Hiking Mt Olympus

So Katie texted me last night with the brilliant idea of hiking Mt Olympus.
Ive always had a fear, or aversion to that mountain ever since my first hike up it. It was my first hike with the scouts. I was ill equiped. I had my fathers frame backpack, a bowl of leftovers in a cool whip container and TWO otter pops. Ps it was an over nighter. It was awefull to say the least.
But today really kicked my butt and Im really glad I did it. I conquered that mountain in just the morning. We got to the trailhead at 645am and were down by 1130.
Heres the pics.

Watch out world...

Here I come.. So this is my birthday present to myself this year. My extravagant purchase for my 30th birthday.. How did I do?

Itly? What you doin in Itly?

Katie and I got to tag along again on one of Mom and Pops adventures. They and a group of friends rented a villa in Tuscany. Yes in Italy, about a 45 min train ride outside of Florence.
I took the Redeye flight to JFK where I met Katie later that day (after a nice long nap on the floor in the sun) Together (me in first class her in coach)(but I did score her 3 seats to herself so don't look at me like that) we took the flight to Milan. There we had to find the bus (it only took going the wrong way once) that took us to Milano Centrale train station. From there it was a 2h45m train ride to Florence, then another 45m train ride to the station at the bottom of the hill from the villa. There we waited for mom and pop to fetch us in the little Ford Fiesta and zoom up to the villa..

We did Pisa, Cinque Terre, Venice, Florence and spent the last two nights in Lake Como.
Here are a GRUNDLE of pictures from each place so I'll put them in different categories so you can see each area.
ENJOY....

Getting There..

The Villa Zingale

Pisa

Cinque Terre

Venice

Florence

Lake Como

Mo Como