Thanksgiving: Finland Style

Today, our last day in Europe,  we celebrated a little Thanksgiving :)

Joel and Miia haven't had a Thanksgiving meal in a good long time, so we did right!

We began the prep work yesterday, and continued well into today.

Starting to set the table and getting ready for our feast!

The food is starting to make an appearance

the chickens were fabuloso... so tender and moist. Definitely one of the best parts of the ENTIRE meal.

Enjoying the lovely snowy scenery

Mmmmm Thanksgiving feast.

Our spread included two chickens, stuffing, mashed potatoes, homemade cranberries and biscuits, spinach salad, vegetarian gravy (as 2 of the 6 attending don't eat meat), corn... and of course...

Pie!

Apple and Pumpkin

Do I really get to relive this fantastic food again in four days??

I'd better rest up and give my stomach a break before the madness starts all over again!

If you could all say a little prayer for our travels tomorrow that would be swell!

We're heading out early tomorrow morning, have a layover in Paris, and get to MN at 1:45 P.M.

Prayer for no missed baggage, connections, and a safe flight!

Can't wait to see ya'll soon!!

Roman Holiday: Ostia Antica

On our last day in Rome... *gasp, sob, sigh* we headed out to Ostia Antica

It's an amazing town with ancient ruins, it was extremely impressive to see such old ruins and a city of the working class.

The Mosaics on the ground were absolutely fabulouso

The theater

Who's that handsome man?? I'll probably bring him home as my souvenir.

We then made our way into Rome, did some last minute shopping and went to see Mamertime Prison, where Peter and Paul were held, and St. Peter in Chains.

Rick Steves said that Mamertime Prison was donation based... not anymore. 10 bloody euros each for a "multimedia experience"... umm no thanks rip off.

So we made our way to St. Peter in Chains Church

 This church "holds" the chains that held St. Peter.

It also has a statue of Moses carved by Michelangelo

It took him 30 YEARS to make this baby.

30..... years.

seriously.

It was a beautiful church, and a nice way to end our time in Rome.

I'm in a bit of shock realizing that our 2 months of travel is rapidly coming to an end.  Tomorrow we make our way to Finland and Monday we head stateside for the first time in 11 months.  

As awesome as all of this travel as been (and believe me... my jaw is still dropped thinking about all the places we've been) I'm extremely excited to be getting home!

See ya'll soon!

Roman Holiday: 3

We started out our third day with a visit to the Borghese Gallery.

Apparently we were all to flustered to actually take a picture of the outside of the building 

and of course like every fabulous museum we've been too no pictures were allowed inside... bummer.

We saw some INCREDIBLE statues/sculptures, seriously out of this world. I could've stared at them all day, but we had a 2 hour time limit and our stomachs were starting to growl.

We did manage to get one picture of the gardens near the gallery... does that count??

Making a pit stop at the Spanish Steps.. you know they were right there so we figured we might as well.

Piazza del Popolo

Then we took a walk along the Tiber

Back at the capital

And a trip to the Coloseum to get pictures with the gorgeous blue sky behind it

Then we took a night walk (actually these are from a series of nights.. we kept getting rained on!)

Four Rivers Fountain

Our view during dinner last night... complete with live music

I have one handsome dinner partner

Trevi... you are so fabulous, I already miss you.

And the Spanish Steps

Even with 4 full days here, I don't feel like I could ever get enough of Rome.

Looking up and seeing the Coloseum or Trevi fountain... it's just too gorgeous and fascinating to me!

I guess we'll just have to keep on coming back!