More Adventures in Italy

Robin, Jesse, and I at our Tuscan Dinner
Neptune
Rape of the Sabines


On Tuesday we drove on a bus to Florence. On the way we made a stop in Pisa. Yep, the tower is leaning! It's true! The Basilica there was one of the best ones I saw though...the paintings and the mosaics were great. The tomb there is transparent, so you could see the mummified body. Very interesting. Other than that Pisa was overrun with stands selling cheap trinkets.
We arrived in Florence at dusk, checked into our hotel (this time we got to stay in the same hotel as our friends Robin and Jesse!), then we went to dinner together, by the Santa Croce. That night was a lot of fun. The four of us ate a wonderful dinner, drank great wine, and had amazing chocolate cake! Then we walked back to the hotel and just visited. It was a beautiful night in Florence.
The next day was a lot of walking and a lot of seeing. First off we got to see David....that was #1 on my list of things to see in Italy, and it was beyond my expectations. It was so big and had such detail. Michelangelo's Prisoners were haunting though... in these unfinished pieces you could kind of see where Michelangelo was headed. They were beautiful too. After that we walked over to the Duomo, then to the square in which the Uffizi is. Here there were many sculptures. Tony's favorite was of Neptune, my favorite was the Rape of the Sabine Women. We didn't have time to go the Uffizi in the afternoon like we had planned though. There was just too much going on and by the time we ate lunch, looked at some shops, we were very exhausted, I was getting grumpy, and we needed to go back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
Florence was a city where there is never enough time. There was so much to see!!! I would love to visit all the museums and spend hours staring at all the sculptures. I definitely want to learn more about all the artists and the history of Florence.

Adventures in Italy

Front of our hotel, along the Grand Canal


On the bridge the afternoon we arrived in Venice


View from our hotel window

Our tour was planned through Gate 1 travel. It was a great tour and I would recommend this travel group to anyone.
We flew into Venice on Sunday morning. The plane ride wasn't too bad...but it was hard. About 8 1/2 hours. I slept 4 or 5 hours, so that was better than most. Flying over the Alps was AMAZING!!! It was the most beautiful site I have ever seen. As far as the eye could see was huge mountains with snow caps. Every once in a while you would see a small village below. Ahhhh, what a great first site to see.
Venice had so much fog that we had to circle the airport for about 30 minutes. Tony and I had both dozed off and all of the sudden it felt like we had a hit of turbulence, but no, we had landed. Weirdest landing ever. Everyone was shocked when they realized we had touched down. We had to meet our travel group, but the fog was so bad that they had to arrange for bus transportation as opposed to a boat. But at least we made it! A lot of people on our tour group coming from other places couldn't even land in Venice and had to land in Milan, or have a delayed flight.
Our hotel was great! The Principe. And it had a beday...we didn't use it though, it just looked awkward and uncomfortable. Originally we weren't going to do the tour in Venice, we were just going to wing it on our own, but we changed our minds on Sunday night and went ahead with it on Monday morning. Our first stop was Murano Island. I didn't know anything about this place before we went, but apparently Murano Glass is HUGE! We got to go into the oldest glass making factory and watch a man blow glass. It was cool, and then we got to go to the showroom and look around. It was PRICEY!! I was nervous just walking around. This piece was $20,000 Euros!


After Murano we went to the Doge's Palace. It was so huge and beautiful. Our tour guide for the Palace was Sylvia, a real Venetian. She was great and so tiny! I learned so much on this tour. It was great seeing all the artwork..even the staircases were works of art. St. Mark's Basilica wasn't as impressive as I had hoped though. St. Mark's square was cool, it's in the opening scene of The Italian Job.

Minnesota

Tony and I flew to Minnesota for the week of July 4th. Of course we had the usual Northwest trouble of the flight being about an hour late, freaking out about missing our connector to Duluth, but everthing turned out ok and we made it in late the night of the 3rd.
The best part of our trip was getting to meet our sweet new nephew and Godson, Connor Joseph. He is AMAZING! So beautiful and just perfect. It was love at first sight! I couldn't get enough of him. It's another huge reason it's so hard to live so far away from all of our family...kids grow so quickly, and only seeing them once a year is not enough. I know the next time we see him he'll be sitting up and he'll just be so much bigger. It's too hard to think about. Hopefully something will work out soon to where we can be closer to both of our families.
We went to Tony's aunt's cabin for the day and night of the 4th. It's a really cute cabin and the lake is really nice. We boated during the day and then grilled and shot off fireworks that night. The next day Tony and I went canoeing, which just reinforced our desire to be somewhere where we can canoe as much as we want.
We also got to go up the shore a bit to Tony's parent's land and got to see the new cabin they're building. It's going to be so nice to have a place the family can go to get away from the city. Tony has great memories of 'the land' from when he was a little boy and they would go up as often as they could. Tony and I slept out under the stars that night (I was hoping to see the aurora borealis) and it was just beautiful. Tony fell asleep with one of his arms outside of the sleeping bag and woke up with 27 mosquitos bites on that arm! But spending time with Tony's family was the best part of the whole trip. It was great to play with the kids and visit with everybody. Tony's friend Whalen came up to the land the night we were staying there and it was great visting with him as well, Tony hadn't seen him for a few years.
I'm going to have to put all the pictures in some sort of album, after I find which one I want to use, but I'll try to post a couple of pictures now.

The first picture is of me and Connor.
The second is of me and Tony up on the land.

More adventures

While my mom and sister were visiting we also went to Gettysburg. The 5th of July is the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, so the place is always hopping around that time. We walked around and drove some of the battlefield. We also hung out down by the Harbor and went to Little Havana for brunch!!! ( i love Little Havana!) We had a great time, and I was sooooo glad that they came out to visit me. (hopefully the next time they come to my house to visit it will be in Colorado) Look closely at the picture in front of the Farnsworth House, there are bullet holes from the battle. I'm also going to try and upload a picture in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on the steps where Rocky ran up.

Going to the Opera

Here's a picture of me and my mom and sister on the balcony of the Kennedy center. You can see DC in the background. We saw the Phantom of the Opera. It was awesome! It was so special to be able to go to such a fancy place together, to get dressed up and enjoy the theater. That night was something I will never forget.

Friends

Here's a picture of me and my friends...I don't really keep in touch with people from HS very well, but these three ladies I have remained close to. We just don't get to see eachother very often!

New Mexico

Wow, I haven't posted in a long time, but I've been busy. I took a trip to New Mexico and then my mom and sister came for a visit. We just got back yesterday from Minnesota. I'll probably post all the pictures I have in different posts.
I had a great time visiting with my family though, I haven't seen them since Christmas! We just relaxed and hung out. I did go get a pedicure though, my first, and it was AMAZING!! I went with my mom and Amy. We also went to Bottomless Lakes and swam around. The best part of all was just getting to be with my family...and it's never long enough. On top of all of that I got to see my friends. Friends that I rarely get to see because we all live in different cities.
The picture above is of me and me padre....

Outer Banks

We went to the Outer Banks last Wednesday to go to our friend's, Renata and Jason, wedding. We got a condo with some of my friends from work. The first picture was at the rehersal dinner. We had a lot of fun just relaxing and going do the beach.
Renata, Craig, Tony and me.
The beautiful bride, me and Cherie. The wedding was supposed to be on the beach, but the weather didn't co-operate, so they had it inside. But it was still very special and intimate.

Sorry I copied these twice, i'm still trying to figure out this blogging thing!