{Italy: The Bad & The Ugly}

I debated for a few hours if I should first tell you about the awesome 24 hours I had in Italy, or if I should first tell you about the 48+ hours that followed that were pretty much my worst nightmare come to life…

I decided I’d start with the bad, so I could get it in my past as soon as possible, and make it stay there forever.

Long story short, I got a bad case of food poisoning on our awesome blogger blate in Italy. Most of you will wonder what I ate that made me so sick.. I wish it was something more cool and obvious, but it was a nectarine (of all things!) I bought at a super tiny, crappy little convenience store in Florence. It had clearly been cross contaminated with some nasty bacteria because it didn’t take long for me to get sick. 

Poor Megan and Lauren had to endure me upchucking all over Florence (in bathrooms, on the street, on the side of the highway…) and then throughout the night and even into the next day at our lovely villa outside of Lucca. That felt like the longest night of my life. I swore I was dying and I needed a hospital. It was awful. Only made more awful by the fact that my body was so torn apart and depleted that even when the throwing up had stopped, I was too weak to go anywhere or do anything for the entire rest of the trip.

There are so many other awful details, but for now I’d rather just focus on the fact that I’m slowly but surely getting my strength back, I’m back in my bed in Amsterdam and that Megan, Lauren and their guys (and of course Corey!) were the sweetest and best caretakers. It could’ve been really terrible and awkward to be sick around people I didn’t know very well, but they made me feel so comfortable, and I’m forever grateful for that.

So for all of you who have ever read my blog and felt even in a twinge of jealousy… here you go. Crappy things happen on awesome travel adventures, too! And I’m here to report back on those as your loyal travel blogger :) I’ll be sharing the few photos I have from our Italian getaway just as soon as I’m feeling up for it. Hopefully soon!

P.S. Thanks for all of your thoughtful and concerned comments and tweets on Instagram & Twitter – they kept me great company while I was up in the middle of the night!

{you can always rely on bloggers to document everything, even me being sick on the couch! Thanks for the photo Lauren :) }