We rest, we hike, we train

day 7 - Today started off slow (thank goodness) with all of us sleeping in. Michelle and Tim were awoken around 8 by all of the construction at a nearby residence. Greg and Brenda had a chance to sleep in a little bit. The best thing about our apartment was the outdoor balcony, so Tim and Michelle had a chance to enjoy the view. Overnight someone had decided the beach was a good place to camp, as there as a red tent on the beach.That might have been enjoyable, with the crashing waves to lull you to sleep. If it wasn't for the mosquitos. Michelle was hoping they were just a Florence thing, as there were a number of them in their apartment there that came at her in her sleep. But alas, they have found their way to Vernazza as well. Thankfully there are only 2-3 new bites and none are near where her backpack will sit. After a breakfast of pizza (hey, don't judge), yogurt milk and a chocolate cake looking pastry (again, don't judge) we were off on the last hike of the original lower hikes through the Cinque Terre. This one starts with a straight up portion, then once you crest over the hill there are small ups and downs along the way. We are still amazed at the number of older individuals (70+ years old) and young babies on the trail. Hiking the Cinque Terre would not be something we would want to do with a 4 month old. It is hard enough as it is! But we admire those who are advanced in age who did it smiling all the way, and those with wee ones who are exposing their kids to adventure early in life. After 2 hours of hiking we found ourselves in the final city, Monterosso al Mare. The ocean breezes felt pretty good, and the gelato we ate tasted even sweeter after the long hike. When you buy your ticket for the Cinque Terre (yes, you have to pay to hike the lower one AND the price has not been reduced even though 3/4 of the trails are unavailable) you also get free wifi access for 24 hours. After a few minutes we were able to connect and see the latest adventures of Alexander with his cousins. Yesterday he got a haircut from Tim's sister Susanne and he looks so handsome. He also has been enjoying their pool, waking his cousins up at 6 am and playing with their bubble maker. We miss him like crazy. Ok, back to the trip. After grabbing a take and go lunch for the train we boarded the first of 4 trains we need to take to get to Venice. Hopefully none of them are delayed. Once we arrive in Venice, which will be late in the evening, we will likely grab some dinner for back in the room and catch an early nights sleep. With all of the hiking and training the last few days we are all feeling the need to rest and relax. The rest of our trip should be a little more relaxed with some movement between cities but less on the "we must do this" list. Ciao for now! Update - after i wrote the above description of our evening we indeed had a train that was late. Because of this, our connecting train waited for 3 minutes for everyone from our train to run to the connecting train. Imagine almost an entire train running down the platform, down stairs, through a tunnel, up stairs and dashing for the next train. We were in the very last car and had the longest to run. Thankfully Tim took the stairs two at a time and yelled to the conductor to hold the train as we made our way up the stairs. As soon as we were on the doors closed and the train left. Talk about a close call! Once we made it into Florence we checked the departure board and saw that there was a train leaving for Venice in 16 minutes. That gave us only 16 minutes to collect and pay for our baggage at left luggage, then buy the ticket then get on board the train. Not a lot of time at all. We managed the first 2 in 10 minutes, then looked up the tickets but could not find the train we wanted on the options. We rushed over to one of the conductors who sold us tickets right there. Again, the train was held while the credit card was processed and we were on our way. Michelle hates to rush for trains, so this was not her favorite experience, but it all worked out well in the end. Once in Venice (around 8pm) we checked into our hotel (which was beautiful!) and had dinner at a little restaurant recommended by the man at the front desk. The food was delicious. Michelle had spaghetti with bolognaise sauce and spinach with butter and Tim had a veal steak and gnocchi. Both were amazing and tasted even better after the long day we had finished. Now we will finish out the day. Ciao!

Stairs, stairs and more stairs

Day 6 - One small note to any readers - when we type this blog off line for some reason it will not keep the original spacing when it posts. Apologies that it appears as one big block of text. We wish there was something we could do to fix it. Spell check also appears to also work intermittently, hopefully the errors have not been too frequent. Today turned out to be an eventful day in more ways that one. The plan was to go to the train station in Florence, drop our bags in left luggage, then take a train with one days necessities in our day packs to Pisa to see the leaning tower. Then we would catch a train to Riomaggiore, the southern most town on the Cinque Terre. The Cinque Terre is a grouping of 5 costal towns all separated by trails that were used long ago as their only method of connection between the towns. People in the town are farmers, so the hills are terraced almost all the way up. The 4 lower hikes are open to the public and, for a fee, you can hike them. If you did it all in 1 day it would be about 6 hours of hiking at a moderate pace with lots of ups and downs. There are also a number of upper hiking trails that are very difficult, literally hiking straight up a hill then some flat across the ridge then straight down the hill to the next town. One other thing to note was that in 2011 there was a severe rain storm that caused a lot of flooding and damage throughout the cities. Mud 6 feet deep covered most of the streets and entered houses and businesses. In reading the Cinque Terre website they were encouraging tourists to come back to the area as they had sufficiently rebuilt. So we were excited to get back to see the towns. The last time Tim and Michelle had been in the area in 2009 they completed the lower hikes but split it into two days. Now we were looking to repeat the same plan today, staying overnight in Vernazza, the 4th of the 5 towns. Then tomorrow the plan is to hike to the last town and make our way to Venice. As I said, this was the plan. We started our day well, getting out of Florence on the 7:53 am train to make our way to Pisa. Once there, we decided to see the leaning tower first before it got too busy. Greg and Brenda had mentioned climbing the tower, so Tim went ahead to see how long the wait would be. There are a limited number of people that are allowed to climb it (20 people every 15 minutes) and if you miss your window you are out of luck. The wait times can be very long. It turned out Tim was second in line and there was only a 30 minute wait. So he, Brenda and Greg bought tickets for the tower. When he was done buying the tickets the line behind him was 45 people deep and it seemed like 50 tour busses had just dropped off all of their passengers. It was amazing how fast the square filled with people. Had they been 10 minutes later getting in line the wait would have been 2+ hours and they would have not had the time to climb it. Michelle opted to stay with the bags down below. The tower was a little awkward to climb since it was leaning to one side, but all three said it was worth it. We were just in time to make the next train to Riomaggiore. Had we been a little bit later we would have waited an hour for the next train. It is amazing how perfect the timing was during the day. On the train Tim got to chatting with another couple who informed us that 3 of the 4 lower hikes in the Cinque Terre were still closed. The last hike, from Vernazza to Monterosso al Mare was still open. Interesting how the Cinque Terre website failed to mention that little tid bit. I guess it isn't in their best interest to tell potential tourists that they can't hike the trails. We debated for a bit what to do with the afternoon. Hike an upper trail or two? Take a boat between some of the cities? Take the train straight to Vernazza and enjoy the town a bit more? In the end we opted to take an upper trail even though the lady at the tourist information desk assured us it was very difficult. Straight up the mountain and straight down. Yikes. But up we went. And she was right. Climbing straight up a mountain is not really the hard part. The hard part is that the stones are not at an even height, so you have to climb up but also take some very large steps. All the way up. The signs said it was .30 miles to the top and another .30 miles down. Luckily the weather was good. Sunny, but with a good ocean breeze and a few trees for shade and rest. We did think to ourselves that back when there was no train, cars or busses to connect the towns you really did have to think carefully about whether or not you wanted to date someone in one of the other villages. The hike between the two would show how committed you were to each other! Once down to the other side and into the town of Manrola we opted to have lunch at a place Tim and Michelle had been to before, a restaurant called Aristide. We had a fish sampler platter (with octopus, yum!), the pesto gnocchi and the pesto linguini with green beans and shrimp. The Smiths had the risotto with a variety of fish. It was all delicious. Since we had a great waiter who understood English we decided to ask him something that had been bugging us for a while. The waiters would bring bread out to your table, but no olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette to dip it in. Since this is done at most Italian restaurants in the states, we could't understand why no one had done it here. His nose wrinkled a bit and he told us grudgingly that we could, but that isn't really done in Italy. Which shocked us as we thought that was a normal part of a meal. You learn something new every day. After lunch it was back to the train station to catch a train and meet the owner of the apartment we had rented. When we arrived they were not there. Thus ensued 10 minutes of trying to figure out how to contact them. Finally another American couple renting a room two doors down from us came by and offered to let us use their phone to call. The woman arrived 3 minutes later to open the door. This apartment was interesting. It is very narrow, maybe 15 feet across with 4 floors and 7 bedrooms. We think the owners added a few additional rooms to rent because there are very small common areas on each floor and the lowest floor we were told is for the owner. When the woman opened his apartment to see if there was an additional key there was a full beautiful kitchen and living room furniture that we could see. The apartment itself had a great location. It backed right onto a little private beach so you cold hear the ocean and there was a balcony you could use to watch the waves. It was up high on the cliff, so no direct access to the water, but if we could live on that balcony we would. The inside of the apartment was a different story. Italian apartments are always a little quirky, it comes with the charm, but this place was just a little sad. Our rooms were serviceable but all of the furniture was old and lumpy. Stucco and paint were pealing off of the walls in most rooms. The kitchen needed a major overhaul and though there was a washing machine for clothes (yeah!) we were told it was broken. The oddest thing of all was that the bathroom was not actually in the house. You walked out of the back of the house to the covered veranda. If you took a right you were on the balcony. If you went straight you were in the bathroom. And the tub was not a full sized tub. It had high sides and you actually sat down in it (the tub had a seat like a spa would) and used a hand held shower head to wash. We had never seen that before, it was quite interesting. All in all it could have been a cute little place had there been a little bit of work put into it. But in its current life it looks to be a rental where the owners are more interested in maximizing rent than they are taking care of the property. Once checked into the room we headed down to the beach to catch the sunset and some dinner. It was very windy and cold so we tried to eat as fast as possible. Brenda had a clam soup that she thought was good and Greg had a well cooked veal. Tim opted for the fish ravioli which he thought was just ok and Michelle tried some linguini with a prawn sauce (also good). None of the food blew our socks off though and once back at the apartment we showered and went to bed. It is still the plan to try the final lower hike of the Cinque Terre tomorrow depending on how our bodies feel. This is certainly becoming the trip of climbing!

Shopping, Sienna and another tower

Day 5 - Shopping, Sienna and another tower We slept in a bit this morning, we thought our bodies could use the rest as we have been pounding the pavement pretty good since we got off the plane. A bit before 9 we headed out to the San Lorenzo market. This is an outdoor market with lots of street vendors who open up their big carts and sell a variety of things. Florence is known for their leather goods, so you can buy leather jackets, wallets, belts and purses. Michelle wanted a purse with a fun color and she ended up buying a teal leather one with a shoulder strap. It may be too small to fit all of the things needed for a toddler, but it is certainly fun! Brenda ended up buying a pair of leather gloves which are lined with cashmere inside. So soft! And the men didn't buy anything but had fun haggeling with the shop owners. In the end everyone had fun weaving their way through the stalls. In the middle of the outdoor market there is an indoor market for fresh bread, fruit, vegitables, meat and fish. The sights and smells are amazing. Tim and Brenda tasted some cheese and sausage, finally settling on one kind of each to buy small slices of for a snack for the group. After grabbing a bite to eat for the train we hopped on for our day trip to Sienna. Tim and Michelle love Sienna as it is a great example of a traditional Italian hill town. There isn't much to "do" there other than walk around the streets and see the funky shops. The trouble is always getting there. You see, trains don't generally go up hills. In fact, they don't at all. So you get off of the train and then catch a bus to the city center. Which bus you ask? Who knows, because the tourist information office is in the city center (super helpful!) and the maps they tell in the train station are pretty useless and don't inclyde bus stop information. The last time we were there we asked locals for help. We were all set to do so this time, except that as we were following the signs to the bus stop we kept going up escalators. Lots of them. Around 8 and all going up sharply. We had never seen these before and had no idea where they would take us. At the top we were greated with the same lack of information we always had when visitin Sienna (bad maps and now no idea where we were). We asked one lady who said we were not far from the city center if we just wanted to walk. Those escaators had moved us all the way up the mountain. Yippee! It was a nice walk through the city to get to the center. Once there Tim and Michelle recognized the hotel they last stayed at and the directions to the outdoor market and Il Campo, a wide open square that is slanted towards the town bell tower. And you know how we love towers, we just had to climb it. This was a shorter one, 300+ steps, but the view from the top was worth it. Italian rooftops are such a beautiful visual spread out in front of you. Once down from the tower we sat in the middle of Il Campo and people watched while we ate our meat and cheese. There was a group of school children, probably junior high and on a school field trip, that we running around the square. One of them could apparantly break dance, so he started showing off his moves to the rest of the group. There were tons of ohhhhhs and then they all came running from every direction to watch him. Then another young boy came down and started showing off his break dancing. It was a dance off in the middle of the square! Seriously, we are not making this stuff up! After about 10 minutes their teacher organized them to leave. It was an amusing site to watch as we ate. After a quick hike to the outside of the duomo it was time to head back to the train station. We decided to take a new way which put us in some different parts of the city that Tim and Michelle had never seen. It was fun using Brenda's GPS to find outrway through the twisting turning streets to get back to the station. Another good train home and dinner at the first restaurant we stayed at. Off to pack for the Cinque Terre. Ciao!

Some guy named David, a palace, a tower and two views

On day 4 we enjoyed the town of Florence. We had morning tickets to the Academia to see David. The funny thing about seing David is that you can never get enough of him. He is just so impressive, and even more impressive is to know the story behind him. Michaelangelo used a piece of stone that was thought to be too shallow and with too many imperfections to be used for carving. And Michaelangelo did not make a plaster model like other sculpters did, before he started working. He felt that the forms were buried in the rock and his job was simply to reveal them. He did not view himself as a creator, but as one who reveals something created by someone else. And he completed David at the ripe old age of 26. We always feel a little intimdated when we hear that last bit of information. Also impressive are the 6 half finished works that line the hallway up to David. These are carvings that he started, but for one reason or another he left them unfinished. They are amazing because you get to see how he worked, the scrapes and chisel marks, the emergance of the forms from the rock as if they are trying to break free. It is all so impressive. After the Academia we went for a walk to find some wifi, then across the Ponte Vecchio towards the Pitti Palace. Along the way we stopped in some of the artisal shops looking for a few gifts. At the Pitti Palace we decided that Michelle and Brenda were more interested in the house, and Tim and Greg were more interested in the gardens. So we split up and (per the lessons learned at the Vatican) decided on a definite meeting time and place. Tim felt the gardens were amazing. Michelle enjoyed her time in the house, seeing how kings, queens, dukes, duchesses and even Napoleon (at one time) used to live. The ceiling heights and decoration were amazing to behold. Imagine one day being tired of the Carravaggio fresco painted on your ceiling so you call up our good friend Michaelangelo and ask him to give you something new. Oh the layers of masterpieces that are burried deep on each ceiling! After rejoining together we all walked back to the room to refresh and regroup before heading out to hike up the dome of the Duomo. There are 473 steps up (and 473 steps down!) but the views of the city were outstanding. So impressive and worth the aching calves and thighs in the morning. And something new for Tim and Michelle to have experienced. Once back on the ground we decided that the day was not yet done. We bought some meat, cheese and wine at a local grochery store and headed to the bus stop to catch the bus up to Piazza Michelangelo. The plan was to have dinner and a sunset view over the city in the piazza. This piazza is at the top of a hill and was recommended by a guidebook with the warning that to hike the hill was very strenuous. Having just hiked up a church dome, we dilligently bought our bus tickets and waited at the stop. Only to find out that the bus we wanted only went to that stop during school hours. Since this was around 7:00pm, we had the option to either scratch the idea or hike to the top. Take a guess which option we chose. Yup, up the hill we went, and it was a little like the hike to the top of the dome except the steps were wider and the view was amazing all the way up. And not very hard at all. Once we were at the top we realized that apart from the view, it was one big parking lot. So down the hill we hiked with our meat and cheese to the apartment. Back at the apartment we enjoyed each others company over a simple meal. It was another fun filled day with friends. Tomorrow we are in for some shopping and a day trip to Sienna. Ciao!

Souls lost and souls found

day 3 - vatican and sistene chapel Day 3 started out very well. After a good nights sleep we all woke up and were ready to go at 7:30. Ok, well, we were ready to have breakfast, which we scarfed down quickly and were out the door at 7:45. The trip to St. Peter's and the Vatican museum included a bit more excitement than we expected. The train was again packed (a warning sign) and as we were getting on Tim caught a woman's wrist on Greg's backpack. The next thing we heard was him yelling "No no no!" as he pulled her hand away from his bag. And wouldn't you know, she got off the metro before it even left the station. We exited the metro and dashed into the museum entrance right at our 8:30 tour start time. Had we known our guide would spend the first 30 minutes of our tour at a large computer screen talking about the features of the Sistene chapel we would have slowed down a bit. As it was, we were trying to catch our breath through most of her descripton. But at least we did not miss our tour! The tour was good and Tim and Michelle enjoyed visiting the museaum and hearing all of the stories. Through the tour we were surprised at the number of people there. Thousands of people, at 9:00am! We have never seen it this crowded. There were just people everywhere. At first we thought it was just the morning tour groups but once we were done with our tour it got worse going into St. Peter's basilica. It was pretty overwhelming. At the end of the tour our tour guide left us just before the Sistine chapel saying "you can do this next part on your own". Which in theory was true. We could find the Sistine chapel on our own, but once inside the chapel you wanted to stay close to your group or you could get easily separated. We we all able to find a seat to listen to our audio guides explaining the room and the art. Greg finished first and told us he would meet us outside. Brenda, Tim and Michelle were not too far behind. The only problem was there are two exits for the Sistene chapel, one for individuals and one for groups. And these two exits end up in two very different places. The group exit drops you right at the front steps of St. Peter's basillica. The individual exit drops you back at the entrance, and you would have to walk around the city walls and go through security to get into St. Peters basillica. Brenda, Tim and Michelle went out the group entrance, but Greg had gone out the individual entrance. And thus ensued about 2 hours of attempting to find Greg. Begging the security guards in Italian to let us back in the museaum (both backwards (Michelle) and forwards (Tim)), wondering if he did go outside and was standing out on the street waiting for us, worried that he was worried about not seeing us. It was a bit stressful. but in the end we found Greg and each other. After a quick tour around the basillica we were off to the hotel to collect our bags for out train ride to Florence. We were able to catch the next train out (uneventful ride) and get into town in the early afternoon. Florence is a great city because we have been there twice already and feel like we have a good feel for the town. We had reserved an apartment for 3 nights, so the trick was just finding it. When you rent apartments there is no one at the "front desk". It is a door with buttons on it and you are supposed to push the button next to the name of the person you want to see. They then buzz you in. So, once we got to the address we expected to see the name of the apartment on the sign. But the apartment name was not there and there was no one there to greet us. So we talked to a few locals who lived in the building who offered to call for us on their phones. It turned out that our room had been changed and we had been emailed about the change about an hour prior to our arival. Sometimes these companies have multiple apartments they rent, so locations can change, but it is always scarey when your apartment is changed because you make the reservation based on the location in the description and have no idea where the new apartment is in the city. When it was all settled we went from a 2 bedroom apartment to one with 3 bedrooms a little closer to city center for the same price. It is a nice place and will be our home for 3 nights. The only bummer is the cable is broken and for some reason we cannot connect to the internet. The latter is more of a loss than the former. But apparently Florence has free wifi at all of the main tourist attractions, so as long as you are ok logging on while citing on the church steps then you are fine. :) Hence why it has taken us a few days to send out these posts. Once we were unpacked we picked up dinner at a local Osteria that we walked past. It looked crowded and most of the people in the restaurant were speaking Italian, both of which are good signs. We decided to go all out and have appetisers, first courses and second courses. Michelle's eyes were too big for her stomach and she ended up having to take some home. We know, we know, doggie bags just are not done in Europe but the food was too good to waste. Her second course was a beef steak with gorgonzola cheese sauce. See, now you know why the leftovers had to come home with us. It was another late night, but another good day. Tomorrow is a day for Florence only, we will see how much of our list we are able to do!

Day One and Two - Planes, trains and automobiles

Day one started out as all travel to Europe starts out - with two very long plane rides. Normally we would have nothing much to say about these plane rides except that they happened. But for the start of our trip we were surprised before we even left for the airport with a phone call from the airline letting us know that our plane (which was supposed to leave a 6:30am) would now be delayed and the best current estimate on a departure was at 7:00pm. Naturally a 12 hour delay was a little alarming so we left at 3:15am from Tim's sisters house to get to the airport. When we arrived and checked in, the airline informed us that the message was in relation to our second flight from Philidelphia, not our first flight from LAX. But, that message was now voided and our second flight was back on schedule. Whew! No one wants to start a long journey 12 hours later than planned! Both flights were relatively uneventful. Since Tim and Michelle haven't been to a movie in a while all of the options on the longer flight out of Philidelphia were new to them. It is so hard to go to sleep when there are good movies to watch! Sleep turned out to be more difficult to get since one of the widow side passengers wanted his window open during the whole flight. And that passenger was in our row, so the sun shone on us all. Needless to say we were all a bit sleep deprived as well as jet lagged. We took a taxi straight from the airport to our hotel which gave us a good view of what driving in Italy is like. If Americans think that tailgating is a problem in the US, it is a way of life in Italy! We are pretty sure it is on the Italian driving test. The closer you get to someones car at a high rate of speed without hitting them the higher your score on the test. Checking into the hotel was easy, it was near the hotel that Tim and Michelle stayed at for their first trip to Europe with Tim's brother Duane. Since the room would not be ready for 3 hours we began our sight seeing early. Normally this helps to work through the jet lag, but since none of us had much sleep on the plane at all, we were all exhausted. We decided that all good sightseeing trips in Rome begin with a good gelato. So what that it was 10:30 in the morning, we were on vacation! Refreshed from round 1 on gelato we hit the streets. In the morning we managed to work our way through St. Peter in Chains church, the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, the Roman Forum, the Victor Emmanuel Monument (along with a ride to the top to see the view) and the Pantheon. Then we decided to stop for some lunch (i.e. gelato number 2 for a few of us) in time for our 5:00pm appointment at Michelle's favorite gallery, the Borghese gallery. We arrived 30 minutes early and decided to sit on the lawn for a while. Actually, we followed suit with the other Italians and layed out on the lawn. Within 5 minutes both Tim and Michelle were asleep, and with 10 minutes to go before our entrance time Brenda and Greg were waking us up to get going. Michelle had never fallen asleep on a public lawn before, but it was the best cat nap ever. The Borghese was fantastic, and Michelle was especially happy to see her favorite sculpture there, Bernini's Appolo and Daphne. It shows Appolo chasing Daphne as catching her as she is beginning to change into a laurel tree. It is hard to believe that the delicate leaves are made out of stone. While the restorers were cleaning it they discovered that when you tap on the leaves you hear tonal sounds. It is the perfect example of the soft human realism that can come from hard stone. After the Borghese we went back to the room to shower and take a quick nap. It was along the way there that we had our first encounter with the roman pick pockets on the metro. As a traveler you read about all of the schemes and scams they concoct to separate you from your money. One will squirt you with catsup, apologize profusely while the other one is picking your pocket. They will stage arguments or use other kinds of diversions to get you distracted while they take your money. So we were aware of how it could happen and what signs to watch out for. On the way home there was a full train (one big warning sign) with lots of people wanting to get on. There was also a group of people arguing on the platform loudly (diversion?). When the train came we squished our way in, watching our bags and each other's bags closely. As the doors were closing 3 young kids pushed their way in, shoving everyone forward. We hear a man who had a suitcase yelling in Italian and then the couple next to Tim start yelling at the kids saying "Oh no you don't" loudly and then pointing to the kids and saying "Thieves, there are thieves on our train right here, everyone look at them!". It seems one of the girls had her hand inside one of their bags and they were astute enough to catch her. The girl yelled at them, they yelled at her and the kids got off at the next stop. We also got off as it was our exit. As the train pulled away the kids joined their friends at the stop. One of them handed a wallet to a waiting friend who started going through it. So whatever their scam was, it worked on some unsuspecting person on the train. Thankfully, that person was not us. After a late siesta we regrouped for dinner. For our first night on our vacation we walked to a restaurant that Tim and Michelle went to last time they were in Rome called Osteria de Mario only to find that it was closed for the day. We were not sure if it was that they closed early or if they were closed all day (it was Sunday). So since it was closed we settled for a nearby place called Osteria de Spaghetti. The food and wine were excellent, and we ended up closing down the place around midnight. After finding our way back home we all dropped into bed. Tim stayed up a bit longer to scout out hotel rooms for Florence as we would be traveling there for day 3 of our trip. He was able to find a nice apartment for the 4 of us for the 3 days we will sleep there. It will be nice to have a bit more sleep and a bit more room than Rome was able to provide. The plan is to go to the Vatican museum and St. Peter's in the morning, then head to Florence in the early afternoon. Ciao for now!

And away we go again!

We are t-8 hours away from getting on a plane and starting another exciting adventure on the other side of the ocean. This time we are a party of four, with Greg and Brenda Smith joining us. Zander will be spending a few weeks with his awesome cousins in LA. His time promises to be full of fun, giggles, hugs and the all important pool and trampoline in the cousins backyard. Our time promises to be full of good food and adventures. We will try to update as often as we can depending on WiFi connections. Love to you all, we will see you on the other side!