Tis the season...
Ryan1990
Posts: 526 ✭✭✭✭
...for thankfulness and reflection.
As I finally light up this BBF that @90+_Irishman bombed me with awhile back - thanks so much, Brett! I had very high hopes for this cigar and it is not disappointing. - I'm struck by just how thankful I am for this community.
Most of you know already, but I got married a few months ago and we're still trying to figure out what our social schedules look like as newlyweds. As such, there has been a little bit less cigar smoking, and a lot less forum posting, unfortunately. (I hope to come back swinging in 2017!)
Nevertheless, I wanted to take this opportunity to voice my gratitude and appreciation for what an awesome community of BOTLs and SOTLs we have here at Ccom. Thanks so much for your friendship, for great conversation, for laughs, and for prayers. You're all incredible and I'm thankful to have forged some very rewarding relationships with you all this year.
Starting next week, I'll be on a family trip to Italy for a few weeks, so there will be even less forum activity from me. However, when I get back, expect to see a nice little contest with (what I would consider to be) some pretty cool sticks incolved.
Thanks, again, y'all.
Ryan
As I finally light up this BBF that @90+_Irishman bombed me with awhile back - thanks so much, Brett! I had very high hopes for this cigar and it is not disappointing. - I'm struck by just how thankful I am for this community.
Most of you know already, but I got married a few months ago and we're still trying to figure out what our social schedules look like as newlyweds. As such, there has been a little bit less cigar smoking, and a lot less forum posting, unfortunately. (I hope to come back swinging in 2017!)
Nevertheless, I wanted to take this opportunity to voice my gratitude and appreciation for what an awesome community of BOTLs and SOTLs we have here at Ccom. Thanks so much for your friendship, for great conversation, for laughs, and for prayers. You're all incredible and I'm thankful to have forged some very rewarding relationships with you all this year.
Starting next week, I'll be on a family trip to Italy for a few weeks, so there will be even less forum activity from me. However, when I get back, expect to see a nice little contest with (what I would consider to be) some pretty cool sticks incolved.
Thanks, again, y'all.
Ryan
Post edited by Ryan1990 on
8
Comments
Eat too much
Drink too much
And smoke too much
And have too much fun.
That's my prescription for fun LOL
What you can't forgive......you will become.
What part of italy will you be visiting?
Take some pics, jot down a few notes, and share them here? THAT would be badass...
-Jay
@jlmarta I'll be visiting Rome, Florence, and Venice, so I should be able to do a fair amount of scouting while I'm there. Hoping to escape with at least a box or two plus some singles.
Any advice?
Deducting a travel day, we had 9 days left so we decided on 3 days per city. It wasn't enough. We loved Rome so much we spent an extra day there and shorted Florence a day. Luckily, we kept 3 days for Venice. They're all fabulous.
The cabbie who took us from the airport in Rome to our hotel spoke pretty good English. That's a plus. So we hired him for the entire next day. Another plus. Our main destination for the day was to visit Hadrian's Villa. On the way, Vince, our driver, stopped at a small hotel tucked away on a very narrow side street. I wish I remembered the hotel's name because Vince explained that it was a favorite of a lot of movie stars and other celebrities and there were many signed photos of them hanging in the tiny lobby.
We went into the dining room to have lunch and a good share of the room was taken up by a wedding party. Vince knew the waiter so each time a new dish was served to the wedding party the waiter would bring a plate of whatever it was to our table so we could sample it. It was great.
Hadrian's Villa was also great. Very impressive and beautiful. A little northeast of Rome is the village of Amatrice that only recently suffered an earthquake. You may remember it in the news. Anyway, Amatrice (Ama-TREE-chay) is where the well-known pasta sauce called alla Amatriciana originated.
This is getting too long. In Florence, the Uffizi Palace and Galleria Academe should be seen. Michaelangelo's David is there. Also, the Ponte Vecchio bridge with all its little craftsman's shops are worth seeing.
We stayed at the Monaco and Grand Canal hotel in Venice. It was a lovely place and right next door to Harry's Bar, a famous watering-hole I'm sure you've heard of. They made great martinis and they had a restaurant. They had a second dining room upstairs and to the rear of the building where they seated us. They explained that the one downstairs got a bit raucous during the dinner hour.
By now, I'm sure you've fallen asleep so I'll just tippy-toe out of here. Sorry it got so long but a trip like that is hard to condense....
The first couple sequences show some of Venice with traffic on the canals and a good shot of the Cinque Terre. The name of this area translates to 'five lands' referring to five villages perched on cliffs along the Mediterranean. We visited there on another trip to Italy.
If you're adventuresome, a ride on one of the vaporetti (water busses) in Venice is always fun.
Here's the link:
https://biggeekdad.com/2016/10/trip-across-italy/
Hope you enjoy.....
@jlmarta thanks so much for the suggestions! I'll be sure to keep those in mind.
Going Griswald
What you can't forgive......you will become.
Sorry to hear you are going to miss this trip @Bigshizza but hell, you are still young, get yourself healed up and make the next one.
Safe travels @Ryan1990