Italia

Hopefully you are all still staying well and healthy back in the states. We were lucky to find an English TV channel at our hotel, which seems so weird now to hear, that I'm listening to right now. Looks like Sotomayor got confirmed Supreme Court and the American journalists got freed from being locked up in North Korea, wow!


We have 10 days left of our adventures here, which is hard to believe. Most of it has gone by really quickly and it's hard now to believe that we've been here for as long as we have. I've lost track of what time of day it is, what day of the week it is, and before a minute ago, I didn't even know what the date was. What a change from our lifestyle back at home! When I finished my last entry, we were washing our clothes in Rome, Italy. Since then, we have traveled to Florence, Italy and tonight is our last night here. We got here mid-afternoon yesterday and leave in the morning to spend the day in Venice to travel on some gondolas, then hop on another train to Trieste, Italy to spend the night there. Busy.

Here are some of our last few details of being in Rome:
After we got our clothes washed and dried, we went back to the hotel to drop them off then headed off to dinner. Later, we got some gelato (Italian ice cream, much better than anything I've had in the States) and when we walked out of the shop, we saw that they had set up a grand piano up on a platform with microphones, operatic singers, and actors ON the fountain singing all of these famous opera songs! While, may I add, filming it for a live television broadcast! And we were there! It was incredible. Definitely an awesome surprise after getting desert. So we stood on the side of the tourists that had the same idea that we did of watching it as we finished our gelato. Amazing. That had been their first performance of 3 free weekends of "Opera at the Trevi", as the titled translated to, and we witnessed opening night. Definitely one of the coolest moments of the trip so far. There are horse-drawn buggies everywhere and live bands playing on the street corners, people juggling and miming and using their random talents to make a little money. It's really fun to watch. One of the unique things we've seen so far is a lady who has been at the same street corner every night we've been here so far who makes these absolutely gorgeous pictures of the night sky with moons, stars, and the Colosseum - all using only spray paint. Hard to believe, but it's amazing. I took some video to proove it and a few still pictures. We all ending up buying one after watching her perform her magic over and over again. I wish I could get a picture up to show you guys, but you'll have to remind me to show you once I'm home. Which is soon!

One of the days when we were in Rome (I can't remember which day, they all seem to run together at a certain point), we decided to take a day trip out to Naples, which is south of Rome, to try to visit the city of Pompei, which is very historic for mysteriously being swept away many centuries ago. Due to some time restrictions, we decided that it would be best to just stay in Naples and enjoy our time there instead of being crunched for time with going to Pompei, so we walked around for a couple hours. This, by far, was the weirdest, dirtiest, and saddest site we've seen and been at so far on the trip. Its pretty disgusting. There was trash seriously everywhere and no traffic lights, but tons of traffic...how does that one work? The air was thick and humid and we didn't stay on the streets long because we just felt gross. There were wild dogs and cats and homeless people everywhere. So we quickly headed back to Rome. Nonetheless, it was an experience and an adventure! I'm glad we got to see it though, because it showed us that not everything in the world is a good thing to see.
That next morning, we caught our train to Firenze (Florence in English) and decided to take the rest of the afternoon to travel to Pisa, which is about another hour and a half or so train ride from Florence. Pisa was pretty laid back and relaxed, I liked it a lot. We walked through the town and across the river to get to see the leaning tower of Pisa, which is a lot more of an angle than I thought. I guess it was built on soft ground with sand or something in it in 1173, and it started leaning right away. There was a bunch of construction around it when we saw it because they are cleaning it and adjusting a few things I guess. Got lots of pictures and had a lot of fun looking at all of the vendors along the side of the tower.
Today, we took a morning tour around Florence where we saw a beautiful city panoramic shot of the city, the house where Tchaikovsky and Debussy (music composers) lived, the Medici Dynasty palace where they ruled over Florence, and the museum where tons of Michaelangelo's sculpures are kept, including the David - which is WAY taller than I expected it to be. If I stood next to it, I would only be as tall as the midpoint of his thigh. Crazy. It was an awesome museum that also had old pianos, violins, and harpsicords from their earliest forms to their current form. I really enjoyed it. The rest of the afternoon was left to shopping, resting, and re-packing for our next adventure tomorrow where we head to Venice. Florence is one of my favorite stops so far, I'm sad to leave.

Your thought and prayers have been with us while we have been here, thank you so much! Nothing serious has happened to any of us yet, but there have been a few close calls where we could have been in situations that we aren't prepared to handle. Thankfully, the biggest worry we have at the moment is dragging our luggage around, but as Bob says, we'll just be that much more muscular when we come back :) please conitnue to pray for us to have strength, patience, and safety as we cotinue to travel. Every little bit helps. And remember, we'll all be returning home sooner than you think!


Love,
Em