More from Italy

While we were still in Venice, we went on a tour of the surrounding islands: Murano, Burano, and Torcello. Once again, Ben and I both took tons of pictures. I decided I would just post these pictures of Torcello, since that is probably were I had the best time in our entire stay in Venice.

The tower in the background of the first picture was open to the public, with an entry fee of about €3 per person. Ben and I decided to climb up while Daddy stayed below. We had not much time before the tour boat left, so we ran all the way up. This was made easier by the fact that no one else was in the tower, and instead of stairs, there were ramps on each side of the tower.

We arrived at the top out of breath, took pictures of the surrounding countryside, and ran back down. THAT was the fun part. By the time we were halfway down we had mastered the technique: halfway down the ramp, we would jump and twist our bodies sideways in midair so that we would land facing in the right direction and be able to keep running without stopping. It was so much fun, and we were hardly tired at the bottom.

Well, it's a bit late, and once again we have to leave our hotel to use the internet. Ben and Daddy are waiting to head back. (We're in Rome now, by the way.) TTFN!

From the Eternal City

We are now in Rome! We have been to Venice, Florence, Elba, and Pisa, and we are ahead of schedule. We have 300+ pictures per city, and I will try to put many of them into online albums when we get home. Unfortunatlely, only the first hotel we stayed in actually had wireless internet, and therefore we have been mostly using internet cafés for our web access. This makes it difficult to post pictures, and I have only managed to do it once (by using a USB thumb drive and taking it to the café).

One interesting thing about the culture here is that all the Italians use the superlative much more often than Americans. This is especially true in driving directions: "Go always straight, turn left at the light, and go always straight again. The building is always on the right, always on the right."

The weather has been pretty good. It was cloudy most of the time for the first few days, but it was never cold. Now, in Rome it is always hot, always hot. Sempre caldo. It is at least 75°F by my estimate. It is perfect for sitting in the shade, but it is a bit warm for walking through the sunny streets. I think I will be glad to go home and find it still spring.

Arrivederci, amici!

Florence pictures!!!!

I took all of these myself today. Enjoy!

Buon giorno a tutti!

All's well....except that no hotels have internet, even when advertised. Grrrr..... no pictures yet, I'm afraid. And I've been writing all my trip reports in Word on my mom's laptop, so no words either, for now. Just wait 'til we get a place with wireless.....

I'm in Italy!

More on that later.....

America's second coolest kid

Shaun White, the greatly celebrated snowboarder who won gold in Torino, was recently proclaimed (by Rolling Stone magazine, in fact) (on the cover; I NEVER read the publication) to be the "Coolest Kid in America." In an effort to reclaim my title, I took some points from him concerning style and appearance. After a bit of plastic surgery and some Avacor applications, combined with red hair dye, I believe I have passed (or at least caught up to) him in looks. In addition, when this pulchritude is combined with my social graces, which are far his superior, I think you'll agree that I am once again America's coolest kid.

An Overdue Post on Lateness

Today I drove around town with the windows open for the first time since......yesterday!!! Ok, the weather's been a bit strange here recently. But I'm not complaining!

What did I do while driving with my windows open? I went to the bank, for one. I usually go inside partly because I rarely have any deposit slips on me, and I hate filling them out with people behind me, and partly because I never seem to get close enough to the windows in the car. My siblings often tell me I should go throught the drivethrough to be quicker, so this time I did. I borrowed a slip from Cara (the ever-prepared) and pulled into the line. The LONG line. Actually, it wasn't very long. Just slow. The inside looked crowded, too, though, so I went ahead as planned. It seemed like it took forever (partly because I had to pick up Ryan from his cello lesson just a few minutes later). The teller finally finished and said, "Thank you, have a nice day," and I said, "Oh, could I have a couple deposit slips?" and she said nothing because she couldn't see me behind a huge truck and hadn't thought I might want something else. Grrr. So I went inside anyway. Double grrr. Then there was traffic. Triple grrr. The one upside was that I had more opportunities to be polite and drive the "New Hampshire way" than ever before in my life. : )

Traffic doesn't usully frustrate me. Generally, I am one of those fortunate few who just take it in stride and reason to myself that everyone around me is suffering for the same reasons. However this time there were three things that changed my easy-going outlook on gridlock: my bedtime Friday night, my bedtime Saturday night and....(I'll give you three guesses on the third, and if you don't get it you're rather in need of taking some sort of class.)

Friday night: I went to bed at the reasonable hour of 11:15 and turned out my light around 11:30. Around 11:40 I felt a strange tickling sensation on my arm. Don't worry, all you arachniphobes, it was no spider; it was a stinkbug. (Oh, PHEW!!) A sudden startled jerk sealed my fate, and I had to change my sheets and take a shower. When that unfortunate event was combined with another unnamed one, my "reasonable" bedtime was pushed to 1 a.m.

Saturday night: This one's not nearly so interesting as the last. I came home from working at the office around 9:45 and started to work on the Powerpoint presentation for the singing in church the next day. Unfortunately, the Powerpoint license on the computer I was using had JUST run out. After some family discussion, I got permission to purchase a full license. I finally finished that a while later, and finished the presentation another while later, went to bed another while later....

Final bedtime: 12:30.

Sunday night: I watched Bria WIN A BIBLE MEMORIZATION COMPETITION!!!!! She did an awesome job. So pleased, so impressed. (Yawn, from tiredness as opposed to boredom) I really enjoyed the whole thing, even though it went over an hour and half. I had a great time visiting as well. Then I got home at 10 and went straight with my dad to his office. We had not finished the day before, and there was a lot to do. Two and a half hours worth, in fact. Final bedtime: 1.

On the bright side, I slept in both Saturday and Monday (oh, the raptures of being home-schooled!!!) and hence have maintained an average of about eight hours a night. Still, I think the sudden change for the later has taken its toll on my brain. Sigh. I can't wait for Saturday.