6/18/08 Wednesday ~ Travel Journal

I haven't done a post from our travel journal in a while! We still have over a week and a half left!

Venice, Italy

8:49 am

We're on the train to Venice! Tonight we'll sleep on a night train headed to Budapest, Hungary. We're very excited :) This morning we woke up at 6:30am but I was seriously awake about every hour through the night making sure we wouldn't miss our train @ 8:30am.

1:50pm

We're in Venice and just finished eating lunch. It's everything we thought it would be. From small alleyways to canals and bridges. For lunch, we had a starter plate of cheese followed by lasagna for Jere and pizza for me. (the pizza consisted of olives, cheese, tomatoes, peppers and salami) We bought water taxi passes so we can explore the whole town.

6:12pm

We spent a couple of hours shopping on and around the Rialto bridge. I saw a very nice bracelet in a window so we went in and bought it. A lot of the shops on and around the bridge sell Murano Glass including vases, sculptures, figurines, jewelery, trinkets and many other things I'm sure. Jere read in the "Let's Go" book about a woman who has been making leather bound journals for over 30 years here. We went to the shop and looked around and he ended up getting a grayish green leather bound large journal with regular paper. It is SO nice! It cost 65 EURO and was well worth it. We stopped into another jewelery shop and I picked out a square glass ring with an adjustable band. It's a white silvery hue with a cream colored swirl in the center. The ring is so pretty and large too. I plan to wear it on any finger on my right hand :) The girl n the next shop we stopped in was so nice! She and her father owned it and it's called "Veronica". I love Murano Glass, it's my favorite now. Anyways, we picked out some gifts for the women in our families. We'll hand them out at Christmas. The girl who owned the shop was actually 33 years old and so cute! She ad a nose ring and was just a tiny little thing. She makes me want to go ahead and get a nose ring. I've thought about it before but I'm too chicken. After picking up those things, we went back to the shop where we bought the journal. We got dad a gift for Christmas there. Now we just need something for Jodie, Jamie and L.J.

We've been riding our water taxi around just taking it all in. Venice is a beautiful city and I would definitely come back - If only to buy more jewelery!!! We've been enjoying our last town in Italy a lot although Jere's been suffering from a bug bite that swelled up his pinkie finger. It's been very painful for him but hopefully we can find some Ibuprofen.

8:55pm

We're waiting for our train to Budapest, Hungary. It leaves at 9:40pm. I am pretty nervous as to whether the "reclining seats" we have will indeed be RECLINING. It could make for an interesting night. As we were leaving Venice we stopped off to pick up some post cards and also walked over to a little shop selling more glass ware. I found the bubble glass rings that I really like for 4 EUROS each! The ones I had seen at the Rialto bridge were each 10-20EUROS! I bought three. Jere found a little glass squid he liked and it's his only glass from Murano.

This is our tentative schedule. As you can see it's very official as it is written on a postcard sack.

I took this photo of a girl's shoes on the water taxi. Her and her boyfriend were from Latvia and every time I would look at the pictures I had taken to, this would come up and I was a little nervous that he would see it and freak out. They were sitting right next to us. At the time I thought they were so cute...and while I still think that, I am realizing I was probably deprived since I only had my flip flops and sneakers.

June 14th - Rome, Italy

Jere and I have been in Rome for the past two nights. We're staying again tonight and probably tommorow night.

June 12th: We rode the train for about three hours. We arrived at Countryclub Castelfusano. We set up our tent, and just relaxed. I used the internet while Jere watched a soccer game.

June 13th: We went into Rome. We got to Rome's main station and decided to look for a camera shop thinking that we might buy one. We did. We bought an Olympus digital camera. We were pretty excited about it and have taken a few pictures :) After buying the camera, we went to the Vatican. A young guy named "Mike from Ohio" stopped us and asked if we wanted to join a tour of the Vatican museums and Sistine Chapel. After trying to figure out if he was super shady or legit, we joined the tour. I'm glad we did because we got a lot of information than if we had just walked through on our own. I love getting the information. After visiting the museum and Sistine chapel, we went into St. Peter's Basilica. I am so glad I was able to see it with my own eyes instead of viewing it out of a picture! The enormity of the structure is awesome. It is the biggest church in the world.

Before going into the museum, we had to pass through security and Jere realized that he had his pocket knife with him. He found a security guard and they checked it for him. When we were done with seeing everything, the area where he checked his knife had closed so they sent us back into the Vatican grounds! We had to walk to the Vatican police which is behind the basilica. It was just a cool thing to think that not many people do that! After leaving the Vatican, we ate at a little restaurant by the main train station. We had pizza for cheap and went home. After arriving back at camp, we met up with some people we had met on the first night. We hung out with them in the "Chill Out Area" of the camping till around 1am and then left their bungalow at 2am! It was a late night last night.

June14th: Today, we started at the Piazza Navona. (the first picture)

We walked to the Pantheon

And then to the Trevi Fountain.

Afterwards, we walked a little bit to the Spanish steps.

And finally we went to the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill.

We've been staying in our tent and it's been good. The charge per night is 20 Euro's, so total we have spent 60 Euro's for three nights so far! That is the same amount we spent for the cheapest hotel room on this trip.

Tomorrow our plan is to spend the day on the beach, do laundry and just veg!

Photos courtesy of Google search.

Cinque Terre

Reagan is now the 13s Grand Champion of the Ultra Verse.

She stole that away from me today. She believes that it is her rightful position.

We are in the Cinque Terre, Today. So beautiful.

Gotta go enjoy the weather. Ciao!

p.s. The main thing that bums us about the camera is that we don't have our pictures. It was a nice camera, but we wanted the pictures. We'd like another camera, but have been moving too fast to figure that out, yet. Cinque Terre today and Florence or Rome tomorrow night. No time to shop.