What's She Up to Now? Jody's Life Blog

"Travel Blog" and Movies

Howdy All!

"Travel Blog"

Well, thanks to Sally constantly including me in her 30-Day Blogging Challenge, I finally fell to the peer pressure and decided to join in the fun! In the spirit of Italy, since their flag is green, white, and red, I decided to write part of my blog in red and part in green. Sorry for those of you who are red/green color blind. I didn't pick their flag's colors... Anyway, the prompt is in green and what I said is in red.

August 10th Hello Italy

http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Bassetto-Guesthouse/Florence/744?da...

Welcome to Bassetto Guesthouse!

We are located in Certaldo, in the belly button of Tuscany, a beautiful region of vineyards, olive groves and medieval towns. This is the place where you will find a true taste of Tuscany and the 'bella vita' in an authentic XIVth century setting.

We are bringing Tuscany country living to the backpacking world. If you need a relaxing break from the busy cities, then we are the place for you. At Bassetto, you will be able to regather your thoughts while you relax next to our pool or swing the afternoon away in a hammock with a glass of wine in hand and then at night, you can take a walk through a garden while being surrounded by fireflies after you have had a dinner in our wine cellar.

Bassetto Guesthouse was formerly a convent of Benedictine monks that was always open to pilgrims passing through. In 1998, our family opened Bassetto Guesthouse again to travelers with the same notion of hospitality as the monks centuries ago. We wanted our guesthouse to be unique in terms of setting and location, a place you would want to return to and somewhere to relax from city life.

We accommodate everyone here, from the lovers on their honeymoon in our private rooms to the solo backpacker in our dorm style rooms. Our private rooms and dorms, are separated from each other across the yard, with their own both kitchens and common areas.

Explore through landscapes sculpted by sunflowers, rolling hills and farms either on foot, bicycle, and horse. Day trips by train are easy from Certaldo to go exploring the big cities to see the splendors of Florence, Siena, Pisa which are mostly an hour away.

We organise and run a number of activities from a fresh pasta cooking class with a local chef to day trips to San Gimignano and wine tour. When the weather is amazing, we can even take you out to Pisa for a day.

Bassetto Guesthouse will always make you feel like you won’t want to leave and with our friendly staff, always able to help we are the perfect place to be in Tuscany.

There is something for everyone here!

Well, Sally found me in Monaco and invited me to join the WdC group on their European tour. What an awesome surprise to see everyone and who wouldn't rather travel with friends?!? And boy am I glad I decided to join in! What a beautiful place we went to on my very first night with them! I, along with SB Musing and LostGhost: Seeking & Learning opted for the "dormatory-style" rooms to save some cash and I'm really glad we did! Their dorms only have 4 beds in there and no one else was there, so we really saved some money in a painless way! The only real drawback is that they are pretty narrow single beds, but for the money, you can't really complain! lol

We're going to take a fresh pasta making class this morning before we set off to see where Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Foscolo, Gentile and Rossini are buried at the Basilica of Santa Croce and see the museum where Michelangelo's David resides

First we took a really cool pasta making class. I'd tried to make pasta once a long time ago. It didn't go so well. Plus, it wasn't this much fun! I think we might have been embarrassing Lyn's a Witchy Woman as I saw her shoot some looks at Sally. Poor Sally was TRYING to politely keep us in line, but we were just having TOO MUCH FUN! Fran 🌈🧜‍♀️ is a real hoot and Fivesixer and SB Musing just constantly play off each other's jokes. But I didn't help matters at all. I joined in just as much.

In hindsight, I feel a little bad. Perhaps we were a bit TOO rowdy. But, well, I'm sure they've had worse! Hahaha Plus, the instructor didn't seem bothered at all. He was really quite patient with us and seemed to be amused that we were having a great time, even if we weren't learning as much as he was teaching. lol He career is safe as long as he has students like us!

Next we went to see where a bunch of famous people are buried. I felt kind of awkward not knowing who a lot of them were, but Fivesixer was kind enough to tell me quietly without making me look stupid. What a gentleman! Then we went to a museum. I'm not really a huge museum person, but there were some really interesting pieces there and it was, how can I say this without sounding corny, an honor to see Michelangelo's David statue. WOW! And to think of how old that is! I bet he'd be SO PROUD to know people are STILL admiring his work!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Santa_Croce,_Florence

http://www.accademia.org/}

after a light lunch we are going to the Boboli Gardens

http://www.museumsinflorence.com/musei/boboli_garden.html

We are going on late afternoon early evening horseback adventure, with our picnic baskets. We are going to see the city's beauty at sunset from an incredible advantage point.

Well, the horseback riding and picnic and sunset views were fabulous! But I have to say, my hips are STILL hurting. Darn Army messing them up. I would have taken something for the pain ahead of time, but didn't think about it. By the time I realized my mistake, it was too late. It's okay. The ride back wasn't nearly as painful as it was scary. lol Funny how thinking of chupacabra jumping out of the darkness and eating me and the horse really quells the pain. I didn't like being the last of us, but at least I had the other guide behind me, so I felt like it gave me and Sparky (my horse) a fighting chance! Hahaha

Sleep well my friends we have another busy day ahead of us.

Done with my "travel blog," now on to real life...
Movies

I've been working on my "A Very British Challenge." I have to do 5, yes 5 product reviews. That seems like a bit much to me. PLUS I have to do some for "The Challenge" as well. What's the deal with product reviews? Personally, I hate them...mostly because I don't read that much and I don't really watch movies that much since my minor TBI. Oh well, I'm already 2 months into both. I can suffer through the rest of these two, then be free! lol

Regarding my product reviews, I opted for movies. I had to google the best British movies (because I want to watch GOOD ones lol), but then I have to cross-reference what's available with Netflix. Turns out not a lot are...at least that I want to see. lol I'm going to end up having to rent some on Amazon, I guess. Oh well. I saw "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," which is obviously a spy movie, and "We Need to Talk About Kevin," which is about Kevin, a teen who commits mass murder. I thought the first one was based on a true story. Turns out neither was. Whatever. Anyway, both were kind of slow, but the spy movie more than the mass murder movie, but for a mass murder movie, I have to say, it was slower than expected. But if you like imagery in your movies, "We Need to Talk About Kevin" is FULL OF IT! Like the color red is EVERYWHERE! There's more, but that's the biggest one.

Tonight I'm thinking of watching "Slumdog Millionaire" and maybe something else if I think I can tolerate 2 movies tonight. Nah...I think tonight is a 1 movie night. Sad, really. I used to be able to watch 4-5 movies in a day, but now I just can't focus that long. I don't even really enjoy 1 movie like I used to and I generally have to pause or just go and do something else while for a few minutes it's playing. And to think, I used to WORK at the movies. lol