Our time in Italy has kicked off with a few great days in Venice. We hit the pavement hard and saw it all. From St. Mark's to Rialto to the back streets and every glass shop in between. Anthony and I were here in '96 in the bitter cold and we chose to skip the gondola ride. This time we enjoyed one of the most tourist-y things in the world with the girls. It was beautiful out on the water, even though as Celeste said, "Our gondola guy couldn't have had less of a personality." True dat. There was no singing to us or any of the things you see in the movies. Not even a chat. He gave us a ride and kicked us to the curb, practically shouting, "Next!".

Yesterday we took the vaporetto to Murano and got the skinny on glass making. We were invited into the back workroom of a shop and watched while guys heated, rolled, pulled and blew glass into colored, layered sticks. Then onto the cooling area and tomorrow they will be the starting point for a beautiful creation. Since it was the slow season these Americans really got the sales pitch. We went into another back room where they busted out the goods. Amazing. We almost pulled the trigger on a chandelier, but it wouldn't fit in our bags. We hit some smaller scale shops the rest of the day and Nina got a treat when she had her name made out of glass in one of the shops. We will be shipping that home and hoping for the best.

Anthony and Nina had scouted out an amazing restaurant near one of the water taxi stops, Palanca, as we were riding around the day before. We went there for dinner and had homemade pasta with duck ragu, lasagna, veal, wine, tiramisu, and biscotti. We are so happy to be in Italy.

Today was laundry and school. We are staying in a fun lodge with a game room so we worked in a little ping pong and called it PE class.

Tomorrow we are off to Milan where we will meet up with an old friend of Anthony's who has our whole weekend planned out. Can't wait.

In the meantime, one other update. We have decided to forgo Greece and Turkey due to the unrest in the area lately. We are back and forth over where to spend the holidays. Back to Dubrovnik or London? Any thoughts?

Amy