A Preschool Grad and Two Cool Cats

OK, these first pics are coming out way late, but seeing as our preschool grad is about to start kindergarten, I thought you might like to see some pictures of Logan's preschool graduation.  

Logan's preschool diploma 

A proud graduate 



Logan and his buddy Savannah

These next pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago here at home.  Logan and Liam were having fun with their matching orange sunglasses.  Liam decided that his were "reversible".  

Wrapping up the last of the Vacation Photos

And only a week late! Yeah, so I'm lazy. We never posted any photos of Venice, so here they are. I'm including one last overall shot of the Roman Forum that we took on our last day in Italy, just because it was probably my favorite part of the whole trip. I'm kind of a history buff that way, and Europe has so much more history than the U.S. - it's not even close.

Ahh, Venice. We often managed to get away from the crowds and see scenes like this.

The ubiquitous gondolas. They really are everywhere.

Cruising down the Grand Canal at sunset.

Venice at night, from the Rialto Bridge.

A view of the Roman Forum, looking down from Capitol Hill. The arches to the right are from the Basilica Julia, a large building built in 46BC and used as a meeting space and to conduct official business. The large column in the upper left is the Column of Phocas. Dedicated to the Byzantine emperor of same name in 608AD, it was the last addition to the Roman Forum. Off in the distance in the upper right you can just see the Colosseum.

Back in the US of A

Sorry for the petering out there at the end of the trip. We were promised broadband internet at our hotel in Venice, but when we got there - no internet. We were told that they "hadn't put it in yet". Well, not in the rooms at least. It was in the brochure.

Venice was nice, although I think we were both a little tired of traveling, and as such our impressions of Venice may have been soured a bit. We both wondered what we would have thought of it had we gone there first instead of last. Alas, we shall never know. At any rate, we were able to see the Doge's Palace (which was pretty cool), St. Mark's Basilica (which is more commercial and less tourist-friendly than any of the others we saw), and we took a trip out to Murano to see all the fancy glass they make there.

One last day back in Rome gave us the chance to see the Roman Forum ruins again, as well as the inside of the Pantheon. It was a pretty tame day, and I think we were both ready to head home.

I'll try to get a few more vacation pictures up soon, now that we're back in the land of cable modems. Soon after I'm sure we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming. We already have a few new pictures of the boys that need to go up.

Day Something-or-Other, Or We Finally Made it to Venice

So, it's day...8? 9? I honestly don't remember. I'm having a hard time remembering what day of the week it is, much less how long we've been here. I suppose from a vacation standpoint, that's a good thing.

So we started off in Florence today - our plan was to visit the Science Museum that was inexplicably closed on Saturday. Of course, today is Sunday, and the Science Museum is, naturally, always closed on Sundays. So, we just walked around Florence a bit then left for the train station.

We had an uneventful trip to Venice. I will say that train travel is really nice - a three hour train ride is MUCH more bearable than a three hour flight. I think it's partly the extra space and partly that, all things considered, trains are pretty quiet. At any rate, we made it to Venice about 2:30 this afternoon.

So far, it seems like each area we visit is more and more crowded, and at first Venice seemed to maintain this trend. We figured out (sort of) the vaporetti system (sort of like boat buses), and made it over to the center of Venice. We finally found our hotel, a pretty nice little 6-room house in the heart of the city. We have a pretty nice room, a much softer bed, and overall pretty decent accommodations. They advertise a broadband internet connection, and I can detect a couple of wireless networks, but I can't connect to any of them. We'll have to ask in the morning, so it'll be another day sans pictures. Hopefully more tomorrow.

We went and got our bearings around Venice this evening. Once you get away from the main tourist thoroughfares, some parts of the city are nearly deserted, and it's quite peaceful. There are canals everywhere, and occasionally you run into dead ends where there is no bridge. Venice practically requires a map, and luckily Jill got us set up ahead of time.

The idea of a city on the water is odd, but in practice it's pretty cool. There are plenty of normal streets and "vias" in Venice, although there are no cars and most of the streets feel more like alleys. The buildings are all multi-story, so walking down a street feels like walking down a canyon at times. There are plenty of places where you'll suddenly walk out onto a little bridge over one of the canals, and you can get a view down across the water. It's quite pretty.

There are a lot of touristy sights here that we'll try to see - St. Mark's Basilica, the Doge's palace (which sounds pretty interesting), the Peggy Guggenheim art collection, and the island of Murano where Venice's glass industry resides. I'm guessing we'll also take time to just stroll around Venice and take it easy our last two full days in Italy (Wednesday doesn't count, we'll be on a train to Rome half the day). We'll work on those pictures in the meantime.

Day...um...What Day is It?

Today was our first and only full day in Florence - we had a pretty full schedule of
museums and sights to visit. A brief recap of yesterday, since all we did was post
pictures: the trip to Florence had a few wrinkles. We got up yesterday morning in
Monterosso to grey skies, and by the time we got to the train station and got our
tickets, it soon started raining. OUr train ended up being delayed 45 minutes, then 90,
then over 2 hours. We ended up catching a train to La Spezia, then making our original
train to Pisa. We caught one of the plentiful regional trains from there to Florence.
We didn't get to our hotel until after 2pm, which was the time of our appointment at the
Accademia museum.

We still had several hours to spend in Florence, so we made a visit to the Duomo and
Duomo Museum. The Duomo is one of the largest cathedrals in Europe, and is capped by
the dome built by Fillipo Brunelleschi, the first of its kind since ancient Roman times
and the first to be built without any interior support scaffolding. We climbed to the
top (463 steps) for some stellar views of Florence.

Today we managed to fit in most of the rest of our itinerary in Florence. First up was
the Bargello, one of the local sculpture museums containing works by Donatello and other
noted sculptors. After that we headed for the Science Museum, which turned out to be
closed (despite their posted hours indicating otherwise). Instead we hit the church of
Santa Croce, which houses the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli. Later we
toured the Uffizi Gallery, which contains the greatest collection of Italian paintings
anywhere in the world. Raphael, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Titian, and a bunch of others
I can't remember.

Later in the day we made it to a rescheduled appointment at the Accademia, and were able
to see an interesting exhibit of 17th and 18th century musical instruments. The gem of
the Accademia is Michelangelo's David sculpture. Take a look at some photos online -
the sculpture is enormous in person and hard to get a sense of from photos, but the
power of it is amazing to see.

The rest of the day was fairly low-key. We had a little siesta in our hotel, then
headed out for a great Tuscan dinner. We visited the Ponte Vecchio (the Old Bridge)
over the River Arno, then Jill enjoyed some hot chocolate before we caught some of a
local band concert in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. Oh - and some more of the BEST
gelato we've had (well, at least that I've had) so far. A gelateria just down the
street sells cioccolata fondante, which tastes like a bar of dark chocolate converted
into the silkiest, smoothest cup of ice cream I've ever tasted. It's GREAT. They also
make a flavor here called frutti di bosco, which is basically "forest fruits", or
various berries. Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries - the two of them
go very well together.

A few of the more interesting things we've discovered about Italy in the last week or
so, particularly in the big cities:

- Italians seem to very rarely go to the restroom - there are hardly any public toilets,
and those are almost always at the train stations and cost 70 cents. For future
reference, anytime you visit Italy, go to the bathroom every time you can (museums,
restaurants, etc.)

- Certain things are ridiculously expensive. A can of Coke costs around 2 Euro. A
plate of asparagus in Jill's dinner last night was 15 Euro. For reference, a Euro is
about $1.34 right now - so that can of Coke is about $2.70. Water in restaurants isn't
free - you have to buy it by the bottle (usually 2-3 Euro). A 1 liter bottle is good
for about 4-5 8oz. glasses. So far We've managed to make it through dinners with just
one bottle, but sometimes just barely.

- There are tons of street vendors in the big cities, at least so far (Rome and
Florence). They almost all seem to be foreign, and they all seem to be selling nearly
the same thing - the Africans sell sunglasses, purses, and umbrellas. The Middle
Eastern guys sell roses and little toys, and in Florence we've seen a few asian vendors
selling little artsy pieces made from grass or reeds. The really weird thing is that
their goods all appear to be nearly the same. Here in Florence, there are probably 50
different guys who sell poster-sized prints of famous art. They lay them out on the
street and hawk them as the crowd passes by. It would make sense, except that they all
seem to be selling the exact same posters.

- Americans really have it good when it comes to hotels. Our last two beds are queen
size beds - technically. They're really just two twins pushed together. They're also
about the stiffest beds I've ever laid on. Sort of like sleeping on the beach - except
you can't mold the sand to your body. It's like lying on a fairly soft plank of wood.

Tomorrow it's off to Venice. We've heard mixed reviews so we're curious to see what
it's like. We're supposed to have a Wi-fi connection there so more photos should be on
the way shortly. Keep the comments and emails coming!

Picture Update #4

A view from the top of the Duomo - Florence is below us

Our first view of the Duomo from the street

Michelangelo's unfinished Pieta sculpture, in the Duomo Museum

Picture Update #3

Jill at the church in Monterosso

The grilled fish Jill had for dinner "rocked"

Ciak hard at work in the kitchen of the restaurant we ate at - it's also named Ciak.

Picture Update #2

On the trail to Vernazza (Vernazza is in the background down there)

Monterosso al Mare, from the trail

The town of Manarola

Picture Update #1

Harborside in Vernazza

The view from our balcony

The town castello at night