It's official. I am 100% embarrassed to say this, but I found airport food I actually enjoyed.

Be ready to be grossed out. My favorite airport meal was a turkey sandwich with stuffing on wheat bread.

Talk about a monochromatic sandwich. But it was good, nay, better than good.

Ned indulged in a "classic" airport English breakfast.

Eggs

Bread

Potatoes

English Bacon

And the grand total was nearly $30 for all of this.

Airports... always in their own price bracket.

When booking our European Adventure we found significantly cheaper tickets that would include a short, but much anticipated stop over in Dublin.

Ned and I touched down at 11 AM having slept a cumulative 2 hours in the last 36.

We arrived with only one bag, despite going to the airport with two...

And smelled like airport, straight up airport.

Despite it all we jumped onto a public bus, reading the schedule best we could, and set out to find some food and drink.

And a variety of sauces...

Which paired nicely with a bucket of beers

Ned opted for the Bangers and Mash, and I dove into the shepherd's pie

It was scrumptious.

So scrumptious, that maybe, JUST MAYBE someone took the leftovers back to the hotel and had Shephard's pie for breakfast at 4AM, before departing on their next flight....

Barely embarrassed.

Mercat de Sant Josep also known as La Boqueria is a large market place off La Ramblas in Barcelona.

As you walk under the iron arch you're hit with the strong aroma of fresh seafood, ripened fruit, and cured meats.

The crustaceans are still moving, and the market is just overflowing with shoppers and diners.

You could almost feel your mouth burn as you approached the thousands of hanging hot peppers.

Prosciutto anyone?

I could have spent all day wandering around the market, but alas we had to shower, get dressed, and eat.

After a slight 1-day delay, we boarded The Majestic, a boat which probably peaked in the early 1970's.

The Night Club was now boarded shut, the pool was drained of water, and the arcade had 1 game.

We were ready to get this journey started.

Instead of shlepping in pounds of cheese and meats as we did on our overnight train, we decided it was best to just get a few snacks and then purchase our meals on the boat. We would be onboard for 22-hours, surely they would have food.

We went to the grocery, got a bag of chips, some crackers and a modest 4 bottles of wine.

Once onboard we headed to the Cafe where there were approximately 10 sandwiches in the food case - total.

We tried our luck at the tomato, mozzarella and basil. Fail.

I think this was the worst sandwich I have ever tasted, thankfully their beer fridges were fully stocked.

Dinner: Pringles

Dessert: Ice cream

Drink: Heineken(s)

Breakfast: Cookies

Our cabin was small, our teeth hurt from all the sugar, we were un-showered, underfed, and exhausted. Yet this is still one of the funniest, and most entertaining moments of the whole trip.

And so we docked at 8AM in Barcelona, ready for a meal, a shower, and to take on the day!

Genoa, Italy is an industrial port of sorts, boats come in, boats go out, and NEVER on schedule.

We learned this a little too late, after spending nearly an hour running from boat slip to boat slip, we casually learned that our boat would depart for Barcelona the next day. Humph.

In the meantime my brother Tucker set about finding us a great place to eat. If we were going to be spending a day in Genoa, we were going to eat like pros.

T read reviews for this mom and pop pizza place - it was a trek to find, but turned out to be hands down one of the VERY best pizzas I have EVER had

I went for the classic Margherita.

Ham and mushrooms.

Speck, mushrooms and artichoke.

White pizza.

Prelibato

Ahhh. Gelato.

And when you're not in Germany, there are great places here in New York.

Dinner starts at 10:30pm with the ladies drinking wine.

And the gentlemen having a beer.

Due to all the pre-dinner snacking we opted to share an entree and apps.

Seafood served over your choice of rice or noodles.

Rice it is.

Alexis and I indulged in some oysters.

Then headed to a bar next door for our first successful vodka soda.

Bottoms up!

We decided to really take Cinque Terre by storm - we threw on our sneakers, packed our backpacks and set off to conquer Cinque Terre's hiking trails.

We reached the beginning of the first trail, it was closed.

We re-routed the hike - the next trail, closed.

We went to the information booth, closed.

So instead we headed to Focaccerio Il Frontoio for some savory focaccia, they were open.

Grabbed some focaccia to go:

Pesto

Risotto

Onion

Onion & Tomato

Cheese

Plain

And set off by train to Guvano Beach

Not so long ago this tunnel was illuminated with ceiling fixtures.

That is no longer the case.

This was by far the darkest and sketchiest part of our time in Italy.

Totally worth it.

After walking, drinking, and eating our way through Germany for 3 days it was time to head south.

With enough snacks to feed an entire train car we boarded a 19-hour train to

Cinque Terre, Italy

Arriving at 5:45 AM, our conductor handed us our 7€ coffees and we parted ways.

2 packed trains, 1 field trip encounter and approximately 1.5 hours later we arrived at our apartment in Monterosso al Mare

The apartment sat on a lemon and orange orchard.

Making cocktail hour fresher and hair lightening easier.

Despite having a serious abundance of cheese on the train

(Alexis and I realistically thought we could eat about 8 lbs of cheese - okay, I alone thought that to be true)

We arrived in Italy hungry and ready for some snacks

There was a grocery just down the road, so we stocked up on some:

fresh strawberries

bread

homemade pesto

prosciutto

MORE cheese

and most importantly, wine.

A lemon for our vodka soda

A patio to relax. And we were set!

Already loving Italy.