Venice, Udine, Trieste, Vienna, Salzburg!

Currently, I'm sitting in the lobby at our hotel, a Best Western believe it or not, in Salzburg, Austria. Ah. I seriously never thought I would actually be here. I have wanted to come here for the musical aspect of the culture and sights for a long, long time and now we are all here. Another one of those, "Am I REALLY here right now?!" moments again.


When I left off on my last entry, we were in Florence, Italy touring around the town and seeing some amazing sights. I really enjoyed our time in Florence and would like to go back again someday. There is so much history and awesome things to see there as I mentioned, definitely a must-see if you ever go to Italy. That next day, we headed off on the EuroStar (train) to Venice on a direct line which took, if I remember right, like 2 or 2 1/2 hrs. We arrived on time and safely and experienced what I think has been so far the hottest and most humid weather of all. It was really sticky and sweaty and crowded, but really beautiful. There aren't any roads. None. Just a train station on one end of the town and a small airport on the other. People living there walk to where they need to get or buy a small boat that can fit through the tiny little canals to go from one end of town to the other, its crazy! There are over 400 canals that run through just the city of Venice with over 100 bridges where you can cross from street to street. The streets and alleyways that you cross through to get around the city are sometimes really narrow or can fit, mabe if you're lucky, three people across. It reminded me a lot of LA squished into a tiny little fraction of the actual size, but people are still busy and moving and living their lives. We found our way to the Grand Canal, which is the huge main canal that goes through Venice and that feeds all of the smaller ones, to find somebody who could give us a gondola ride. We did, and it was one of my favorite things on the trip so far. We got to sit down, be in the shade, see the busier canals as well as the smaller, quiet ones, the house of Marco Polo!, and a few big churches alongside the water. We only had that 4 hours in Venice, but I felt like I got a pretty good nutshell of how their culture and way of life is. If we had more time, I would have stayed, it was just very hot and busy. But hey, clean nonetheless, and the people were nice, which is all we could have asked for.

From Venice, we got back on the train for another 2 hrs and landed in Trieste, Italy to spend the night and part of the morning there. Uncle Bob has a family that he knows that live there that used to live in Spokane that are now living there with their 3 children as missionaries of a local Christian church that my Uncle still attends, so it was really nice getting to spend some time with people that knew Engilsh and America like we do. They took us out to a great pizzaria and showed us around the town a bit, explaining what it was like for them living there at first and how they have been now used to speaking Itailan and living in a new culture. They have lived there now for a year and a half and they are both fluent in Italian, and their 3 children are well on their way to being so too very soon! They were very welcoming and nice to meet. And, of course, we got gelato after walking around town some more. Yum. We headed back to our hotel for the night and got to sleep in about an hour later than usual the next morning, which felt so nice. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention...remember all that trouble I've been having with my luggage? How my bar broke, then my strap broke, causing me to drag my big suitcase aruond by the handle? Well, I have news. When we first got into Trieste, we had to go down a flight of stairs that led us underground and across the street - a popular thing for pedestrians in Europe, underground crosswalks - and so I picked up (no, not clunk clunk clunk down the stairs, I actually carried it) and went down the stairs. When I set it down at the bottom and started to roll it, just my luck, one of my wheels broke off. Wow, and just when I thought things couldn't get worse with luggage. So, when we spend our night in Trieste, I spend the next morning attemping to find a place that would exchange my emergency American dollars that I brought in order to buy another suitcase to last me the rest of the trip. Sure enough, we had to wait around for the place in the train station to open, THEN they needed my passport, which I didn't have on me (plus, why would they have needed it?). So we tried to find a bank, nothing was open, it was a mess. Long story short, I got another suitcase, repacked everything, and now I have a working suitcase again. Praise God.

From Trieste, we had a connecting train to Udine, Italy where we had enough time to catch some dinner at McDonalds and board our train somewhat early. From Udine, we were headed to Vienna for the night. When we boarded the train, our seats on our tickets were non-exsistent in the car that we were assigned to be in, so we had to find whatever seats weren't being used and hope that was okay with the conductor. Luckily, it was. It was a 6 hr train, but we got to Vienna around 11:30 pm. We got a taxi and made it safely to our hotel. I know enough German to get us around, which has been really helpful the last 24 hrs especially. Besides getting sick to my stomach and falling right asleep before I even hit the pillow in Vienna, we slept well. That leads to this morning! We woke up and got a good breakfast downstairs, like all of the hotels have provided so far for us, and got to visit the Spanish Riding School before our train to Salzburg, where we are now, left at 12:30 ish. The Riding School was incredible. It was first started in the 18th century and ever since then, they have been continuing the traditions of riding and performing show Lippizaner horses. We got the first tour of the day, where we saw the stables, tack room, and performing arena they use year round (except summer, which is vacation for everybody). Katie really enjoyed it, as we all did. It was a good thing to see. We caught our train to Salzburg and so far since we've been here, we have gotten to check into our hotel and see Mozart's house, which was incredible too! I got a few gifts for people and spent about an hour inside looking at all of his original music, pianos, organs, and letters that they had showcased. Definitely the chance of a lifetime over here in Austria, as well as all of Europe!

Here are some things you can be praying for:
Sleep. We need lots of it in order to do all of these awesome things.
Energy. Basically along the same lines.
Patience and love, so we can continue working as a team and a family.
Health, so nobody gets sick, and
An awesome last week in Europe. We are so close to being home but have a lot to do before we leave, we are going to need a balance of patience and sponge-like attitudes to make sure this last few days are amazing like this whole trip has truly been. I know you are all praying for us and thinking about us, and I really appreciate that! Thank you and please continue!

We stay in Salzburg 2 nights (tonight and tomorrow), then are off to Lucerne, Switzerland, where we are going to bungee jump off the tallest bungee in the world!, then back to Paris and London, where we fly home to America. Almost home!


Love,
Em