I'm back

I finally got around to posting on the blog, I've been back now for two weeks and I just haven't had time to post. Anyway, I had an unforgetable trip; the places, the art, the people, the food, everything was great. Rule#1 was: shop, if you love it, just get it! Rule#2: Eat whatever you want, forget weight watchers, I'm in frikin Italy! Rule#3: Have at least one gelato a day! Rule #4: take it all in and enjoy to the max, you don't get this chance everyday! I think I was able to follow all the rules, no exception! See below... The only thing was as I suspected, missing Abraham. Man, I missed him, first week, I was able to handle it pretty well, second week... specially towards the end, not so much, I missed him specially at night, I called everyday and he seemed to be fine and that was the most important. He made me pay it tough, when I got back he didn't want to come to me, just wanted Dan or my mom, it broke my heart. It only lasted one hour, but it did brake my heart! He is fine now and we are back to normal life... By the way, there's a lot of stuff to read, so I don't blame you if you just go through the pics!

3 Days in Paris

Paris was so nice, now I know why people love it, you just can't go wrong. Champ Elisee Avenue was so full of life, we went out to dinner sometimes at 11:00pm and the avenue was pumping! People everywhere, not just young crowds, all kinds of people, families, you name it... everyone on the streets, restaurants and cafes open, just amazing. I loved it! I loved the Louvre museum, loved seing Mona Lisa and other famous paintings but we really enjoy a more contemporary museum, D'Orsay where it had more impressionism, the kind of art we like best. Eiffel tower seemed small from far, but it was actually pretty tall and just this huge thing. We also got to see Notradame and we attented mass, it was interesting, the little boy singers were good! We ate bagetes everyday and went to fancy restaurant (not very good), I had my first taste of scargo (snails) and that was about the only fancy thing that was delicious.

Italia, I finally meet you!

First stop, Venice!


Here's the San Marco Piazza, just like the Venitian in Vegas... just kidding! Seriously, it was just like it, but better of course! I loved this town, so picturesque, great food and lots of unique stuff.




San Marco at night, there were little restaurants with patios all around with live mini orchestras playing classical music.





Dead end street, so what do you do? Sit down, relax, enjoy you gelatto and whatch the gondola pass by....










We visited two islands by Venice, there were actually different "cities", one was Murano, famous for their glass blowing art and then there was Burano, famous for their lace making. Burano was one of the cutest town ever, every house was painted in different bright colors and all the shops had ladies making lace and selling their beautiful products. We saw a puppet show on the street and it was so cute to watch all the italian kids laugh and enjoy themselves.

Florence and the Tuscany country side...

We took the train from Venice to Florence, about a 3 hr. ride and it was really nice, it made me feel like a college student, backpacking through Europe (except that our backpacks were huge and heavy!).

Florence was a beautiful town with tons of art and great shoping (all kinds of leather goods!). The bridge was packed of little jewlery stores, full of people going up and down and full of life.

In Florence we went to the Galeria and we saw The David, wow! It was probably the piece of art that most impressed me, the sculpture was gorgeous, Michelangelo was a genius!

We met my sister and brother-in-law in Florence and they stayed with us through the rest of the trip, it was fun...

The streets in Florence were pretty narrow and most of them were one way only. We thought it was pretty cool how this little Smart car was able to park in the same spots as the Vespas!

Tuscany had a beautiful country side, full of ancient towns that were very quaint.

Rome, our final destination:

Above, we are looking into St. Peter's Cathedral, gourgeous church and the vatican, I had a little chat with the Pope...

The Pantheon was one my favorite buildings, it used to be a temple buitl in 72 A.D. - talk about old!

Here are the goof balls with their fancy blinking flouroscent glasses. It was the latest in fashion in Europe! NOT!

Move out of the way....

There was art and sculptures everywhere and the fountains were pretty cool. The funiest was when my brother in law threw a coin and it didn't reach the fountain, instead it hit somebody's head!! The lady was pretty upset, we couldn't stop laughing! Come on... where's the sense of humor?!

At a park by our hotel Craig (Dan's Bro) and Dan enjoy a nice ride down the stairs on the electical bike!

That same park, had a pound with this nice shrine and we enjoyed a romantic canoe ride before heading home the next day....

THE END