Part II Venice and Burano

Sorry this took me so long to get to. I'll try to be better :(

So these pictures are kind of in order. Me and mom went to Venice 2 days in a row while Nikki had to work. The first day we spent totally in Venice. We walked all over everywhere (including into a residential section that we couldn't seem to get unlost from). We very much enjoyed the shopping, and I, at least, enjoyed the meandering. We went to St. Mark's and up into the balcony, but once again I skipped the Doge's Palace since we didn't have a ton of time (nor did I want to pony up the 22 Euro for entry). I didn't take a ton of pics in Venice, but here they are.

This is just a restaurant that Mom wanted me to take a picture of. I can't imagine why.
Here's Mom on the Balcony of St. Mark's

A little side canal (my favorite)

Even though this picture isn't super colorful, I love it for some reason.

Me at the top of St. Mark's (you can't even see my legs shaking)

I think this might have been either a Military HQ or Police. We kept seeing men in uniforms go in here. We actually were sitting in a little plaza across from this having a bite to eat. (If it is the Police, that would be very exciting for me as I am currently reading a detective series set in Venice by Donna Leon).

So the second day we went to Burano. We didn't have quite as much time as we would've liked for various reasons. First of all, we got a late start. Then, the vaporetto to Burano takes a long freaking time. Also, the stupid vaporetto went the opposite way around the island of Murano as it said it was going to, so I essentially messed up. So we had to get off at Murano and wait for the boat to Burano. We were starving and I made Mom run through the streets of Murano so we could get something to eat. We (finally) found a little cafe that had some take away sandwiches and I swear I almost told them to take the stupid things out of the oven early it was taking them so long to heat up (we were on a deadline to make the next boat). So we got a nice running tour of Murano is what I'm telling you. But all that was worth it. I LOVED Burano. I just loved the colors (less so the pushy saleswomen, but whatever), and it seemed so different to me than the rest of Venice. Now here's the pretty pictures :)

So the other reason that we didn't have much time that day is because as we got on the boat out of Burano, we noticed a storm rolling in (apparently Mom and I had better things to do than check the weather). It was quite pretty and we got to the mainland all right. I think we got off the vaporetto because we had to, it was the end of the line for that one. So it had started to rain so we went down to the next vaporetto station where ours was going to be. Um, yeah. Guess what everyone in Venice does at rush hour in the rain. I swear every citizen and tourist of Venice was on that stupid floating station with us. And dude, pushy. Seriously. Me and mom (being a bit pushy ourselves) made it to the front of where the doors opened after maybe 45 minutes. The problem was that every vaporetto that came, by the time it got to our station was ridiculously packed. I kept thinking of how people seem to die in stampedes at soccer games every year. I'm not sure why I associate being trampled to death with Europeans, but I do. So the next vaporetto to show up, me and mom decide to make a break for it and we totally made it on. I mean, MAYBE 7 or 8 people were making it on each boat and the boats were a good 15 minutes apart with at least 80 people crammed into that little station. We got lucky, really. So I was standing up on the top of the boat with my back to the outside and rain is just dripping down my back. I, being a stupid tourist, did not have an umbrella or jacket and I was freezing. I said to Mom at one point that I needed to just think of Chicago in January and then it wasn't so bad. Some woman took pity on me (a very, very nice woman) and gave me her umbrella for the rest of the ride. I actually memorized the brand name of this umbrella because it was so awesome. I believe it was Roncato or something like that (ok maybe TRIED to memorize). So that's why we (and by we, I mean me) cut our day short. Mom wanted to go back out in the rain to buy towels and look at paintings because she is the world's most persistent shopper. :)

Next time: Lake Barcis, then Part I of the Neverending Roadtrip.

Well, At least I have something to look forward to...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Life/Relationships/Man-Woman/Women-are-most-attractive-at-31/articleshow/6187549.cms

Italy - Part I

So here it is. Finally. We're going to take it nice and slow and in pieces, ok?

First here I am holding Leah after many many hours of flying. I often say that my mother is the baby crazy one, but I pretty much threw my bag on mom's shoulder and snatched her out of Nikki's hands when I saw her :) (Don't worry, Mom IS in fact baby crazy, but she's baby crazy in a nice helpful way instead of a standing around in the airport doing nothing kind of way).
So we got into town, and I have no recollection of what we did. But we must've ended up on base that day (oh, right I forgot, we had to take the safety class to get our international drivers licenses valid on base. I mean, we didn't ACTUALLY take the class (Nikki's sneaky like that), but maybe we should've. More on that (a lot) later.)

So this is Mom entertaining Leah (in that helpful baby crazy way) outside one of the buildings on base.

Then the next day we went to Ca' Madresca for a wine tasting. It was SOOO much fun and very informative. First of all, the wine was super tasty and the owner (Adrian, I think) was extremely educational. We got to taste 4 or 5 wines and we even got to pour some wine from one of the really huge tanks to see the difference in a wine that wasn't fully aged yet. He explained how the colors affected the taste of the wine, as well as where the grapes were grown (on the hill or in the valley). It was awesome. As were the appetizers (we got to taste homemade salami). So we tasted wine, shopped for a while, then Mom went and entertained Leah outside for a while, then we played on the barrels, took some pictures and went home before Leah melted down (with 6 or 7 bottles of wine and a bottle of pistachio liquer). I will reiterate this in many posts, but that kid was really a trooper most of the time. I'm pretty sure we made it into the car this time and Mom had to stay in the back and keep her awake (we were only 15 minutes or so from home) so she'd get a good nap in when she got home. I remember only one major meltdown and that was after driving on the Autostrade for hours in idiotic traffic, so I kind of felt like melting down too.

I ADORE this picture. She's like "ewww, why are you kissing me?!"

I like this picture too - Mom (Nana from here on out) has her drink and Leah has hers.

And this is actually that morning when we decided to dress up the doll, er, I mean Leah, in the super cute dress that Aunt Bettie made for her. WITH bonnet.

So as you can imagine, Aunt Chrissi (I think of myself in the third person whenever I'm around nieces and the nephew) did not actually forget about birds while she was in Europe. In fact, I think Nikki was...well, impressed is maybe not the right word but...impressed with my one-track mind. So I harassed her enough that we got up early one morning and went down to the spring at Polcenigo. I'm not going to go into any of the birds on any of these posts and instead do one big bird post at the end.

So this is picturesque, right?

Kind of hazy, neat rocks, a sign in Italian, a goose.

Ah, right.

The goose. Funny thing about the goose - he was REALLY territorial. So of course he didn't want to let us near the spring at all. He kept honking and flapping his wings. Sounds terrifying doesn't it? We thought about trying to scare him into the water, but in this picture is essentially where he wanted to be goshdarnit. Eventually 2 men (British and Italian I think) came along and one of them tried to shoo him away and that Goose was having none of it. He was seriously aggressive. He scared the guy away (at which point the other friend starting making chicken noises and gestures at him and laughing hysterically - it was entertaining). I'm really not doing this story justice - it was really kind of ridiculous. But whatever - the spring was gorgeous as was Polcenigo (um, I think, there were a lot of towns that started with a P and I couldn't keep them all straight). We walked up and down the river a bit and then we went home for naptime.

The spring was at the end of this walkway (we followed the geese...slowly, all the way down it).

A restaurant.

So that's the end of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 is Venice and Burano.