Venice

I'm sorry that we're still having connection problems kiddos! It was good to see you're faces tonight even if the chit chat kept breaking up.

As promised, I'll tell you a little bit about our day. We headed to Venice early afternoon. I've always, always, always wanted to go to Venice, so I was just a little excited! We took the train and I made a mental note to mention that poppies grow upup all along the countryside here, sort of like tiger-lily's do back home. They are so lovely that it's hard to believe they are simple wildflowers. The train ride was uneventful and then suddenly we were in a watery city.

All the things I've hoped Venice would be, paled in comarison to what we actually found . It was better than visiting Narnia and had such a magical feel. I've never seen so many teeny shops lining cobblestone roads. The food is laid out in all the windows for you to look at from the streets. It reminded me of the windows described in the story of The Little Match girl, as easy lovely thing seemed brand new and delicious.

What's very neat is that you can walk into a shop and buy a sandwich with very good meat and cheese on fresh bread and its inexpensive. Then you can walk a few paces more and fine another shop with hundreds of tiny desserts so you are able to try quite a few, without spending much money at all. They call the seltzer here 'frizzante' and its my new favorite word.

After shopping and eating and looking at so many old and wondrous things, we turned a corner and there was a nice gentleman asking if we'd like a gondola ride. Dad asked how much it was and promptly said no. Peter and Abbie did the same and also said no. I looked at them all, shook my head, paid the man,  and got onto the boat. They followed along. Within 5 minutes they were all so thankful we had done so. If you ever go to Venice, ride a gondola, even if it's expensive.

What we didn't realize is that while the afternoon kept getting better and better, it was building up to being in St. Marco Square. Nothing could have prepared us for such a magestic site. The church is collosal in size. When we went to the front door to head in, it was closed for touring for the day.

I'm not easily deterred, so I went to the exit and approached the female guard. She told me we couldn't go in and look around, but if we came back in an hour, we could go to mass. Dad and I almost cried. Our timing was perfect. We attended a beautiful mass with the rosary before it, all in Italian. We were so happy to be there. we even got to light candles for all of you (and one for Uncle Mark since it was his namesake). It was the only place all day that it didn't matter we didn't know the language. Everything is familiar in the mass, so even when you don't know the words, your heart knows the tune. It was the perfect end to a day that was so much better than expected. We ate dinner at a little cafe and headed back by train arriving home after midnight.

We miss you all and have bought some great little trinkets to share when we get home.
Here's a close up of Abbies ring!

Love,
Mom and Dad