Hi everyone,
The past week has been a little busy. Late last week it started raining and that lasted for a few days, but kept nice cool clouds over the city. Five friends from Austria came to visit and we had fun showing them around and hanging out. We finally got our museum cards after a day of searching the city for them and now we have unlimited access for the rest of the year. We decided to start at the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens. It was nice being able to take our time because we know we will be back. And reading the newspaper is much more enjoyable when you have a wonderful view of the city from a park. here are some pictures.


Lunching on pizza with the Austrians
A view from Piazza Michaelangelo
The view down our street
Making an Italian meal (trying hard)

Our neighborhood hangout, Santa Croce
Reading on a rainy day with the door open

our apartment

A wonderful time to be in Florence

So we have been in Florence for four days and we love it. Our apartment is better than we imagined and we couldnt be happier. The apartment is on street level so we have a lot of intersting things going on outside, and our street is so tiny you would be amazed to see that city busses and trucks go down it. It is entertaining enough to see the traffic trying to squeeze around the corners, narrowly missing the old lady standing on the corner, scooters lined up behind wondering what could be taking so long, and all the pedestrians trying to get around as well! We really like the neighborhood because it has so much to offer. Within a block we have restraunts, a juggeling store, a gym, this cheap internet place, an asian market, bread stores, wine stores, indian stores, a jazz club, several little boutiques, and an art gallery.

While in Florence we are planing on buying a museum card to get into the state musuems for free and so we dont have to wait in lines, but until we get that we will just wander the streets and see what is out there. Dino knows his way around very well, but I am getting very good at not being lost all the time. Just down the street you can see the Duomo, and Santa Croce is a short walk away (and a lot of gelato). We are happy to finally be able to make our own meals, but every once in a while we like to check out a local restraunt.

my camera isnt connecting to this computer so i will have to get you pictures later.

I was a little rushed on my post about Graz and I forgot to add that on the day we went to the country we were given an Austrian cooking lesson by Martins mother (in German) and she also assured us that there were no ghosts in their 300 year old house.!!! We drove by castels and were given the tour of things we never would have seen without a friend. Such as a bar that had been arrested (it had a large ball and chain on the outside), a store owned by an old man who sells everything and smells like mothballs, and of course a visit to his mother in the country.

I must be off now to meet Dino at the piazza de Santa Croce, hope everyone is doing well and we miss you all!

Graz, Austria

We loved Graz! We had a warm welcome in Graz where we visited two friends that we met in Bellingham. Jasmin and martin both grew up in or around Graz and speak very good english. It was nice to have someone to answer our questions about Austrian culture and the german language. We stayed at Jasmins house which was a little outside of town. While we stayed there we had our own tourguides to shown us both the city and the countryside.

Vienna

It was such a change to go to Austria, but we welcomed it. Our train ride to Vienna was long, but we were in a room with a nice family. Before we got on the train we had spent the day in florence because our train didnt leave until later that night. We bought a huge suitcase that has led to several jokes regarding a body being inside, or that only a woman would bring a suitcase that large. It was difficult finding a place for it on the train, and dino got little sleep because he was worried it would fall off the shelf and crush him, or the nice family. Luckily it didnt fall, and we had a safe journey.
While in Vienna we went to the modern art museum, the Leopold museum, and the Hapsburg Palace. We wandered around throughout the city, and on our last day we found a festival in a park and got to eat really good indian food. One day, we took a long hike in the backyard of our hostel, and we found an amazing view.





We bought cake and took it to the park. This was the best food day of the trip.

The blue Danube. Note the artificial beach on the left.

A talbe set for a King. Only two people currently know how to fold a napkin like this, and it was only used at dinners the king would attend.

We tried cake a coffee/tea at the Sacher Hotel. My coffee had orange liquer in it and whip cream, the Austrians know how to make a good cup of coffee. (In Graz our favorite drink became Eiskaffee- coffee and ice cream!). This restraunt was very fancy.

Stefensplatz
A very fancy city.

Long awaited pictures

Hello everyone!
sorry it has been so long since we have posted, but now we will try to catch you up on our adventures.
To start off, we will give you the pictures we left out from our last few posts.

The tuscan countryside was very beautiful

Apparently the Italians always built towns on top of hills because there is a good breeze up there, but at the time I just thought they were crazy.
We finally made it to the coast!
Back on the road, we saw sheep getting out of the hot sun
The land was very dry here so we were excited to see water even if it was way off in the distance.
We really liked the beach near Orbettello


There were several large yachts out in the bay, now we know how to get around next time!





The Palio at the lagoon started off as a parade through town, here is one of the teams and their fans from the neighborhood.








The teams were followed by a renaissance procession





And then to the lagoon! the teams did three laps with the crowds cheering them on. At the end the kids around us started jumping in the lagoon and swimming out to the boats. We stayed on shore.




The windmill in the lagoon.

Dino at the beach.

We were sad to leave Orbettello, perhaps it was because it was so early in the morning, but it was beautiful nevertheless.