Bonjorno!

Gracia! That has just exhausted my Italian vocabulary. When there was a language problem we used a mixture of pictionary and charades to get our ideas accross. We have spent some time having a steller experience in Venice, Cinque Terre (the five cities), Florence, and Pisa. Im warning you this is a heary post so grab a snack and enjoy.

We arrived at night in Venice because we took a beautiful bus ride through the Italian Alps to get there. The whole city is made up of 118 little islands connected by little bridges. I was really tempted to see if I could jump some of the canals, but I refrained.

Our tiny, rediculous expensive, no toilet hotel also didnt include a breakfast. I just had to scoup oatmeal out of my shamy cap while it was cold. The first time I had to add some crackers to sweeten it up a bit to the point of bearable. Dont worry, on the second day I found some sugar packets to add in and I used warmer water.

The labrynth of streets were impossible to navigate without a map. With my backpack on I couldnt get through this "street" but no buses, trams or cars are allowed on the island.

We found a couple from Virginia that was willing to split the cost of a gondola ride. It was pretty fun to see the passageways and I didnt even have to row! The city is sinking and we saw some areas where the first floor had been abandoned because of flooding.

This is the most North(#1) of the five cities (Cinque Terre) where we hiked. They are located a little north of Pisa on the west coast. People were shocked when we told them we hiked all 5 of them in one day (6 or 7 miles). We took a long time and made sure to play on the beach and wander through the towns.

The area is not only amazingly beautiful because of the ocean crashing against cliffs and cities perched near the water, but there were acres of grape vines. These were used anciently to help stabalize the slope from sliding into the Mediteranian.

The lady taking our picture was paranoid that I was going to fall because I crossed over "the chain." If you look closly I am sure you can start to see sweaty arm pits and foreheads because of the humidity and heat.

I was indicating the size of the wave, but unfortunately you can tell I underpredicted by about three times. The rocks were slippery, and the return current nearly had me going for a little swim. I am way too skrawny.

This is town number 4 and in regular European style has a castle on the highest point in the area. We went down to the beach on the other side and spent an hour body surfing and drinking lots of salt water... yummy.

This is town 4 where we did some cliff jumping. There were some people checking out a cliff, and I had already seen people jump earlier, so I knew it was good. I walked right past them as they were looking timidly over the edge. They thought I was crazy, but that is what I thought about them when they didnt jump. Sissy pants.

On the "romance walk" we found bike and luguage locks around anything. Tradition is that if you secure a lock it is a symbol of your love being connected forever. A modified tradition should be to throw rocks in the water, but for some reason I dont think it is going to catch on.

City 5 was the biggest of them all where we had some amazing Gillato (somewhat comparable to ice cream). We also went snorkling with the fish and that was really different for me. I almost grabbed one, but right then a wave covered my blow hole and I gulped down a tasty treat.

On to Florence, the great city of art. Unfotunately by this time we were less than excited to see more art. The cathedral in the back was designed without knowing how to make the dome. It sat for some time topless until a new method of double brick reinforcement was developed... I will spare you non-geeks with further details of how it was done.

Out door shoping markets will forever haunt my sleep after a morning of shoping. It was amazing what people were selling like sunglasses without lenses and purses that could only be used for bowling. Crazy stuff, but we had fun looking around. Ba restrained herself and that was very nice.

Gillatto again... Happiness again... Craving for more...

That is not a peace sign I am showing, but an indication of the meal quantity. Like Hobbits, Italians have second dinner. They also slightly undercook their pasta, but I guess since they invented it we overcook our pasta. We bought an Italian pasta book, and sticking to the ceiling is no indication of readiness. Now I find that out after so many years.

"White Night" is a huge festival once a year where all sorts of fun food is served like the kabose of this boar. Original population is 400,000 but on this night there were well over 2.5 million people in the city.

Romantic sunset in Florence over the river. What a beautiful night.

This was by far our favorite band during white night. Total we listened to over 20 groups throughout the city, and we didnt make it to many more. Some of the concerts went until 2:00am but we are old party poopers and decided to go home around 12:30.

What a FAKE. The tower isnt leaning... according to this view. The leaning tower of Pisa actually started to lean right after they built the first two floors. They continued the next 5 floors later and the very top was added quite a bit after that. Each of those three sets are built at different angles. Differential settlement gets em everytime. Who would of thought a total failure would be so great.

We had a long day so Ba decided to "bask in the sun" and take a nap. It seemed to be a pretty popular thing to do. It was funny to see signs that mentioned specifically... "No ball games or frisbee on grass"

We didnt want to get a hotel because our flight from Pisa to Munchen left at 7:00am. We got this flight because it was rediculous cheap (30 Euro for both of us). We decided it would be easier just to hang out at the Aerporto (pretty good Italian eh?). We took this picture when they closed the airport and asked us to go outside.

The sprinklers woke our neighbors up at this time to let us know that the facilities were now open again. Why they made us go outside for 3 hours is really a mystery to me, but I liked sleeping under the stars.

We took a few naps here and there, but really didnt get any super sleep during our non-hotel non-airport stay.

We love cheese bread and are eating it as much as we can before we have to go back to the land of lame bakerys on July 2nd. We just love it here so much. Oh well, we do have to work I suppose.

The green heart of Austria

One of the best parts about the trip to Graz, Austria was seeing people at church. It was great to talk to the people that influenced my life so much during my mission. Ba was also touched during church, even though she understood little.

It rained the whole day we were in Salzburg, but we still had a wonderful time. Up on the hill is the castle overlooking the city that we took a tour of. It was never taken by force which is pretty cool.

We had a chance to look out on the city, and visit several sights from the movie Sound of Music. It was really fun to resee these sights. We also got into the Mozart Kuglen factory that makes very good chocolates. We stood around the sampling talbe for several minutes snacking.

This was an amazing bakery in Graz that we visited. We definately have probelms because the food is a little pricy, and it tastes so amazing. We sure do love pasteries.

The Alien is a big artistic building in the middle of Graz. From this angle it looks like some scientists are docking a vessel to a giant blue peanut. The building has lights on the inside that shine through at night and change intensity based on the sounds outside the building.

We have had many chances to touch up our bouldering technique. I never realized old pillars would make such excellent climbing material.

This is my favorite restaurant in the whole world...3 Golden Kugel. They have lots of food that is not very expensive. I ate a huge Wienerschnitzel sandwich, plus a plate of fries. These last three items in the picture are amazing deserts. Front ice cream covered with crepes and chocolate on top with cool whip. The back is Marienknodel which is an aprocot inside a sweet breaded doughnut and they sit inside some high class apple sauce. In hand doughnut. Sure it sounds wierd, but it tastes so amazing.

We went on a "little walk" just outside of Graz. The whole time we saw cascading waterfalls at Bärenschutzklam. It was beautiful.

There were 164 ladders and bridges leading through this gorge in the mountains. It was so beautiful, but I was a little disappointed that we couldnt walk in the river with repelling down the waterfalls. It was still a breath taking stroll.

Just Brilliant

"Lets get on with it"..."off to the lu"..."Im sorry, I dont know mate". These are some of our new favorite phrases in real English. We have to be particlar now to say that we speak American, and not English because there is quite a difference. We had a wonderful time in London. Driving the train into town, everything looked exactly like one would imagine houses on Mr. Bean. We saw many common sights, but after 3 days we were definately done being in such a large city. It was super nice to have Ba take an active roll in what we were doing becase she could talk with people easily.

One of our favorite things to do was to ride the double decker buses. The best was to get in the very front on the top. With the whole driving on the left side of the street and being up so high, we thought we were going to run several things over just because of our perspective. Just riding the buses was very intertaining. We did watch one of our buses fly by our stop because we didnt flag it down like a taxi. We also were honked at several times because we went to cross the street and looked the wrong way to see if cars were coming. It was super crazy with buses dodging in and out with bikers all over, and pedestrians doing suicidal crossings.


One night we went to the Globe Theater and watched "As you like it" (a play by Shakespear). It was super cheap because we got standing room in the peasant area. We felt like a part of the play because actors kept walking through the crowd right in the middle where we were.

We never had a chance to go to the top of the London eye, mostly because it was so rediculously expensive, but it served as an excellent reference point of where we were in the city.

After we saw Big Ben and West Minster Abby we had a chance to go into the parliment building. Several security checks allowed us to go see the workings of the House of Lords, one of the three parts of governement. These officials are experts in their fields and are elected by the queen. It was fun to get in on the debate. The line for House of Commons, officials elected by the people, is aparently more energetic, but the line was too long, so we didnt have a chance to go in.

Dont worry, we never got in trouble with the bobbies. Most of them that we talked too were really friendly and let us take pictures for them. This guy was 26, and was getting harrassed by tourist to get their pictures taken with him. A flock of school kids were right up in his grill trying to get his picture. He was a jolly good chap.

The changing of the guard was entertaining. Most tourists were really short, so I had an excellent view, but it was mostly like a band concert and between songs military personnel would yell. It was really funny that several of the songs they played were American. The best part was watching this female bobbie (cop) on a horse get after people for stopping to take pictures in the walking area. Many people just didnt understand, and I felt pitty for the human race.

This picture was taken from the hip, that is why it isnt totally center or clear. Good ol Vinny (Vincint VanGough) is pretty famous for this little piece of art. I had a homework assignment once to try to replicatethis picture. At the art museem we saw several pictures that I remeber studying in school. We also had a chance to see the Rosette Stone at the British Museem that had very little about Britian in it.

Switzerland

The awesome Swiss Alps have lived up to their reputation. We have been amazed at how shear they are and how high they reach. For two days we couldnt see the tops of most of the mountains, but today has been amazing weather. These are shots from Interlaken and the surrounding area.

This is where we spent very little time awake, and saw it rarely in daylight. When we woke up in the morning we could see the lake next to our little town of Iseltwald, and the towering mountains on the other side.
This is our "hostel", but dont worry, the term is counter intuitive. Every one is very friendly, maybe a little too much, seeing as how our new friend Mitchell decided to cuddle with Tommy (my old mission companion). Okay, so they didnt cuddle, but we kept teasing Tommy that he would. There were 10 people in this cozy room, and we slept quite well. Maybe that was just because we were so tired. It was definately a new experience for everyone there. Unfortunately it smelled like 10 people slept in the room when we woke up in the morning even with the window open all night long.
A huge waterfall system had cut out the rock (sound familiar?). So much of the rock had been worn away and carried into the stream, the water was gray. Several thousand tons of sediment is carried into the lakes from erosion.
Ba was having a great time with the goats. It was fun to hear them run accross beautiful grassy green fields with flowers, and all their bells jingling. We were going to try and milk them, but our better judgment (the wives) convinced us that would be unwise.
I had to get to the very top of Schynige Platte. It wasnt too hard, just a quick bolder move, and I was there. The sandwich tasted really good, but I am so sick of them. We get sandwiches for breakfast and lunch, and pasta for dinner. Im excited to go out to dinner tonight for our last meal and get some really good food. PS.. We went to a Tia restaurant, and it was amazing food.
Ba sure does know how to pick a good napping spot. She was basking in the sun while the boys were off climbing some rocks. She is just so patient, and she got a little sun burnt. There was this huge restaurant near the peak with out-of-shape people. It was bothersome to me because I am used to a National Parks system where you dont get to see the top unless you get there by yourself. We made sure to try and throw rocks at the cog train whenever it was nearby;)
We took a gondola today because we were so tired from our 9 hour hike yesterday. The little dwarf villiages along the way made it very fun. Sure it was for little kids, but I guess we are kids at heart. I could get into the house just fine if I crawled and squoze my shoulders close together.

The wind was blowing snow off the peaks, and the cows were walking all over the trail. I guess this is why people have these images of the Swiss Alps, because that is how it really is. No Hollywood glorification here.

Castles

We took a little day trip to the south of Munchen.

Carpa diem- We have been taking that saying literally. We are trying to make the most of our last few weeks in this beautiful country. This last week has been filled with day trips and spending time with our new found friends. These two stunning castles were built by Ludwig II, he was a man of great imagination for his time. The castle on the right (Hohenschwangau) was where his family would go and spend their summer months. His mother loved to hike in the hills and to look over the lakes. Fuessen, the town nearby, is known as the Swan area from olden days ; from the Knights of the Swan. The castle walls are all painted with fairy tale like pictures with swans all over, from the door knobs to the center pieces.

Neuschwanstein (our the Disney castle) was also built by Ludwig II. It was worked on for 17 years before work on the castle had to stop due to lack of funding. This castle was never finished, due to Ludwig II dying of a mysterious death. His body was found in a shallow lake with the doctor that declared him insane also dead. The castle was breathtaking.