Under the Tuscan Sun

A fashion photographer friend once told Jacob that he likes shooting in Italy best because the light falls in a special way. 
It's more golden somehow.
It diffuses like particles of liquid honey.

Well, we finished up in London, which was pretty traumatic, so we thought it might be wise to see and feel some bonafied liquid honey sun.

And we weren't dissapointed.

This post will be largely pictorial because
a) I'm feverishly trying to catch up on this whirlwind week and a half we spent tromping around Europe now that our London life is over, and
b) that means I should keep my stupid fingers shut because
c) Tuscany speaks for itself.

You see, the thing about Tuscany is that it actually looks the way it does in calendars.

And even the best of point-and-shoots couldn't do it justice.

It seeped into my veins and filled me with a dazzling new optimism. 

I am so thrilled about existence.

Even  after getting extremely lost late at night and getting off a random bus in a tiny town with no taxis or buses or anything.

And the pizza rocks.

And I am so in love.

Ciao Toscane,

Banana

Rome if you want to, Rome around the world

Let's be honest. Most of my expectations for Roma came from The Lizzie McGuire Movie and Mary Kate and Ashley's When in Rome (Okay, with an awful lot of Eat, Pray, Love tossed in there. I've read it twice. Sue me). So, according to my experience, I could expect to be mistaken for an Italian pop superstar and live a fabulous double life around all of Rome's most famous monuments, save the fashion world with the help of the ingenuity of my twin and an assortment of friends with pleasantly diverse nationalities while partying on the beach, and pick up a dreamy Italian boy somewhere along the way.

Well, I actually imported  a boy from London, so that part was out. But the rest seamed feasible.

Now, I've been lucky enough to live in both London and Paris for a bit, and they are unique and wonderful and so rich and deep and in all the days I was there I didn't even scratch their glorious, gritty surfaces. I have a HUGE amount of loyalty to those cities (ironic, I know, since one is probably supposed to prefer one or the other).

BUT. 
ohhhh this might get me in trouble.
It's just.... I REALLY REALLY REALLY LIKE ROME!

There is something so... effortlessly glorious in the way ruins pepper the landscape, lazily bathing in the afternoon sun, retreating under the wisteria if it gets too hot. It's like, "I'm Rome. I don't have to prove anything. I'm everything." And I'm like, "Woah, yeah. You totally are." (I really hope London and Paris aren't reading this. But hey, I'm American! Don't I have some sort of immunity here!?)

I mean, what's a girl to do when all the public drinking fountains look like this?

(London, for the record, doesn't have any. Not that I'm bitter... just dehydrated.)

And all the ceilings look like this?

And around every corner is a church that looks like this?

And the cars look like this?

And the houses look like this?

And the fountains make you look like this?

And you sit down to rest your throbbing feet and eat some multigrain Pringles and it just happens to look like this?

And the graffiti looks like this?

And the sun makes you feel like this?

And the statues look like this?

And all the buildings look like this?

And the pizza tastes like this?

And the women drive Vespas in stilettos like this?

And she can get a "Chicken Mythic Bacon" at McDonald's???

Don't judge. We're poor.

And they just know how to deal with chicken at the Chicken Hut!?

And her husband is this cute??

Well. 

I suppose all she can do is sigh and hope that that one euro cent in the Trevi fountain really does assure her a return to Rome. Maybe, hopefully, an extended one (?).

That, and she can go to Florence. 

Bummer. ;)

The Rennakers: Kissing in Cool Places since 2013

In honor of my lord's two month wedding anniversary with his lady (me), I thought I'd post a series of romantic pictures in front of scenic places around the Queendom. For fear of kindling my lord's wrath, I ask you to please not tell him.

This is the list of things he hates the most:

1. Kissing in public.

2. Having pictures taken of him while kissing in public.

3. Me posting those pictures on the internet.

I Love you, Jacob! Happy two months!

 

Jacob thinking about how much he doesn't want to kiss me on the Kings George's stairs in the Kingly, Georgian section of Kensington Palace.

 

 Me loving Jacob at the Bodlean library in Oxford.

 Me trying to get Jacob to love me in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

 Me making out with a medieval archer wax figure because I couldn't get any from my husband at Warwick Castle.

 Jacob too cold to kiss me at Castlerigg Stone Circle (sans the stone circle)

 

Me bullying Jacob into taking a kissing selfie in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

 

 

 Anna triumphant as Jacob kisses her back at Hampton Court Palace (shortly after Anne Boleyn bluntly propositioned him). This is PROGRESS, people. It's time to re-take our wedding photos!

* A word on my coat: Yes, I wear it every day. Yes, I am sick of it. Yes, it looks like I never change my clothes because I look the same in every picture. Yes, my identity is morphing into an amorphous army green blob. Yes, all the other girls have about five coats to avoid this lamentable situation. I'm not presenting a solution, but I am admitting that I understand the gravity of it.

Cheers!
Banana 

I asked Jacob to write "Our Story" for our wedding website...

...and this is what he gave me.

yup.

by the way: our website (password: happiness)

here's the zombienite music video we were dressed up for. Jacob is featured as Edward Cullen.

yikes.

I just thought you should know...

...that I am in love.

in love, I say!

goo goo, gaga, lovey dovey love bird, jaw-dropping, cartoon heart eyes popping in love.

And it's so cool.

A belated tribute

No... not to the 75th annual Hunger Games.




But to the same kind of man who taught Katniss to be awesome so she could WIN the 75th annual Hunger Games;



that is, to my father.

A tribute to the man who taught me to read at stoplights.

Who threw me an unsurpassed 12th birthday party, wherein my house was transformed into Hogwarts (This is before  HP movie paraphernalia, people. We MADE chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott's EFBs and used chopsticks for wands).

A tribute to the most consistent mustache-wearer and 3x5 card carrier.

A tribute to always having "a back up" and wheezing like the penguin from Toy Story when being tickled.

A tribute to the smartest human being I've ever met.

To the most thoughtful, loving and generous human being I've ever met.

 To the man who has kept my skinny, cold-blooded lizard body warm and alive for over twenty years.

 And to the man who still tucks me in and sings cowboy songs  every time I'm home.And who probably always will.
 
I love you, Daddy.
"Now, what was your name?"

-Banana Lassie