Pan y Miel: Our European Honeymoon!

Happy September friends and family!

Curious where we've been the last few weeks? Desparate for details on our super awesome honeymoon vacation? Just looking to stalk some photos of your favorite Fensters in the Holy Land? Well, then this is the post for you! Enjoy!

August 20: Gavi spent most of the day at her friend's house in the German Colony, she brought over Aroma coffee which comes with little chocolates. Israel is magical. After exploring Ben-Yehudah street  on a search for super cool travel money belts (those fanny-packs that go under your clothes). We ate Korean dinner and reminced about our favorite place to catch dinner in DC (Mandu). It is funny that BimBimBop should taste like home, but the dish contains happy memories of long dinners with good friends in the city where were first built a life together.

Fun Fact: This was the first dinner out we had together in Jerusalem sans friends or family since we arrived. We have apparently been very good about eating in/being social.

August 21: We researched and put together an Itinerary for our honeymoon, specifically our 24 hours in Rome and our day in Barcelona. Jason spent many hours finding things on google and getting very excited about them.

*Jason's interjection: Gavi made a SUPER AWESOME itinerary that made the trip go incredibly smoothly and helped us see many incredible sites in a limited amount of time. She happens to be awesome. Now back to your regularly scheduled blogging.*

August 22-3: Let's be real...plenty of things happened with friends and classes and Israeli life, but these days were full of honeymoon prep, packing, and excitement. Let's go to Europe!


We're awake (barely), and excited to
get on the plane to fly to Italy!!

August 24: The adventure begins!!! The sheirut (like a super shuttle, but...Israeli) picked us up 3:45. In the morning. Flying over the Mediterranean on a clear day was incredible. It was very easy to pick out when we were flying over Greece and Jason got very excited to proclaim that we were flying over an archipelago.

Old Bridge Gelato for the win!

We landed, made our way through the airport (after getting our Italian passport stamp of course!), and hopped a train into Rome! We got into Rome, dropped our bags in our hotel, and started off for our first site seeing destination: a little country you may have heard of called "Vatican City." We toured the Vatican Museum, spent an hour ogling Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel, and toured Saint Peter's Basilica. By this point we were starving so we had Gelato #1 of the trip at "Old Bridge." It was pistachio and it was delicious. It also helps that the standard serving size can only be described as "Gigantic."

The Pantheon: One of the
many super-awesome
buildings we got to see!

From there, we traveled to the Pantheon and then took a stroll through Piazza de Navona for a little relaxation and dinner. After a leisurely meal, we went to the Trevi Fountain, tossed in a coin, and then went for Gelato #2 at San Crispino (a famous and well regarded Gelateria) and, seeing as it was Friday night, we sampled the honey gelato. Win.

And that was just day 1.

August 25: The early bird catches the worm, and the early tourists who ordered tickets on the internet get to skip the line and go right into the Colosseum. It felt like walking through a postcard and both of us noted a stark similarity to today's sports arenas, particularly Yankee Stadium. Jason liked it anyway.

Look! Gavi found the Colosseum!

From there, we made our way to the Roman Forum, seeing an incredibly impressive archeological excavation of ruins that were remarkably well-kept/restored. It was also surprising to hear regular references to Jerusalem and conquest of the Judean Kingdom throughout this trip. Archeological inquiry may question if we built the Pyramids, but we definitely had a hand in Rome.

Italian Pizza+al dente Pasta=
Happy Fensters

We found a super tasty spot for lunch with some real Italian pizza and wonderfully al dente pasta. We could get used to life here.

Not a bad view!

And thus ended our Roman adventure, because it was time to head to the cruise ship! After some masterful navigation of the Italian transportation system, we made our way to the Port of Civitavecchia. After 2 straight days of running around, we got on the boat and the relaxation set in. A cruise ship happens to be an awesome place. There is diet coke everywhere. All of the people are incredibly nice to you (especially if you're on your honeymoon). There is a pool and hot tubs (with a frozen yogurt machine right by). And from your room you get to look at the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. Plus! They feed you super fancy-shmancy dinner of whatever you want every night. Awesome.

August 26: We're cruising! The plan for our first day was originally to take a day trip to Milan, but the trip was cancelled due to lack of sign-ups, so instead we opted to explore the port city, Genoa, on our own. Some highlights included: The Cathedral of San Lorenzo (which reminded us both of the move "Beetlejuice") the Fountain at the de Ferrari square (left), Gelato #3 with a fun and sassy employee who spoke English, pesto and focaccia (the local specialties...you can see Gavi enjoying the latter in the photo on the right), and super-touristy tour through the city on a red double-decker bus.

World famous casino in the background,
awesome newlyweds in the foreground

August 27: Next stop: Cannes, France! We took a Royal Caribbean-organized tour to the Principality of Monaco and the city of Monte Carlo. We drove along the French Riviera and saw the bluest blue water we had every seen and then to Monaco's capital city...Monaco. The town felt a bit like being in Epcot or in Dulac. Everything was very neat and tidy and all of the requisite royal things could be found throughout the city. In true Gavi and Jason style, we found a delicious, reasonably priced place for lunch and had the most delicious brie sandwich the world has ever seen. Gavi learned she is not a huge fan of eclairs. Jason became a big fan of the Olive Theory. After we wrapped up the Monaco tour, we went to Monte Carlo to get a closer glimpse of the Formula One race course and the world-famous casino before heading back to the boat for more swimming, delicious dinners, and relaxation.

Key lesson from the trip:
Audioguides are always a
good idea

August 28: Barcelona! (Much Sondheim was sung). We spent the first half of the day at La Sagrada Familia, the Gaudi church is the northern part of the city. It was awesome to say the least. Everything about it, inside and out, is incredibly intricate and thought-provoking. The outside is covered in sculptures and story telling and the inside is full of beautiful stained glass windows with light and architecture that set an incredible mood.

Our next stop were Las Ramblas, or, as our guidebook described, the 5th Avenue of Barcelona. We saw some more cathedrals, an opera hall, the impressive market (which is the Spanish equivalent of the Shuk) and went on a dessert tour of some local favorites. We had churros and chocolate at Granja la Pallaresa and some of the most delicious chocolates we've ever had from Fargas. Jason tried to put away his Hebrew and managed to converse with the shop's owner about how they have been around and making chocolate the same way for the past 186 years.

When we finished our trip down las Ramblas, we went over to the Picasso Museum and got a taste of his work outside of his patented Cubism paintings. We had a nice stroll back to the pier to hop back on the boat to head to our next destination.

August 29: Beach day! We slept in and then made friends with an Italian couple to share a cab to one of Palma de Mallorca's beaches. We spent the day relaxing, swimming, and reading. After a year of craziness with applying to schools, wedding planning, wedding-ing, and moving half way across the world, it felt really nice to just sit with no todo lists within a thousand miles.

Jason fits right in at the aquarium.

The Hulk doesn't stand a chance.

August 30: In Valencia, we made a shift from looking at historic monuments, ancient churches, and generally old things and spent the day at the City of Arts and Sciences, an incredible complex with futuristic architecture and, of the most interest to us a science museum and the largest aquarium in Europe. We got to see sharks, rays, super-duper ugly fish and fish with brilliant colors, seals, and penguins. The science museum was full of interactive exhibits, including one on superheroes. Many photos were taken. (Speaking of which, if you want to see the full set of photos from our trip, you can see them here).

Plus! We found a pressed penny (well...5 Euro cent) machine in the Aquarium. The only thing better than a pressed penny is a pressed foreign penny.

Valencia is also regarded as the birthplace of paella. And, in the interest of sharing in this cultural experience, we went to La Pepica (a famous restaurant on the beach which has had many famous patrons) and lunched on vegetarian paella and had a wonderful meal of rice, veggies, and sangria while looking over the sea.

August 31: We were very fortunate that the sea was very calm for the vast majority of the trip. Unfortunately, the last day the sea was a bit rocky and we had a bit of a rollercoaster experience while walking around the boat. We took it slow that day, watched "The Artist" in the boat's screening room, enjoyed our last boat-meals, and, once the waves subsided, enjoyed standing on our balcony watching the sea.

Also, this evening, seeing as it was Friday night, Jason subtly asked our waiter to bring out two challah rolls (or something like it) and some honey. Instead, we were given a massive challah that we delightly shared and then saved for our travels back home. A wonderful way to keep the sweet tradition of challah u'dvash throughout this first year!

September 1: One last blow-out meal at the airport in Rome (their foodcourt puts American airport food of Panda Express and Sbarros to shame) and then time to fly back to Israel. We flew Swiss Air which was particularly awesome. On our 3 hour flight we were served ice cream and a mini chocolate bar. Makes us wonder why they serve stale pretzels on US flights. Sigh. Anyway, we had a lengthy layover in Zurich. Much to our surprise it was both cold and rainy. After nearly 3 summer months in Israel, we had nearly forgotten that those were weather patterns that could exist in the world. No matter, the Zurich airport happens to be full of chocolate.

We made it back to Israel at 3:30am, hopped a sheirut, and, in a lovely welcome back to the Land, the van got a flat tire half way to Jerusalem. We had a slight delay, but made it home by 6am which left Jason with a solid 3.5hrs of sleep before starting classes for the Fall Semester!

Summary: The honeymoon was AMAZING. We were so fortunate to get to see some many incredible sites, visit a total of four countries new to us (Italy, Vatican, France, Monaco), and the fact that we got to do it just the two of us made it all the more special. After a year full of planning, organizing, and preparing, it was very rewarding to have time to just be together, laugh, and talk without any of the stressors of day-to-day life. We should honeymoon all the time.

Two other important notes:
1) Gavi gets 20,000 bonus points for making sure we didn't get pick-pocketed.
2) Rick Steves' audioguides and travel tips were invaluable in helping us see and experience Rome and Barcelona at our own pace while still achieving a true appreciation for the sites and cities. Thanks, Rick Steves!

And that's the honeymoon blog post! In case you missed the link to the photos, the set can be found on our Flickr page (there you can also see the full set from our wedding...all 1400ish photos!). For the next post we'll catch you up on the start of the Fall Semester and the HUC tiyul to the Kinneret. Stay tuned!