Christmas Reunion

I love my brother and sister. Somehow we all coordinated this year, and managed three weeks together in Italy and Georgia (still the country, not the state) traveling around, eating endlessly, enjoying each others' company, and rolling our eyes at each other and internally stewing as siblings do. I love them to death and the trip was super fun. I'm sad they're gone, but also reveling a bit in the silence of no work, no company, and no obligations until at least January 10 because Georgians celebrate New Years, Georgian Christmas (Jan 7), and Georgian New Year (Jan 14), which means no work all week. It also means baking and watching all of Grey's Anatomy, just because I can.

We visited  Viterbo, Civita di Bagnoregio, Assisi, Arezzo, Venice, Naples, and Rome, then flew to Georgia and visited Tbilisi, Uplistsikhe, Mtskheta, and Samtredia. The Italy stuff was mostly by train, and the Georgia stuff in a combo of taxis, buses and the metro.

I tried to write about it, but it was crappy. So this is basically how it went:

I love my sister, but almost always from a distance.

This is how I feel almost all the time. Also, this tumblr is amazing.

don't cross me when I'm hungry

Just imagine this in a totally packed bus with your knees crammed against the seat, though

You can't say no to this face. Binge watching twelve seasons is healthy, right?

It was actually really great and this random bus driver bought us kachapuri (cheese bread) at the rest stop in the middle of the mountains, which was very kind of him. Also, in Italy my brother tried hot chocolate everywhere, but my two favorites were both in Viterbo, and so thick it was like drinking hot pudding and it was glorious. I also got a lace butterfly from Burano, which is a cool island because all of the houses are painted in bright colors, and a glass cat on a fishbowl from Murano. I met the glassblower and got to see some of his new work, which are these awesome jewel-bright cats that have some sort of sparkly metal or something inside the glass. We spent Christmas with an Italian family and New Years with a Georgian family, took no pictures of it, and ate enough to burst.
Here are some of the pictures from the trip.

New books read: 119

Total books read: 162

Recommendation: I just finished the last book in Neal Shusterman's Unwind dystology, and the last book in Robin Hobb's Tawny Man trilogy, both of which were satisfying and fitting conclusions to a good scifi and fantasy series, respectively.