visit the Vatican in the afternoon and were able to bypass the LONG LONG lines of people waiting outside in the hot sun.

Once inside the Vatican, we were again in awe.  The detail and architecture is incredible.  Everywhere we turned, we saw famous art, or beautiful ceilings or floors.  There was also a corridor full of amazing tapestry.  Of course the highlight of the Vatican visit was being able to see the Sistine Chapel, which we were not allowed to use photography or videography while inside, but click here for a picture of us leaving the chapel :-)  After leaving the Sistine Chapel, we headed to St. Peter’s Basilica.  Even the doors were amazing.  One of the first things you notice upon entering is the Pietà, the famous sculpture of Michelangelo.  Then you are just drawn in by the detail in every millimeter of the building.  It was a wow moment everyone your eyes hit.  There was also a beautiful pulpit.  We were truly amazed.  After taking in the beauty of the inside, we took more pictures outside in the square.  We also saw the Swiss Guard.  It was a great day in Rome, but we eventually made our way back to the ship in Civitavecchia (my new favorite word) and headed for Livorno (Florence) wondering what great things we would see next.

Oh… I almost forgot to say that while eating dinner that night just as we were about to leave the port, we saw several people arrive back at the ship late, but since there were several ships leaving at the same time, they made it back onto the ship despite the fact it was past our departure time.  We do think we probably left at least 2 or 3 people in Rome who did not make it back on the ship.  All aboard was always 30 minutes before the ship left, but in most cases, the city was not that far from the port as was the case in Rome.  Hopefully they rejoined us at the next port.  That is the one good reason to book your excursions through the cruise line b/c if one of their excursions gets back late, the ship will wait, but if you are not part of an excursion booked through the cruise line, they will not wait.

Click here for more pictures from Rome and Vatican City.

After a peaceful and relaxing Day at Sea and and a wonderful anniversary, we arrived in Valletta, Malta (a small island country) the next morning. This began the first day of excursions William’s mom booked for us. Since we had an excursion scheduled that day, we had to wake up early and watched our arrival at port while eating breakfast. The port in Malta was probably the most scenic of all the places we visited (except Villefranche) because it was not a huge industrial area like most of the ports. Malta is known for having some of the best and most powerful fortifications (walls and buildings designed to protect the city during wars) in the world. Much of the city was destroyed during WWII, but several new buildings have been built, so there is a large mixture of both Baroque and modern architecture. We also stopped at a local fishing village during our excursion where we saw the colorful boats that characterize Malta. Our next stop on the excursion was a view from a cliff overlooking the Blue Grotto. We then continued our scenic drive and eventually returned to the port where we explored the shops and ran into a familiar friend of William’s. We also got a closer look at our ship and took a few pictures. After enjoying the view as we departed the port and grabbing a bite to eat, we were full steam ahead to Italy.

On Wednesday, we arrived in Naples, Italy. Naples is the 3rd most populated city in Italy and the biggest city in Southern Italy. Naples is probably most known for being the originator of pizza. After docking in Naples, we boarded our tour bus and headed to Pompeii. Pompeii once had a flourishing civilization, but was destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79AD and buried for almost 1,700 years under 20 feet of volcanic ash. Because it was so well preserved under the ash, you can still see many of the details that give you a glimpse into the lifestyle of the people that lived there. It was incredible to wander through the city and see what has been uncovered. I was particularly impressed with the detail in the bath houses that was so well preserved. Our tour guide, Giovanni, was very knowledgeable about the history of Pompeii and pointed out several things that we would have not otherwise noticed. After a long and hot day (90 degree weather) in Pompeii, we returned to the port, waved goodbye to Naples, and awaited our piloti, who would guide us out as we headed to our next port….. Civitavecchia (Rome).

There are many more great pictures from Malta and from Pompeii. Click here for more pictures from Malta and here for more pictures from Pompeii.

Well… as William mentioned, it has been a busy week back at work for both of us, but we are finally ready to recap the next couple days of our trip.

So… after our visit to the Aquarium on Sunday morning, we finally boarded our ship, the Norwegian Gem. After thoroughly sanitizing our hands (something we had to do anytime we boarded the ship from a port or entered a dining room), we arrived inside the ship and quickly found our wonderful mini suite. The cabin was nice, clean, located on the aft of the ship with a great balcony view and actually had the perfect amount of closet and drawer space for all of our belongings so that we could make ourselves at home for the next 7 days. I was actually pretty impressed by the storage space. William had arranged for strawberries and champagne to be waiting in the room since our anniversary was the next day. Awww!! He is so sweet

William and I thought it would be a good idea to explore our new “neighborhood”, so we gave ourselves a tour of the ship and tried to familiarize ourselves with all of the amenities. We stopped by the spa, for a free tour and I even had a chance to demo the acupuncture therapy. We found the spa amenities to be great, including the option to sign up for one of the 100 unlimited access passes to the spa where you could enjoy the therapy pool, jacuzzi, sauna, steam room, heated stone lounge beds, and lounge beds overlooking the front of the ship. We convinced William’s parents to sign up for this also and all four of us enjoyed the spa on a daily basis, particularly to get away from the crowds and enjoy peace and relaxation, and most importantly, the hydrotherapy pool!! We also visited the fitness center, although this would be our last visit (we got our exercise on the excursions at the various ports). We checked out all the restaurants (there were a few specialty restaurants where reservations were recommended so we scoped out one for our anniversary dinner), and we also checked out the clubs/lounges. Club Bliss was interesting because they had beds, and Spinnaker Lounge had cozy furniture and beds as well. After lunch, and our emergency drill (where William put on his life jacket, reported to our disaster area and fell asleep), we went back to our cabin listen to the welcome from our captain, who William says sounded like Puss In Boots from Shrek 2 b/c of his low suave voice that sounded Italian (although he was from Finland) and enjoy the view as we pushed away from the marina and set sail.

Day at Sea…It’s our Anniversary!

On Monday, September 8, 2008, we were at sea for a quiet and relaxing 1 year anniversary!!!!! William and I still can’t believe it has already been a year and reflected once again on the wedding day and honeymoon. It brought huge smiles to our faces. We began the morning with a couples massage at the Spa, which was a nice way to get us relaxed before our daily ports of call. After more relaxing, we went to a Lattitudes reception (their rewards club program that we were automatically enrolled in by booking a mini suite), where we were able to meet the Captain and other senior officers. We then enjoyed a romantic dinner at a French Restaurant on the ship, Le Bistro. After dinner, we coincidently went to a “newleywed show” where we learned way more about some couples than we wanted to know, but were able to test each others knowledge (as audience members… we did not participate as contestants). The answers to some of the questions were hilarious and the couple that won had only been married for 3 days! After the newlywed show, we went to a show the ship put on, “World Beat”, that basically consisted of dance from all parts of the world. It was very well done and very colorful. When we returned to our room, there was another surprise William had arranged (with some assistance from his mom). Our cabin was decorated for our anniversary with balloons, streamers, and two swans forming a heart shaped out of towels. It was a great day of celebration that would continue throughout the week.

For more pictures from Cruise Day 1 and Cruise Day 2, visit William’s Flickr Site.

Next stop… our first port of call… Valleta, Malta.

This is the first of several posts to recap our vacation to Europe and our western Mediterranean Cruise. Because we saw so much, it is easier to break it up into several posts instead of making one extremely long one. I am going to try to use various links to pictures and websites to help tell the story (the links can be followed by clicking on any of the words in green).

First of all, we need to thank William’s parents for inviting us on the trip. William’s mom planned the entire trip and did a great job, so we really can’t thank them enough for allowing us to be a part of it.

We began our trip by meeting each other in the Newark airport on Thursday, September 4th and made the 8 hour trip to Barcelona, Spain. We arrived in Barcelona on Friday morning and stayed there until our cruise ship departed on Sunday evening, so we had plenty of time to explore the city. We stayed at the Eurostars Grand Marina Hotel, which was conveniently located on the Barcelona Port. The accommodations were very nice and larger than most you would find in Europe. After a brief nap to recover from the jet lag, we started our exploration of the city, which took us through the Mall de la Fusta and the Mall d’Espanya. Along the way, we passed the Columbus Monument. We took a recommendation from the hotel concierge to go to La Gavina, and it turned out to be a good one. William’s mom and I enjoyed the traditional Spanish dish, paella, while William and his dad enjoyed one of many lamb dishes they would try during our trip. On the way back from dinner, we were able to get a closer look at some of the ships docked around the hotel.

The next day, Saturday, was exploration day. After enjoying a wonderful breakfast buffet, we hopped on the Barcelona Bus Turístic, a double decker tour bus (similar to those you would think of seeing in London), that took us on a guided tour of the city with stops at all of the tourist destinations. We used headphones to plug into the seat jack that corresponded with our preferred language.

We passed several notable stops during our tour. One of the stops along the passeig de Gràcia (a major boulevard in Barcelona that is apparently the most expensive street in Barcelona and in Spain in terms of renting or buying property) was La Pedrera, a famous stone building built by Gaudí in the early 1900s. Another stop was a trip to the top of Tibidabo, a mountain in Barcelona offering great views of the city below. There was also an amusement park at the top of Tibidabo where we found people on stilts who entertained the crowd. There was also a beautiful cathedral at the top of Tibidabo.

Our next stop was to perhaps the most famous building in Barcelona, La Sagrada Família (Temple of the Holy Family), a building that was a dream of Gaudí’s that he began constructing in the late 19th century and worked on for 40 years but never completed. At the time of Gaudí’s death in 1926, only 2 towers had been completed. The work continued through the donations of churchgoers and ticket revenue from tourists who visit. The Christian symbolism of this building is simply AMAZING!!! I was in awe at this building because it really is a beautiful thing to behold. The church has three main facades, the Nativity, the Glory facade (not yet completed) and the Passion facade (death, burial and resurrection of Christ). The detail of each of these events are carved in the stone and the detail is incredible. There is so much symbolism that it would be too lengthy for me to get into it all, but let me know if you have questions.

After stopping for a snack at McDonald’s (a happy meal for William and I), we headed back to the hotel to relax, eat dinner, check e-mail (including an update on Hurricane Ike’s path and the Wake Forest football game) and prepare to set sail the next day. On Sunday, we made a brief visit to the Barcelona Aquarium before boarding the ship.

We were now ready to set sail!

Feel free to see more pictures from Barcelona on William’s flickr page. We have not added captions to all of them yet, so bear with us.

Part 2 to come soon…………

It’s hard to believe, but our 1 year anniversary is quickly approaching. What are we doing to celebrate? This Thursday Kyllan and I will be joining my parents on a trip to Barcelona and a Mediterranean cruise. Kyllan has had a busy month at the hospital and it is always stressful at the lab, so this trip could not have come at a better time. We will be sailing on the Norwegian Gem with ports of call in Valletta, Malta; Naples, Italy; Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy; Livorno, Italy and Villeranche, France. Our anniversary falls on the day at sea. As you see, we will be pretty busy. I don’t know how feasible it will be to upload photos and make post while at sea, so sharing may have to wait until we get back. I may make a few post that will auto post while we are away.

William and I had a great time in Denver this past weekend. Typically we are simply excited to be in each others presence, so we don’t really take time to “plan” anything for our visits. However, this time William planned some “touristy” things for us to do. We have previously been to the Capitol Building, Mile High Stadium, and other sites in and around downtown, but we crossed a few more sites off our list.

After breakfast on Saturday at what has quickly become one of our favorite breakfast places, The Delectable Egg, we began our tour of the Denver Art Museum. With two buildings with several levels of exhibits, we became very overwhelmed at the amount of art on display, but did not really find anything that made us extremely fascinated. I guess we have not fully developed our appreciation for art. After the museum, we spent some time exploring the 16th Street Mall. We had several lunch options on the mall, but somehow managed to wander several blocks off the mall to a cute little pizza joint. After the long walk to get there, we were wondering if it would be worth it, but we both enjoyed our selection of the “Brooklyn”, which we quickly devoured. After making the walk back to the mall, which of course seemed much shorter this time, we treated ourselves to gelato (Italian ice cream). Yes, we broke our “healthy eating” rule, but hey… the gelato has less calories and less fat than regular ice cream We concluded the day with William’s favorite combo…dinner and a movie. William was surprised to learn that I was interested in seeing Get Smart, and I think we were both surprised that we both enjoyed the movie and laughed throughout the film despite the lukewarm reviews.

To conclude the weekend, we enjoyed Sunday brunch at Dazzle. I thought the brunch was very good and the live jazz band was a nice touch. Please do not ask William how the brownie covered in fudge that I brought to the table for us to share became Kyllan’s dessert. It had chocolate chips in it! Brownie without nuts, fudge topping, chocoloate chips….enough said.

William took pictures, of course, so I am sure he will post those soon.

Oh… and I have to report that after multiple visits to the Apple store only to come out empty handed and disgruntled, William is now the very proud owner of an iPhone, which he loves. I am sure he will post about that later this week.

Pictures from the reunion are up. I warn you, there are over 700. I included pictures taken by my Uncle Sam and my father. My Uncle Same would like me to add the disclaimer that his pictures tend to focus on his daughters and granddaughters. With so many photos, I didn’t take time to add an individual title and description to every photo. Enjoy.

Kyllan and I had a great time at my mother’s family reunion in Jacksonville this past weekend. Unfortunately I am having some trouble loading all of the photos from the weekend on Flickr. I will let everyone know once they are all up.

I’m in Dallas for the weekend. I flew here from Boston after ASM. This year’s conference was okay. It seemed to have more of a clinical focus than in previous years. I went to several seminars on both traditional and non-traditional career paths for Ph.D.s, but they all sucked and none will help with the decisions I will be making in the coming year. My poster session went very well and I think I am close to punlishing the data I presented. I didn’t get much from the other poster sessions and seminars, but I’ve been keeping up with the curent literature pretty well while preparing my manuscript.

Kyllan and I are going to try and catch a movie or two while I am in town. I think the plan is to go to a parade of homes tomorrow.

It’s that time of year again. I am in Boston this week for the American Society for Microbiology general meeting. This is largest conference in my field and the only one I mark on my must attend list every year. I will be in meetings and seminars all day for he next three days and I have a poster presentation Tuesday. After the conference I am traveling to Dallas to spend the weekend with Kyllan.