On Saturday we celebrated our first wedding anniversary!  I can’t believe how quickly the first year went. 

If any of you have married someone who is not a citizen or resident of your home country, you will know what a nightmare it is to get everything in order to legally get married.  Even now, a year later, we are sorting out Matthew’s visa paperwork so we can move back to the US.  If every couple had to go through what we have gone through to stay together, and eventually get married, I believe the divorce rate would be much lower!

We were married in a very small, private ceremony in London.  After dating for over six years, with much of that time spent apart, I had dreamed of this day for a long time!  We went through many years of hardship living apart while I finished college and Matthew got his career started.  Everyone we know says our relationship is a true love story, and I have to agree!

Just a little detour to briefly discuss weight, because I think of my wedding as sort of a milestone in that department.  I had lost 20 lbs for my wedding day and felt great, but continued to drop the last few pounds and by our (late) honeymoon, six months later, I was down the final 10 lbs!  Nowadays I’m probably closer to my wedding weight than my honeymoon weight, but I’ve accepted that things fluctuate and I’m still happy somewhere in between.  Life changes and my weight will probably continue to flutter a little bit through the years, but I hope to keep it relatively stable and never again have giant fluctuations!

Here are just a few more photos of the wedding and honeymoon, if anyone is interested!  

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One year later:

The above photo is the only photo I have of us at dinner on Saturday and it came out horrible!  Oh well, back to the actual day itself.

We started off our second day in Florence with breakfast.  The hotel had a great selection; I was not expecting the range of choices and quality of food.  These aren’t great photos but you can see there is fresh fruit, juice, rolls, croissants, granola, cereals, biscuits, apples, spreads, yogurts, cheeses, salami, crackers, and cakes. 

It was kind of overwhelming for me!  We loaded up and sat out on the patio (we were up early so it was empty!).

I learned a lesson here…get what you really want!  At first I just wanted to stick with “safe” options so I grabbed random things like an apple, wasa cracker, and yogurt and granola.

I started eating the yogurt and granola and then decided to pimp it out a bit and add some fresh and dried fruit.

It was good, but as I was eating it, I was eyeing Matthew’s croissant.  Then I saw the Nutella at our table, and had a brilliant idea. 

My friends, I am with you all in wanting to be thin and healthy and disease-free.  I really am.  But you have not lived until you have had Nutella spread on a fresh croissant.  Please, please trust me.  Life is too damn short not to eat this.  

Pardon my puffy eyes

So, this is essentially what I actually ended up eating for breakfast (1% yogurt not pictured):

I packed up the apple and wasa crackers for emergency snacks later.

We were up early to get to the Uffizi Gallery and the piazza was nearly empty as we made our way there!  The shops were just opening up and the sun was just starting to really heat up.

Walking through the Piazza della Signoria

We waited in line to get tickets forever.  Seriously, big mistake not to order tickets online.  But the Uffizi is supposed to be the best museum in Italy with tons of Renaissance art and I really wanted to go.  So we waited.

Matthew did more map-studying while we waited.  The man loves maps.  I do not understand it, but he is handy to have around.  He seems to have a photographic memory with them. 

Me?  Well, I just stretched and imitated a flamingo.  Seemed entertaining at the time.

The gallery was beautiful but not as amazing as I hoped it would be.  I am glad we went, but I was upset that we spent a good chunk of our anniversary waiting in line!  Lesson learned.

When we left at the museum we explored the city more, for the first time in many months I was not concerned about lunch or obsessed with what I would eat.  I really think the big breakfast combined with the insane heat had something to do with it, plus the fact that I was just enthralled with everything around me.

When we finally did stop for lunch, we kept it pretty light.  We shared a chicken salad, plus prosciutto and melon and a little bread.  Both dishes were amazing.  I have never tasted ham like that in my life, and it was so refreshing with the juicy melon.   

Chicken salad with tomatoes, raisins, and pine nuts

Prosciutto and melon with focaccia bread

More walking and exploring…as you can imagine we did LOTS of walking.  I had a very carb-heavy three days but, as I will explain later, I really think all the walking helped even everything out.  We never took a taxi or bus, we did all of our exploring on foot. 

A few hours later, we were ready for our daily gelato treat

Pana cotta (caramel) and tiramisu gelato

Gelato can really tire a girl out, so we went back to the room to take a little nap and then change for dinner.  I could have easily slept through the night but Matthew woke me up with the promise that we could get champagne on the patio again before dinner.  It worked.

We toasted our anniversary and they even brought out little appetizers for us:

Salami and cheese with honey and green olives

We ate dinner pretty late, which I found out is quite common there.  We read a suggestion to visit the Frescobaldi Wine Bar, which is a little restaurant hidden behind The Duomo.  They make all of their own wines and the food is AMAZING.  We each ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio and took home a bottle of Chianti. 

For dinner I ordered the small portion of their pumpkin ravioli with sage and butter sauce, topped with an amoretti cookie.

Matthew ordered a spaghetti dish with bacon.  I can’t remember all the details but I know there was butter involved and I know it was damn good.

I think this may have been my longest post ever.  Sorry for all the photos and info.  This is also my little journal of the trip!  It’s so nice to look back at old posts and be able to remember stuff like this that I otherwise wouldn’t write down.

Thanks for sticking with me!  Ciao!