Monday, 16 February, 2009

We woke up incredibly early to pack up for Florence. It’s for three days, so my laptop roller carry-on is plenty sufficient. I cooked breakfast for us all, we cleaned up and away we went, slogging through the back streets of Venice to the train station. Luke in his amazingness had gone out exploring by himself the night before and made his way to the station, bought tickets for us and made his way back to the house on his own in the dark and without a map. Yay Luke!

There was nobody out since it was not even 6AM, but it felt great to be able to walk without bumping into people in a crush. The train didn’t leave until just after 6:30 so we had a few minutes to kill before we could get on and settle in. This is a Eurostar train, which gets you into Florence in 2 hours 40 minutes with only about 5 momentary stops along the way. The seats are reserved/assigned so at some point in your journey the chances are likely that someone will come up and say you’re in their seat. Everyone then compares tickets and all is right in the world eventually. It’s happened every time I’ve been on the train.

About 45 minutes into the ride, we were in a quad seating with our little table between us and just chilling out – I was reading, Charlene was writing and Luke was watching the inside of his eyelids, and we hear music coming from the opposite side of the aisle. The teenage girl in the grouping across from us had started up her ipod a little too loud and it was bad pop music. Song after song we were being forced to listen to the shoomp shoomp budadada of crappy music. Why don’t people realize that earphones are supposed to be for your listening pleasure only, and not your neighbor? I couldn’t hide my distaste and my facial expressions kept sending Charlene into snickers of laughter. I did turn to the girl and gape at her a few times but she was oblivious. If I had caught her eye I could have mimed “earphones, music, lower” and given her the cross librarian stare down, but she wasn’t looking at me. Oh well.

As the train was pulling in to Rovigo the dance pulse was at a fever pitch, we all began tapping our hands on the table in unison along with the beat when we all suddenly burst into laughter. That kind of uncontrollable, tears rolling down your face, can’t stop-can’t breathe laughter. Gigglefits. I looked over the girl, (who had her eyes closed) rolled my eyes heavenward and said “oh dear lord, why?” which sent Luke & Char into another fit, making me go into another fit. We also began the chair dancing from the waist up, imitating Mike Nelson’s technobeat dance moves which kept us cracking up. It was obvious at this point that her “music” was the impetus for our behavior. We even threw some “whoop whoops” and hand waving in the air. The train took off again and suddenly the music wasn’t audible to us anymore. Looked like she got the hint. Maybe. For the rest of the trip we only heard snippets momentarily – a song would start and suddenly it would go quiet. Except for when she began singing out loud. The power of the words of the song lyrics compelled her to sing out loud, even if it could have meant the derision of the weird “old” people across the way. Too bad it was Avril Lavigne’s pop masterpiece “Complicated” that she was so compelled to sing for us.

We left the train and made our way through the station and out onto the street. After being in Venice the noise of Florence and the cars and buses was throwing me off. We got down to the Pizza del Duomo and I gave a mini-synopsis to them about the history of the buildings and the contests for the Baptistery doors and the dome.





They went off to climb the steps of the dome and I went around the corner to check in at the apartment. After meeting up with Gabriella and dropping everything off I went back out to meet up with Luke & Char in the piazza. As I looked up at the dome I saw Luke’s white-blond hair at the top. Charlene in her black cap was right next to him. I took my red & black scarf and began waving it, trying to catch their attention, to no avail. But I did take a photo of them from the street. We met up a bit later and I told them about my scarf waving – turns out they were wondering if they’d be able to find me down below as well. But they didn’t see me waving. Oh well.



(the red circles are Luke and Charlene, as seen by me down below in the street.)

Luke and Charlene came down from on high and we went inside the church so they could see what they had just climbed up, around and over. I then took them on the quick overview tour of the outdoor sights of the city center: the major piazzas, orienteering them down to the river and over to the Ponte Vecchio and back. We decided it was time to eat lunch and off we went to Trattoria Za Za near the Central Market.

The menu there is extensive and all plates are excellent value. It’s an interesting and kind of funky place, with the heavy dark wood interiors interspersed with local student paintings, heavy chandeliers and pictures of famous people from around the world who have dined there. We had a great time commenting on the music playing overhead, and the menu stated that they were selling (after great interest and many requests) the compilation of songs heard on CD at the San Lorenzo market. I have to get one – it’s more memorable to me now than most of the “This Is Alice Music” collections…

For food I selected a chicken breast in truffle sauce with roasted potatoes, Luke had a primo piatto of spaghetti carbonara and for his entrée roast pork in sage and rosemary sauce with tuscan beans, and Charlene had the beef tenderloin escalope with secret herb sauce and rosemary potatoes. My mouth is watering just remembering it! And the house red wine. We all thoroughly enjoyed our food and shared bites to see who had made the best selection, which never came to agreement on. And the bread to sop up the remaining sauce on our plates. Traditionally, tuscan bread is made without salt – a harkening back to when there was a revolt on the taxation of salt a few hundred years ago. Rather than pay the tax, they just made it without. It stands out and you know something is different, but it’s easy to get used to and it doesn’t taste bad after the first piece.

We started talking about American Idol of all things (probably in part to the Italian pop music in the room) and we waxed philosophically solving the world’s problems through music for over an hour after finishing our meal. One thing I adore about the Italian culture is that there is no rush when it comes to meals, in public or private. The saying goes that one never ages while at table, meaning the longer you stay at the table eating, conversing, enjoying each others’ company, you never get older and time stops all around you. I appreciate that – this is the place where I really do slow down. I eat at my desk most days at work, at home I make dinner and we usually eat in front of the tv out of habit. Here it is perfectly acceptable to keep a table at a restaurant all night, they don’t anticipate turnover three times like back at home. So lingering over the table talking about nothing that is truly truly important and earth-shattering (like American Idol is in the grand scheme of things) was fun. We are on vacation and not in a rush. It’s a great feeling to let go and just flow with it. No agenda and no timetable.

After we finally left Za Za I walked us around the corner to the grocery store (stopping first to make a copy of my passport for the landlord, which I had forgotten earlier.) I picked out some breakfast items to cook in the morning, along with the makings for a huge pot of minestrone to have on hand. As I said before, I love soup and on cold and intemperate days there is nothing better than heating up a bowl of comforting food, like soup. No – I do not work for the Soup Council and this isn’t a commercial. I just love me some soup!

Luke and Charlene were elsewhere in the store while I was on my mission to find all my ingredients. Luke came back and reported they had found the greatest bottle of wine. The lettering on the label looks just like the kind on the original Star Trek series. I walked over and saw it – it did indeed look like it – it is Rubicon sangiovese (the Sangiovese was the typeface with the intergalactic theme) It was a 1.5 litre bottle (is that a magnum?) Anyway, it’s twice the size of a regular bottle at home. It was also just under 5 Euros. Well that has my name written all over it. I love wine in Italy because it doesn’t have the added sulfites that you have to add in order to export it to the States. So the sulfites are a preservative essentially, and they are what cause people likely to get migraines from red wine to do exactly that. The sulfites are also one of the causes for people having histamine issues and hangovers. Not having the sulfites allows me to never regret having that last glass the night before, on many levels. Also cheap red wine in Italian grocery stores has many times been way better than $15-20 bottles I’ve had back home. I am by no means a wine snob when it comes to grocery store wine in any Italian burg. We happily carried the bottle of the newly christened “Star Trek wine” and chilled out in the apartment for the remainder of the day, alternately writing, reading and listening to the radio with the bad pop music selections in multiple languages.

I am still waiting to talk with the bank about the card situation and how I will access money. But that must wait until Tuesday morning, pacific time. Mark called to tell me that the bank wanted to verify some charges with me. I saw it as a ray of hope that I could find out more about the blocked card situation, but when I called back I found out they were only verifying that I was indeed the one who was attempting to charge on the card (at the money exchange place in Venice.) Well honestly, if they didn’t accept the transaction why are they checking after the fact that it was me? Ugh. I took the time to ask in detail if they realized what was going on and if the card transactions were blocked because there were a lot in quick succession – was that the deal? Unfortunately the verifying service is a third party and they don’t have the reasons or answers I was looking for. I still was going to need to call the bank itself on Tuesday morning, pacific time.

The agent did suggest that there have been times when the client could check the atm after speaking with them and the card was cleared for transactions. I went out and tried at the nearest machine after getting off the phone. No luck. Damn.

Tomorrow is another day. Back to the Star Trek wine for now.

Sunday, 15 February 2009

I headed out to the Piazzale Roma bus station to head over to the airport around 8:30. I was the only one without luggage so I assume I was the only one not leaving the city. Ordered a coffee and sat to wait for the plane to come in.





(Waiting for them in the airport - the plane from JFK has landed!)

It was the first time I’ve ever collected someone at the airport other than at home, so I felt so jet-set when they came out into the terminal and whisked them away to our home away from home. Charlene’s luggage pull had broken, and also her strap, so we had fun wheeling and steering a suitcase that we had no control over. It meant we needed to take the vaporetto, because dealing with the suitcase through the streets would have been an exercise in frustration. Little did I know that the day ahead held many exercises in frustration for me. Luggage problem aside, taking the vap is an excellent way to see the city straight out of the gate, riding down the Grand Canal.



(On the vaporetto...)



(Palazzo on the Grand Canal)



(Even when the building is under reconstruction, they show you what you're missing.)

The Carnevale festivities had begun, and the boat parade down the canal stopped us in our tracks on the waterway, as we stopped for 15 minutes while costumed rowers drifted past to the sound of drums and a party barge of “under the sea” revelers in fish hats and octopus get-ups. The people on the deck of our vaporetto all had their attention on them and I barely had the opportunity for a glimpse of anything, hence no pictures.

After getting their bags stowed away at the apartment we set out for a trek around town. I walked them from the apartment to along the west side of the Grand Canal to Scuola San Rocco and the Frari Church to San Silvestro. Everyone was hungry so we went to Francesco’s. And we were stuffed! Francesco did not disappoint – extra appetizers galore and a generous portion of fritelle for dessert. We rolled out of there after a couple hours of talking, laughing, and my friends debriefing and decompressing from their trek over.

We continued walking the city in a circular path and when we hit the Rialto Bridge we got the full impact that the thundering hordes were in town. Thousands of people crammed into a small area and unable to move freely – yay crowds! Walking up to the bridge was a major effort as we were barely moving along in the press of people I began mooing - we were cattle heading to the barn. We could laugh at least, so things aren’t so bad.

We got across the Rialto Bridge and I took them around the neighborhoods on the east side, all the while staying clear of Piazza San Marco where all the people in the streets were streaming away from. I figured the first visit there could be at a time when a Carnevale event wasn’t happening, so it might be tolerable. We stopped in to the Consulate to use the restroom and check in for a moment. We found a farmacia (finding one open on a Sunday afternoon is a treat)so Luke could get a container to clean his contacts, and some Anti-Gola lozenges for his sore throat. Back at the house, Luke took a nap, Charlene got on the computer and I went back out into the streets to get over to the Railway station. I wanted to buy tickets for tomorrow’s departure to Florence.

And this is where my day went truly bad. The daytrippers were departing the city and the station was packed. I waited in line for almost 40 minutes to the self-service ticket machine, only to have my bank card denied. That’s odd – I had spoken to my bank as per usual prior to leaving to let them know I’d be making transactions from overseas. I’ve done this many times with no problems. So I went to the ATM in the station and received a heartstopping message on-screen: NO INTERNATIONAL TRANSACTIONS. Um…what in the hell? I couldn’t call the bank because (a) it is nine hours ahead and 4 AM (b) it’s the weekend and there is no 24-hour customer service. Dang it. Worse yet – Monday is a holiday, so I can’t speak to anyone until it is Tuesday at 4pm in Italy.

With one last glimmer of an idea to circumvent temporary poverty, I walked over to the Rialto area to find a currency exchange office open; knowing that I’d be gouged for their premium but it would be cash in my hand until I could speak to the bank. She took the card, ran it, had counted out the Euros and was about to tear the receipt for me when she frowned and stopped to run the card again. It was a no-go. Shook her head and apologized and handed me the bank card back. DAMMIT!!!

I went back to the vaporetto totally dejected, and realizing that I had been gone three times as long as I had expected to be out, and that my friends probably were wondering where in the heck I was. Inside the vap stop there was this little boy who kept yelling/singing the same little ditty over and over again. It wasn’t really a song so much as noise: a kind of “WHAAAA wahh na naaaaah –OOOOOOOOO” like an ambulance siren of his own making. After literally 30 times of hearing this and not hearing his mother maybe suggest a lower volume or not yelling it for the 80th time, I lost it. My frustration at everything happening was too much and I blurted out “oh come ON!!!!” And about 28 people were staring and glaring at me, the crazy lady yelling at a child. Please remember that I do normally mind my manners in public and am hypersensitive to being the ugly American, especially in this city I love that has semi-adopted me. But dang – somebody tell that kid to shut his piehole, will ya?

I got back to the apartment and told Luke and Charlene about the new development in my monetary status. Luke said he’d cover me until I got things straightened out. I figure that in my worst-case scenario if the bank absolutely won’t let me do transactions for some reason I will have Mark withdraw money from my account and wire it to me in Florence. But, no more worries for the remainder of the evening. I will just have to wait to deal with it all later. I cooked dinner of soup and gnocchi, we had a nice bottle of wine and we all slept like the dead.

We are getting up super early and catching the train to Florence. Whoo hoo!

Saturday, 14 February, 2009

I woke up early and had the breakfast buffet at the hotel’s adjoining restaurant – Le Achiugheta, translation: Sardines, which isn’t exactly appetizing for breakfast. No fear, none were being served for breakfast. I called Antonio to arrange the time for me to drop my things at the apartment on Campo San Barnaba, knowing that I would be braving the crowded vaporetto on the first weekend of Carnevale. He asked that I come at noon, so I really would be leaving my luggage for a few hours in the hotel holding area. First I needed to get it downstairs. It is much easier, because I stood at the top of the flight of steps and laid it on the backside and let go. Whoosh bump bump bump bump THUD to the bottom of the stairs. Four times. I felt relieved and giddy doing, all the while wondering if anything was broken, but the repacking I did made me confident that everything would be okay. After checking out and stowing the bag I went out into the streets to find the phone store and get more minutes added to my phone.

Returning to the Piazza San Marco it became very apparent that I was in a Venice very much different than I am used to. Masks and giant caricature hats are a staple on the souvenir carts but it was as if everyone in the town bought one of each and put them all on at the same time. But the amount people walking around were staggering. It was 10am and the piazzetta in front of the Doge’s Palace was wall to wall humans. I have been to Venice in the summer during the high season, but I learned to avoid the Piazza San Marco during the day when the daytrippers are in full effect. Seeing the teeming mass of humanity in front of me, and knowing that I needed to move my luggage from point A to point B made me wince. No matter what, I would have to move the 800 pounds of luggage over at least one bridge to get to the boat. I prefer to take a side street and move out onto the main drag to catch the boats. The idea of dragging luggage amongst thousands of people was not a happy thought.

So while I was picturing this in my head on the way back to the hotel I got caught in the crush on the Bridge of Sighs. There was a marching band playing but I couldn’t enjoy it because I had no breathing space. I don’t have a problem with confined spaces, and here I was in the open air trying not to hyperventilate pressed in with about 578 of my newest friends. Good thing the bridge is concrete and marble.

Grab the suitcase, haul it out onto the nearby backstreet and to the closest bridge, only to find there’s a gondolier hawking his ride and a giddy bunch of teenagers on the top of the bridge asking for pictures with their masks and facepainting and the “real live Venetian” – ugh. Please let me haul my luggage up these twelve steps and down again without getting caught up in your mess. One of my favorite phrases ever is that a woman who spends time with a gondolier has “hams over her eyes.” Gist of it – gondoliers are players and always on the make. Enough said. The girls were involved with their “me next” picture taking ecstasy to hear me saying “excuse me” over and over, and I ended up plowing onward over their feet. And no, I did not feel guilty. I had a momentary lapse of my love for the city and hated all of these people interloping on “my” town; mia bel Venezia.

After making my way to the boat and arriving at the apartment 15 minutes later I was finally free of the dreaded suitcase, whoo hoo! Antonio showed me the new amenities of the house, the wireless router, and we handled the paperwork of the deal, and then I headed back out into the throng.

The theme of Carnival this year is the Festival of the Senses. Each district is dedicated to smell, taste, sound, touch, sight or…imagination. There are six districts, so they needed that extra bit to make it round out. Santa Croce (smell) has scents pumped into the air. If it’s not bacon or chocolate I doubt it will hold my interest for long. Dorsoduro (my district) is sound, so music will play in the campo nightly. Castello is sight, and they have the dark dinner thing going on – it’s popular in major cities right now – dining with the absence of light to allow the others to take over. There are other activities of course, but these are highlights. I’m pleased my neighborhood is musically themed. I’d much rather have those than some smell that would drive me nuts.
Spent the afternoon doing the shopping, starting on a pot of soup and unpacking the suitcase. It was a relaxing day, and knowing I wasn’t doing anything special for dinner was relieving.

Valentine’s Day in an ultra-romantic city without Mark didn’t hold much interest for me. I planned on eating at home and waiting for morning to go pick up Charlene & Luke at the airport. I did stop in at “the Consulate” to say hello to my friends. The Europa & Regina Hotel is where the majority of my friends in Venice work. Mark calls it the Consulate because I can always be contacted through there when I am in town. I stop in at some point in the afternoon and have a coffee and hang out while my friends are working the bar. In the evening I have a nightcap of red wine and listen to whoever is playing the piano that night – and I’ve been known to sing with them too. So around 4pm I stopped in to say hello to Serena, and I finally made connections with Marco. He apologized for not meeting up with me Friday night and suggested that we do something for dinner instead, something simple like a pizza. After jokingly reminding him that it’s Valentine’s Day he asked if he should call Mark and ask his permission to dine with his wife on Santo Valentino. I assured him it was okay and we made plans to meet after work for a pizza near the Accademia.

Marco marveled at my method of luggage moving – both the skidding down the stairs and the foot trampling, and suggested that I not take up hotel porterage as a profession. Pizza eating completed, I headed home for the night and to wait until morning for my friends to arrive.

Friday 13 February 2009

1pm local time in Amsterdam.

Sitting in the airport in Amsterdam. The flight over went quickly, partly due to exhaustion – I hadn’t slept Wednesday in excited anticipation of flying. I rarely get a full night of sleep the night before I’m going anywhere. I went in to work super early, early enough that I’ll probably get reamed for causing a night shift differential on the payroll upon my return, but I wanted to get a full day of work in before leaving at noon. Count backwards, people, yes I was there before 4am. Oy.

Back to the flight…there was a huge group of high school students on the flight. Two girls sat in my row with me, and they were a hoot. Both juniors from a high school in Sunnyvale. Two schools are participating in this trip, from Paris down to Barcelona in 10 days. Overall the kids were very well-behaved. My first trip – to Spain in the summer of 1986 – I was the exact same age as these kids, and we all took advantage of international airspace to be served alcohol onboard. I only had wine with dinner, sitting right next to Senora Korve, my teacher and chaperone. But other kids, the group from Philadelphia comes to mind, got bombed in their seats a few rows back from us, and they proceeded to serenade us the whole flight. Yay drunk teenagers. KLM didn’t appear to be offering the kids any booze on our flight today, maybe they’ve learned their lesson over the years.

My seatmates were very chatty and thankfully not in an obnoxious way. They had lots of questions about how to “act more European” so nobody would guess they are American. I told them to just roll with it, because they aren’t going to fool anyone, and it’s ok. There’s a whole scene for local boys to pick up on teenage American girls. They know they can snare them with the accents. Worked on just about every girl on my trip in 1986, and I see it in Italy every single day I am in the country, and not just to teenagers. My gender just gets suckered in by the sweet funny talking young men. We did manage to sleep about half the trip over, so I have at least 5 hours under my belt. I know I will sleep like the dead tonight, no worries.

So now I sit in the Amsterdam airport waiting for my connection to Marco Polo. I am not able to connect w wirelessly (without paying 5 euro for 30 minutes –hello!) Usually the airports in Europe offer free wireless, but no more. Not in this place at least. I’ll post this when I get to Venice.

I felt like such a sap as I was walking through the terminal. The music playing overhead was the theme music from Schindler’s List, the Itzak Perelman (sp?) violin piece. I immediately teared up. Gut reaction, can’t help it. Here I am at the start of a glorious vacation and my excitement level is at a fever pitch, and I’m welling up over a song in the background. It’s always cathartic for me to cry over that movie…but that’s not why we’re here…more later. I’m packing this road show up to get ready for my last leg. No pictures right now – the camera somehow was turned on in my bag, so the batteries now need a recharge before I can snap anything.

The second leg of the flight over is much shorter – Amsterdam to Venice is under 2 hours. I sat with a family of four – the parents next to me and the two teens in the row in front. I noted they had photocopies of a guidebook and as he was flipping through the pages I could see it was for more than the city of Venice so I got a little nosy and asked where they are staying once they get to Venice and how long they are there for.

Now I don’t want to pick on people for how they choose to spend their vacations but they are definitely on a whirlwind. They arrive in Venice in late afternoon Friday – will spend the night and take off the next afternoon for Milan. Leave Milan Sunday afternoon for Florence, where they will have one full day there, half day trip to Pisa and on to Rome for two nights and home to Detroit. Man alive – that doesn’t seem fun at all, doing everything at breakneck speed. With all their belongings in daypacks, they’ll look more like contestants on the Amazing Race family edition than “vacationers.” Good luck Desai family. I hope you at least take some pictures…
I took the ATVO bus from the airport, a direct coach bus that deposits you in Piazzale Roma – the last stop for cars when entering Venice. From there I got on the vaporetto - the waterbus and rode to the stop near San Marco. I was staying in a hotel for one night since my apartment wasn’t available to me until Saturday morning. My friend Marco hooked me up with a free night courtesy of a friend/relative/whatever at another hotel. It’s good to know people in the concierge union. Good news, I didn’t have to pay for a room. The bad news – it was four flights up in a place with no elevator, what seemed to be 800 pounds of luggage and the desk clerk was about 78 pounds. Why I didn’t just leave the giant suitcase in the baggage deposit I will never know (actually, I just wanted to clean up and change and re-assess my packing – plus make sure the TSA monkeys didn’t confiscate or acquire anything I had brought.) So step by step I hauled that suitcase up four flights. Strained wrists anyone?

There was a message for at the desk that Marco had left saying he was sorry but due to a work emergency (colleague in the hospital unexpectedly) he wouldn’t be coming by to collect me for dinner with his mother since he would be working until midnight. Bummer – I would have loved some home cooking as my first meal. Oh well, the next best solution was to go to Francesco’s restaurant.

The actual name of the place is “Ristorante Cucina 1251” translating to “Restaurant Kitchen 1251” -the address in the San Polo district it is located in- and the owner is Francesco, a gregarious little man. I would kill for his lasagne. It’s a unique place that will never be listed in any guidebook and most outsiders would consider a tourist trap, but it’s my favorite place to eat in the city. It’s a non-descript place in the middle of a court that catches a lot of foot traffic between campo San Polo and the Rialto bridge area – and they of course have a host that hawks to the passers-by in multiple languages , “Hey Lady, are you hungry? Something for lunch or dinner?” - so I see why they would be considered a tourist place with no soul upon first glance. But I am family there – welcomed time and again with hugs and kisses, extra appetizers and bits of dishes to try for next time piled onto the table unsolicited, after-dinner drinks thrust upon me when I visit. I’ve stayed after the place shuts down many nights at Francesco’s insistence and talked for hours with him and his staff of long-time employees.

I would kill for his lasagne. 99% of the time it’s what I order. He knows me, and tries to tempt me each visit with some new or different dish, but he knows I return time and again specifically for that lasagne. It is seven layers of the thinnest, buttery pasta with beef ground so minute it is almost a paste, and only a hint of tomato sauce is used. I cannot duplicate it – the noodles exist only with him. He makes his all own pasta and desserts – this is no tourist trap. The dessert cart is amazing – there are tortes of almond, apple, lemon, mixed berry, tiramisu, panna cotta, fruit salads three ways, chocolate cake, profiteroles with or without cream inside (and with or without chocolate ganache on top,) and because it is Carnevale season there is also the frittelle – a fried dough with nuts and bits of fruit inside – three different ways as well. I truly love this restaurant, this generous man, and his motley crew of servers.

Back to the hotel and some sleep for the night. Tomorrow I will settle in to the apartment and start posting with picture and video, once the batteries for everything are recharged.

It's officially official - we're all going to Italy

Months ago I threw it out there to my two close friends Charlene & Luke to join me in Venice on my next trip. Everybody said yes, but then making it a reality and waiting for the time to arrive got in the way. Though many hiccups and curveballs have been thrown in our way, although it wasn't certain it was going to happen, it finally is.

Luke's ticket was booked Wednesday. Charlene's ticket was booked on Friday and we are a go.

I'm leaving on Thursday afternoon (arriving Friday 2/13) and getting the apartment ready and stocked. They are flying over together on the same flight Saturday 2/14. I'll pick them up at the airport Sunday morning at 10am and let the whirlwind begin.

General itinerary:

Sun 2/15 Venice

Mon 2/16 Florence

Tue 2/17 side trip to Fiesole

Wed 2/18 Florence

Thu 2/19 Back to Venice

Fri 2/20 side trip to Verona

Sat 2/21 Venice

Sun 2/22 Luke & Char leave

I'll stay on another week. And in the midst of all this...it's Carnevale season in Venice. It's going to be interesting!

This is us a few years ago, waiting for our trip to PV to begin. (Dang that is an unflattering look for me- I told Rob to wait until I wasn't chewing!) We had no idea of the debauchery and adventures yet to come. Here's hoping this trip is a bit more dignified. I doubt Charlene will be cage-dancing, but one never knows.

~K

Photo Upload Melodrama

I'm going to try my hand at the still photos now. Some years ago I was trying to figure out how to load pictures up in the way I wanted to. I thought it would be simple: write the blog, insert photos, write caption and publish. This was when Blogger was partnered with Picasa for photo hosting and it wasn't very easy. One of the reasons I gave up on this idea before.

Trying again now.

Picture one, check. Keep going.

Hey, this is a family show! It is? Not really, but Sean Connery in this getup is just not appropriate on so many levels. But he certainly is rocking those boots, eh?

Back to the photos and ease of inserting in with the text. Bleargh. Oh dear, I don't like the looks of things at all. Each picture is uploaded to the top of blog and you have to drag it down into the body where you would like it. This is going to get old really fast. Maybe I can just learn to work backwards?

That's what you call a family show. I miss the 70s. Holly Hobbie lives!

The upshot is that uploading and formatting isn't much easier than it was in 2004, but I'm going to keep at it. There has to be an easier way.
~K

Learning New Things

I uploaded my first video onto YouTube.

I hope to be able to embed the video links here for when I'm travel blogging. I have less than 6 weeks to master this before the next voyage, so my learning curve had better be quick.



Ah , technology.

This is Rudy the cat. I housesat for the neighbors upstairs and to my delight I discovered Rudy loves water from faucets. He is huge cat, not fat, just bigger-framed like a Maine Coon breed. He hops up to the toilet and plants his rear feet there to brace while he pushes up to the sink and faucet. He's also rather talkative.

~K

Here we go (yet) again

It's 2009.

I have been using email and the interwebs/internet, whatever you want to call it, for well over 15 years. I have never managed to keep a blog going, but it isn't because I can't write a piece by stringing words and coherent thoughts together, it's more because it just seems so self-involved to do so with any regularity.

I mean, really, am I so self-centered that I believe people will want to read my musings? Nope.
Do I believe people really care that much about what I have to say? Nope.
Am I looking for internet stardom, a la gossip blogs and political gadflys (or is it gadflies?) Nope.

It's that I am lazy. I don't want to commit to anything. In the same vein that I am 38 years old and annually I state my intentions of upping my time spent exercising, reading, volunteering, and reducing my time nail-biting, eating and bitching, these altruistic pursuits are never fully-realized. Oh well. Here we go (yet) again.

I want to write more often. I want to post while traveling. I want to keep a diary of sorts.

I'll try it again.

~K