Honeymoon Update

We're Back! And we loved every minute of Europe! We kept a daily journal of our travels along with pictures, but were unable to post them due to several factors. However, we will post them slowly now so you will have some daily entertainment.

We both cannot believe that we will be married a whole month tomorrow! We have enjoyed every minute of married life, although it helps that we were in the land of romance for 3 weeks!

The following is the post for the first day, first from Nick and then mine. You will notice that Nick and I write a little bit different, so will will get a couple of different views of our honeymoon.

Also, I will post our pictures once we weed through them all!

Ciao,
Mrs. Knutzen

Honeymoon Journal, Day 2
Yesterday we awoke and had a great time wandering around the port city of Civitavecchia. I found the perfect little local market to buy a bottle of Italian wine to take with us on the cruise ship, so the walk was mission accomplished.

Awesome looking church in Civitavecchia
After checking onto the boat, we spent most of the day wandering around and getting to know the facilities.
The evening brought us the opportunity for the Muster Drill. Luckily we ran into Donald and Therese from Belltown who Katie has met from the cruise internet chat boards and we had dinner with not long ago. Conversing with them made the drill go by much faster!

After the muster drill was over, we headed back to the room to hustle and get ready for dinner. It was a wonderful meal, as we had asparagus cream soup, Caesar salad, tiger prawn cocktail, new York steak, and baby back ribs with some pretty awesome mac and cheese.

Primal Carnivore Instincts Kick in!



Mmmmmmmnnnnhhhhhhh….. Cheesy 
We enjoyed a crème brulee and chocolate melting cake for dessert, a wonderful way to end a wonderful meal.
Afterwards, we headed out to enjoy the nightlife. I beat Katie in a spirited game of air hockey, although she made a valiant comeback attempt. As it turns out, there was not much nightlife as most people were worn down from long travel and resting for the big day ahead in Naples. We had the dancefloor to ourselves for one song and then we decided to go rest up for our big day in Pompeii.



Katie's Post
DAY ONE
So, as a lot of you know, I hate to fly. I am not scared of much in life, but flying is something that I would rather not do. Unfortunately in this situation, it was either fly to the honeymoon trip of a lifetime or drive somewhere not as cool. Bring on the Ativan!

Nick and I weren’t as prepared as we should have been. We stayed up all Friday night packing and finished Saturday morning, but we managed to finish with about 10 minutes to spare. My Mom picked us up and had pictures of Italy in her GPS system in the car to get us ready. It pumped Nick up but I was still worried about flying.
We got to SeaTac at 11:30 and check in and security was quite simple. When we got on the plane (Lufthansa Airlines) we discovered that we had a center row of 4 seats to ourselves. SCORE! I was able to watch a ton of movies and stretch out. I got about an hour of sleep during the 10 hour flight, Nick got about 15 minutes.
We landed in Frankfurt and might I tell you…it was HUGE! We got lost a few times trying to find our gate, but eventually found it…and there were no seats. So I sat on hard linoleum for about an hour. Welcome to Germany!
The flight to Rome was about an hour and a half. Nick passed out during the entire flight, my nerves and excitement wouldn’t let me sleep. Once we landed and got off the plane, I was feeling like I was home! With stylish Italians all around me, shouting and talking with their hands while Techno music is pumped the speakers, I was ready to take on the country!
Next was the big adventure. How to take two trains to our Hotel in Civitavecchia with 3 large bags, two backpacks and a camera bag. Once we figure out where we were going and how to buy and stamp our train tickets, we felt pretty dang good. Until the train came and the pushing and shoving started. Now, in America, if you see someone who is 5’2” pulling a large piece of luggage that is about 4’ tall and about 50 lbs, you would be patient and help her one, wouldn’t you? Not in Italy. I was lucky to even get on the Train before it left. Once Nick and I got on, there wasn’t a seat. So we stood by the door with all of our luggage and braced ourselves for the 300 minute train ride to Travesere.
We got to Travesere and found where our next train would pick us up. This time we were ready to get on the train quickly and get a seat. For this 40 minute ride, we wanted to rest our feet! The train comes, chaos ensues and lo and behold….nothing. We found a little seat near the door across from the WC. Nick sat in the little seat and I sat on all of our luggage. The funny part was when the old Italian man came on board and sat in the WC for about 20 minutes. He didn’t lock the door and every time someone would try and open the door, he would push it closed and say something in Italian. I am sure it wasn’t anything nice.
We got to port and started walking to our hotel which was about 200 meters from the train station. When we arrived, we found out that they upgraded us to a nicer hotel about 100 meters away. It was a pleasant surprise. The room was quite large for Italy standards and was very close to where the Cruise shuttle would pick us up!

Once we dropped off our luggage and changed, it was about 7pm, so we decided to explore. There were a lot of people just hanging out and enjoying life. People were eating, drinking, selling trinkets, laughing, dancing, and singing. I was in heaven! We found a Pizzeria nearby and sat down outside. The waiter dropped off the menu and left. We looked at it and it was all in Italian. There was a slight panic but we attempted it. I am usually able to read Italian but speaking it was a whole different battle.
The waiter walked up to us, said “Prego”. Nick pointed to the drinks and said, “Beer?” The waiter laughed and said, in perfect English, “I didn’t know you were bloody Americans! I thought you were Italian!” We had a good laugh and he gave us English menus. Made us feel pretty dang good that he thought we were locals! We ordered Beer, Bruchetta with olive tapenade, and Pizza (Prosciutto, Cheese and Tomato’s). Amazing! Our waiter was fantastic! Made us laugh and was very informative!

So that was day one…adventure all around us! I am sure there will be more adventures to come… Stay tuned…