36 days?

You must be kidding me. I have 36 days left in Florence?!
I'm pretty sure I used to complain about have 7 months left. Where has this year gone? Bho.
But I can tell you where my last two weeks have gone :) They went all over Italy with my wonderful family! (I'm sure I'm missing some period of time before they got here, but it wasn't as significant. I promise.)
So Modge, Pops, and Gob arrived in Milan on Monday, April 18. So after school that day I hopped on a train (and a metro, and a bus, and a shuttle..) to meet them at their hotel. I honestly cannot describe how awesome it was to see those three walk into the lobby. Having so much fun over here makes the whole missing people thing a little different, so finally seeing them reminded me how much I love those boogerfaces. Even my brother in that damn Baltimore Oriole's hat and his Grateful Dead t-shirt..
So that night Matty and I spent a long time catching up and laughing our asses off, per usual. Then unfortunately returned to our hotel room where he still hasn't accepted that I'm his sister and not his college roommate and that he can't pee with the door open... But, that's another story.
The next morning Pops and I reported to the rental car agency and picked up the Hyundai that would become our faithful companion for the next week. "No one has rented this car before. It's okay for you, I think." And thus begins my two weeks of being pushed to the counter in every business and restaurant to "speak Italian to the guy" even though said employee probably speaks better English than I do. (Wish I were kidding.) And we hit the road.
Our first stop was on Lake Garda for lunch. I think Lake Country in northern Italy is actually the most beautiful place I've ever seen. (Please don't take this opportunity to go back through my blog and find the other 8 times I've said that this year.) We ate lunch at a beautiful restaurant right on the lake, and Modge and I think we've found the PERFECT place for my wedding reception. Said wedding will be taking place right on Lake Como. Get pumped everybody. Riiiiight.
Our destination for the night was Belaggio, only accessible by ferry. Also casually where George Clooney has a home where he spends most of his time. You really can't blame the guy, though. This place was UNREAL. We spent our afternoon wandering around the city and through the botanical gardens right on the lake. Making fun of each other and sharing funny stories.
The next morning we hopped in our little toy car and headed for Ferrara. Ferrara is a really neat medieval walled-city where more people ride bikes than drive cars. It was a tiny little place, so we got a good feel for the sights on our first afternoon, and Matty and I stayed up way too late that night to observe the college kids congregating in a piazza partaking in public drinking and drum circles until 4 AM. We weren't wearing black leather jackets so we didn't think it would appropriate to join in. The next morning we took a nice little bike ride around the walls of the city. Proud to report NO accidents. Despite Modge's best efforts to zig zag her way through the streets :)

Next stop: Gubbio. (Goo bee oh) Yep, just as hilarious as you thought it was. An even cuter, even tinier, and even medieval-er (?) city. Again, mostly wandering, talking, drinking vino and making fun of each other. But there's honestly NOTHING I would have rather been doing. We had a wonderful dinner in Gubbio at a really fun little restaurant where there we no menus, just the waiter TELLING you what you should eat. I mean, dude knew his stuff. It was delicious. Too bad Gob couldn't participate because he'd chosen to eat an entire package of lunch meat (that cost 97 cents) a few hours prior to dinner. Womp womp.
The next day I came back to Flo town to prepare the city for the tornado of an Evans family that was about to hit it. And then everyone got here on Saturday!

It was actually remarkable how easily everybody met up at the apartment in Florence, considering who we were dealing with. Actually, I guess it wasn't THAT easy. I may or may not have told Scate that they didn't need to buy train tickets from Milan to Florence ahead of time because they never sell out. Oh, what's that? Easter weekend? Ohhhh. But despite apparently almost getting locked up abroad, the happy couple arrived at the apartment like 30 minutes after Mike and me. (Mike is Scott's best friend who joined the adventure, for those of you who don't know. He may also be referred to as Schmoe. Keep that in mind.) Being the first people to arrive at our sweet pad, though, Mike and I felt like we were on the Real World. Running from room to room: "Duuuude. Have you seen this?!" "This is so sweet!" "Dibs on this bed!" "Did someone just use this bathroom? Ew!" "Oh, man, there's a rooftop balcony!" (Okay, one of those didn't fit in, but it did happen.) But really, everyone arrived with minimal issues, and the party began. My ONLY complaint about last week was that Florence was being a complete brat with the weather. The sky was pretty ominous for the first few days, and we KNEW we weren't going to let rain ruin our rooftop extravaganza. So naturally my dad and I went on an adventure to the Coop (the humongous Target/Walmart/supermarket) in search for a tarp that we could put up on the balcony to keep the rain out, and "really class the place up." You can take the Evans out of the Central Valley, but you can't take the Central Valley out of the Evans. So then this happened.

After mother nature took her toll, I think we went through about 3 of these puppies. But by the end we absolutely had it down. Probably our greatest accomplishment of the week. Well, I'm going to have to cut this short and fill you in on the rest of the "Best Week Ever" next time.
I'm off to the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia for the weekend with Jenna and Anna. I'm absolutely giddy. About being there. The 12 hour ferry ride doesn't exactly have me doing cartwheels, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Mi mancate, ragazzi. E, come sempre, vi voglio benissimo. Baci!

Oh, and because I won't be around on Sunday to holla' atcha'-- Mother's Day shoutout, Modge.
Love you so much. I had so much fun with you for the last two weeks. Can't wait to see you again!