Two months to go

The holidays are wrapping up and so is our time here in New York.  We have been falling in love with our fair city all over again these past few months.  Despite the mass of tourists during the holidays, the inches and inches of snow and all of the pushy rude people on the buses and subways, we really do love this city.  This is where we fell in love, advanced our careers and met lifelong friends.  We are putting our notice in this week that we aren't renewing our apartment lease.  This has, in my opinion, much more of a feeling of finality than booking our one way flights.  We are leaving the city and there's no turning back.  Although we're incredibly excited to start this new adventure and know that it will lead to wonderful memories and experiences, we can't help but get nostalgic leaving New York and get a little scared about what's to come.  As with any major life change, it is intimidating!  We are leaving at the end of March and will visit our families for two weeks before our April 14th departure.  Before we leave, we are going to take a day and be tourists.  We plan to do a few of the things we've always wanted to do in New York but haven't done yet.  This list includes the United Nations tour, Statue of Liberty, double-decker bus, and many more. 

To give everyone an update on our planning, we've applied for our International Driver's licenses and we have booked a hotel in Rome for our first night in Italy.  We think we found a cheaper and better way to get international health insurance (that might even allow us to come back to US once or twice) and are looking at apartments in and around Florence for our first week.  We will be applying for our visas in the next few weeks which should be an interesting experience.  Until then...

Arrivederci!