it's so nice that i'm not bombarded with work after being gone for a week and a half. i was expecting a bunch of emails and voicemails saying that all these things went wrong and this client didn't get this and that person needed that thing on my desk that wasn't there...

but all is well. and things are kinda slow so i'm just chillin' and catching up on your blogs with my cheez-its and coke. coke tastes different here than it did in italy. hmm. and cheez-its are the greatest food to me right now. all i could think about on my way to work was the cheez-its in my desk. haha.

europe was AMAZING. my brain is on overload with everything i saw....but i took lots of pictures so i could remember some of them. the whole time i was wishing 2 things: 1) that i had taken a photography class at some point in my life so that i could do the views justice and 2) that i knew how to speak more than just english and small tagalog and spanish phrases. ugh. i didn't think my spanish was that bad, but it didn't matter anyway cuz they speak catalonian in barcelona. =P and all we ate was tapas in spain..at first it was exciting but then i started to wonder what else they had cuz every place had tapas. and those sandwiches on french baguettes.

but yeah....barcelona, palma de mallorca, cannes, monaco/monte carlo (we were totally in a james bond movie), portofino, florence, and rome.

italy was by far my favorite, but maybe because we spent the most time there. we visited the vatican a couple times and that in itself is worthy of a vacation. forget the colleseum and the roman forum...this is where's it's at. we visited the basilicas where st. peter, st. paul, and st. john the baptist were entombed, and we went through the vatican museum and the sistine chapel. breathtaking. all of it. i think i left a trail of drool everywhere cuz my mouth was hanging open so much. i could spend days and days in every place we went. i wish i could spend a day in an empty sistine chapel just laying on the floor and taking in the walls and the ceiling. i can't imagine growing up in a place like rome...there's just so much history wherever you look, but i can see how it could be taken for granted...and people are just chillin' everywhere. i love it. i must go back. anyone wanna come? of course, porta will be there to give us the guided non-touristy tour of the city...right, porta? =D by the way...i am an expert at riding tour buses. so expert am i that i don't ever want to do it again. hahaha...

it's good to be home. i love my bed.