Nadia: Ah, Italy…
He says: Hmm…Italy
Nadia: I finally logged into my old computer which allows me to upload whole directories of photos, which is what you’re getting. Nyahaha. I feel a little bad though because my favorite place was probably Venice as far as the “feel”, but my very unadaptable computer adapter was broken, so I took very few pictures there thinking my card had to last the entire trip.
He says: “few pictures” and Nadia rarely coincide.
Nadia: To give you a very brief rundown so you know what you’re looking at, we visited about 7 or 8 towns total. We weren’t real die hard tourists and we were doing good to get that far. You’ll see me looking pretty sleepy in a few of those shots.
He says: you may notice I look “fat” in a few of them too. I’m now on a bread and water diet. It’s an awesome diet so…ancient.
Nadia: We landed in Verona, home of Romeo and Juliet. We got to visit with old friends and some new ones. My computer adapter blew out there, but thank God, a friendly local helped bust open that old Dell adapter and fixed it right up.
He says: We stayed with the brethren in Verona. Thank you Verona home! You made jet lagging and our first days in Italy easy and enjoyable. We really appreciate your hospitality. Getting the adapter fixed was a miracle. We were pretty sure it was a gonner. We just so happen to meet this guy at a store looking for a replacement adapter who said he would try and fix it. He fixed it, but the part that he put in was too big for the adapter casing so now we have a resister, or what ever it is sticking out of the casing. It’s quite original. Two thumbs way up for the man who fixed it and, Dell, sorry, but you kind of lose this one. Make adapters that work like you say they do.
Nadia: After Verona we trained over to Venice. I was expecting a smelly old town, but it’s very charming. We walked over to San Marcos square where our great event of the day was to spend the day in the Doge’s palace. I love the movie Dangerous Beauty, so maybe that’s why I found the place so charming. It’s just so magical though with all those canals – a city on water. They say our kids probably won’t get to enjoy it though as most likely in 10 years it’ll be starting to decay fast with water damage. Maybe it’s a sales ploy though.
He says: Never saw the movie. Don’t care to either. Despite never seeing this movie I thought Venice was a pretty cool place. The architecture is amazing. Back in the day Venice must have been a very powerful/wealthy city. For being that old I thought it was in good condition. When I saw the Grand Canal with all the buildings and gondolas I thought that heaven might look something like this, of course, heaven is much more splendorous, but oddly enough that was one of the first thoughts that past through my brain. Although raising kids in a city like Venice would be a nightmare. With all those canals it’s so dangerous. There’s not really any place for kids for that matter. It’s also VERY expensive. Bring your own lunch if you ever visit, if you don’t be prepared to pay dearly for everything. The bathroom cost me 70 Euro cents. With our failing economy 70 Euro cents is about $ 1 and 7 cents, or could be about $10 tomorrow.
TUSCANY - VOLTERRA, SAN GIMIGNIANO AND SIENA
Nadia: Next we drove on down to Tuscany – gorgeous as ever. Justin stole a little thunder by blogging about Tuscany. He really did love it. I did too, but all those hill cities really are steep. I loved the two towns, Volterra and San Gimigniano. They were so quaint. They filmed the movie Brother Sun in San G. We had a blast with the home there near Pisa. They’re the European version of the RockStar Home – very fun folks. We actually got company going to Sienna. Kaia was on her day off so she came with us to explore the one and only cathedral we went to on our trip.
Thunder stealer: who’s the “Rock star” home? Must be an inside joke. I loved Tuscany. It’s very cool. And yes I agree, the folks in the Pisa home were lots fun. I think Tuscany was the most seenic places in Italy that we visited. The old medieval towns were awesome.
Nadia: After leaving Tuscany, our next stop was Rome. We almost decided to skip Rome, but that would have been a sad mistake. We thought we’d seen a lot of cool ancient ruins until we got there. The first day we went to the Colloseum, the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. That was such a wipeout that we decided to give the Vatican a miss and instead went to the Catacombs. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get good pictures of that though as they had huge “no camera or video camera” signs everywhere. Sneaky little Justin, with a little help from his sneaky little wife – me, did take some video though. Maybe I’ll find a way to post that. It felt very “catacombish”. Nyahaha.
He says: The Rome home was cool. God bless you guys for all your doing. We never took pictures in the catacombs. Visiting Rome was an interesting look at Christianity’s history and, of course, Roman history as well. Rome has lots of cool things to see. It’s impossible to see everything in two days, for that matter it’s the same with Venice, they’re too big. There is so much history in Rome that it would take you forever to really understand everything that you are seeing. The Colloseum is the second most visited place in the world. The first is the Ifle tower. Don’t know how that made it to the top. One amazing fact about the Colloseum is that wasn’t really used so much for killing Christians. Why? It was too small. The Coliseum held around 50,000 spectators, or so they say. Christian killing was done at the circus (the stadium in Benhur) It held many more spectators (300,000.) I guess Christian killing must have been big business. The Colloseum was for gladiators and animal fights. The sad thing about visiting the Catacombs was that there were a lot of small tombs (little kids.) The mortality rate back then was about 40 % for children- very high. There are several different catacombs in the area. One of them that we visited is said to have about half a million tombs of Christians buried there. One interesting thing that I found out is that the catacombs where used as a burial place for Christians not Romans. I had previously thought that the Catacombs were used as burial grounds for the Romans and that Christians would use it as a secret meeting place. I found out though that for the most part it wasn’t really a place were Christians would hold services, although there was a church down there. I think it was similar to what a modern cemetery would be used for. Also, the Romans were aware of the catacombs, but they left them alone. Maybe they figured that since they’re killing them they need a place to bury them. Visiting the Catacombs made me admire those that have gone before us. It also made me realize (again) that Christianity has never promised an easy life. I think it’s easy to lose that prospective. Sometimes I (we) balk at what the Lord asks of me (us.) Many of those buried in the Catacombs though gave their lives for what they believed in. We are the benefactors from their clear understanding of the word “sacrifice.”
Nadia: The grand finale of our trip was getting to go up to Breschia and see Michael and Amy the day after they arrived and before we left. We were originally going to Italy together, but got split up. L We were happy to get a little time (pizza and gelato) with them.
He says: Bresha was fun! Samuele, Lily and family, thank you so much for having us. We really enjoyed our stay with you. You were lots of fun to talk to and you helped make our stay in Italy fun and memorable. Gelatos (Italian ice cream) don’t get me started on those. I really miss them. Lucky Italians. I also miss the wine and the food.
Nadia: Enjoy the millions of photos we promised to take. There were a few million more thanks to Justin’s awe at Roman/Italian/Medieval architecture (yep, there were a lot of walls, doors, arched windows in there that will have to wait for a private viewing).
On a final note, Grandma pulled off Violet’s part of the vacation and Violet seemed to have a blast in Texas not knowing what she was missing. She may hate me later for leaving her behind, but for now, all she knows is Grandma and Grandpa were great. She got a lot of spoiling and visits from her Paone and Bruni Grandparents and uncles/aunties. And she got mommy in the end too. What a vacation!
He says: Yes, enjoy the pics. The doors and arched windows are the good stuff - don’t be deceived. One day when the world forgets about arches and doors they will come crawling on their knees begging to see my ridiculously cool looking pictures of arches and doors.
