From El Paso to Van Horn

Driving into the storm

Intended stay in Fort Stockton

****New note below**** 

Our intention was initially a short visit with fam fam and then a stay in Fort Stockton. However, we decided to head to Tombstone first which stole a couple hours of daylight from us.  We made it to El Paso pretty late and hung out with the family who resides there.  It was wonderful and well worth it.  We left for Fort Stockton but with less than two hours of daylight left on a 3 hour drive.  We encountered, some thing common place for Texans but rare for city slickers like me and mom, a lighting storm.  So I put the very intense Beethoven Symphony No 9 the 2nd movement on and began to record the humongous lighting strikes in the distance.  It was fun.  Anyhow, before we knew it we were driving in it and it was dark too.  The moon looked huge and orange as it rose over the foothills that were once far away.  So we decided to call it quits and pulled off to Van Horn to the first hotel we spotted.  Tomorrow we continue to Austin, hopefully well rested and in good weather.


 ****When we finally arrived in Fort Stockton we stopped at a Subway and as we were leaving we noticed the remains of the hotel pictured above.  When we drove by it we realized it was our intended stay, the Swiss Clock Best Western. thanks thunderstorm for keeping us from this fate!

Tombstone, AZ

Doc Holiday

Stage Coach

Tombstone, AZ was a short pit stop on the way to El Paso, TX.  Melissa, Mom, and I arrived too early.  The only shop open was a jewelry store, it turned out to be a lot of fun trying on jewelry.  After that we went to another shop to try and kill more time until the Old Time Photo shop opened up.  But then we opted for the less expensive photo option and asked a cowboy we ran into to take a picture with him, the shop owner called us city slickers but we didn't mind since it's true.  The cowboy was authentic and yelped out accusingly, "Hey! That's not my wallet back there!"  It was fun, if we didn't have such a long drive ahead of us we would've stayed and continued harassing every cowboy we ran into.   Pictures to come, check back later.

We are off to...ELP!

OK perhaps not as sexy as let's say Italy or Amsterdam.  But the.important thing to remember is that family motivates us to visit the safest city in the USA. My niece is having a Sweet Sixteen celebration. A Whit and Black Masquerade party. How cool is that?! Never been to one.

So I will be wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. Think V for Vendetta or Anonymous (the outlaw hacker group of which I'm not a member of.).

Stephanie's is a feathery pretty mask. She makes everything look sexy.

Wish us luck!

History

Was made today. But....I can't tell you guys yet what that is or even means.

The Netherlands

I would put more stuff but I have not had ANY free time. NONE. ZERO. NUL. That's dutch for zero. I guess I should be grateful that I get fed but even that I have to insist!

North Holland

So I find myself in the north of The Netherlands for work. We are staying in a town called Medemblik. It's a nice quint little town. It's a town next to the Ijsselmeer. Largest lake in all of western Europe.  The land here is all reclaimed land from the sea. So we are 13th feet BELOW sea level!

People that don't live here might think all of The Netherlands is like Amsterdam but that isn't the case. It's very conservative outside of Amsterdam. Drug use is highly prohibited and isn't tolerated.

Work was nothing to involved. We are waiting for some materials to arrive before we can start the real efforts. So we went to Den Oever. A little fishing harbor at the western end of dam that helped the Dutch reclaim so much land.  We had lunch there then proceeded to drive about half way across the dam. Boy was it windy.

We turned around and then headed to Den Helder which turned out to be way way cool. It has a naval base so lots of war stuff. Went shopping there for a bit. Went to the sea wall that keeps the Atlantic ocean out. Basically the town's roof tops are at sea level which is evident from standing on the wall.

Headed back to work to check on the status of our stuff. Bought some work related supplies at a nearby hardware store before heading back to our hotel.

Gonna take a nap before heading out to dinner with the coworkers.

Last night in Rome

 After saying a goodbye to our Contiki friends in Venezia who weren't riding the bus back to Rome we headed out bright and early.  We stopped at our last two Autogrills and arrived in Rome after about 7 hours thanks to our driver, Gennaro's excellent driving skills.  We then said goodbye to the remaining group and walked to the main terminal to meet our Rome B&B hosts Nicole and Luca.  They came on foot and we walked together to their place.  My first B&B experience was amazing thanks to Luca and Nicole, they were incredible.  They gave us a map and pointed out Metro routes and areas to go to that evening. 

We took off for a night stroll to capture night images of the Colosseum, Forum and the Monumento a Vittorio Emmanuel (that's us in front of it).  It was fun trying to find the right spot for the night shots and on the way back we saw some excavations in progress that were pretty cool.  We were hungry and so on our way back we chose to eat at the Ristorante Le Tavernelle 
It was really great, we accidentally ordered a liter of wine, but it was worth it. The amazing thing was the dessert the waitress recommended to us turned out to be exactly like flan but white in color.  It was delicious, maybe even better than regular flan. 
I really enjoyed the leisurely part of get back to the B&B that night.  We really, really took our time the evening was perfect, not too cold or hot, just right.  We stopped and took pictures of the Santa Maria Maggiore Church a really huge and interestingly shaped church, more gothic than most we had seen.  When we got back to Luca and Nicole's they were in the kitchen with two other guests rooming there from Spain.  We sat up talking about the economy and lifestyle if Italians, we asked Luca some questions about the sites and then while Sergio and Luca planned out our route to the airport hotel I took a shower.  We slept very well that night due to it being a Saturday the morning was so very quite.  We tried to explain this to the Spanish guests and to Nicole, but there is no describing how loud all the other cities had been in comparison.  Our trip out of Rome wasn't over yet though, there was still some more to see.


To be continued...

Venezia the showstopper

We arrived very late to our hotel on the mainland of Venizia; The hotel was the best we have had so far, something you would find in LA for maybe $200 per night or more. We woke up and headed to the metro with our group it's like a light rail or trolley. We arrived at the terminal and saw our first river and a large bridge. So far it didn't look too spectacular and Sergio and I even commented to each other that perhaps it was hyped up because it looked like any other place.

We made our way up the large bridge and down to a dock where we were picked up by our private motorskiff.  We slowly made our way towards the famous Piazza San Marco.  It was like when Dorothy opens the door to her home and says to Toto that she's not in Kansas anymore. The buildings that line the outer parts of the island, as well as the Grand Canal, are the most lavish of all the homes that were ever built in Venice.  So the first views you get are of the most magnificent structures.
We were dropped off and after instructions from our tour manager we were introduced to our local tour guide. We had a brief explanation as to how Venice came to be and she explained the symbol of Venice which is a lion with wings, which is everywhere you turn. Then we began walking and we realized that it could be very easy to get lost here. The streets are very narrow and there are many small bridges that must be crossed over. It's a beautiful maze that I would have loved to wonder around in.

After our tour we headed to our glass demonstration by a master glass blower.  He made a vase with a beautiful and delicate handle in a few minutes.  Then we we were shown the different colors available and we learned about the order in which they were discovered and the element used to make the glass that color.  For example, the red glass is made by adding gold and another element, making the most expensive colored glass available.   Sergio bought for me a beautiful necklace and earrings made of tiny glass beads.  Thank you baby! 

After that we were shown a lace making demonstration, which emphasized on the method developed on a small island off Venice, called needle point lace.  There are 7 different types of stitches and one item is made with a group of experts, each one an expert in one type of stitch, it can take 6 months to create one coffee table sized doily, crazy!!  So this stuff is rare and expensive.
After our demos we headed to the Piazza San Marco, which was beginning to flood and got in line to enter Basilica of Saint Mark.  It took 500 years to complete the decor.  The interior is completely covered with gold leaf and mosaics.   All of the floor is also made up of mosaics.The floor is warped because of the soggy foundation it sits on, I suppose.  It was pretty wild.  After this we headed to the Academia Museum of Venice (which we found only due to Sergio's great navigation skills).  If you like art you will LOVE this museum.  It has some Bernini, Caravaggio, and more.

Finally came the moment we had been waiting for, the gondolas.  We were to be seated with Jon, Jenise, Jax, and Matt.  We had earlier stopped at a small grocer and got some salami and pecorino cheese because we had agreed to buy 3 bottles of Bellini from the gondola company.  But they switched gondola companies on us and we had 2 bottles of prosseco instead. It doesn't matter if it would have been Bud Light, this was an experience of a lifetime that I will never forget.  It was beautiful, just perfect.

I forget if I mentioned this already or not.  The day of our Tuscan dinner in Florence, our tour manager Laura gave the 3 couples on a honeymoon a lock and key with their names written on it.  We were really surprised because we had just asked the tour guide that day about the locks we kept seeing. So, when we got off Sergio noticed a covered well with a few of those locks and he asked me if I had the lock on me, and I did.  So we decided to go ahead and place our lock on this well cover, everyone was snapping pictures it was really cute.  Then we took a couple steps and tossed our keys into the river we had just finished cruising on our first gondola ride ever.  Now that was a super romantic ending to a great day but it wasn't over yet! 

We headed to our last group dinner, which was right at the water front.  We had a pasta marinara and a lasagna canole stuffed with spinach and cheese.  Then we had a beef and mushroom dish and finally a yogurt flavored dessert.  When we got back to the hotel the reality of having to say goodbye to our new friends kicked in.  We went on a mission to get a beer and then said goodbye to those we wouldn't see in the morning.

Goodbye Venezia!

Verona

After leaving Pisa we headed to Verona, the home of Romeo and Juliet.  There is no hard proof that they existed but there is Juliet's home and the balcony and a her grave as well a bronze statue of Juliet.  If you rub her right boob it will bring you luck in love even though we know she didn't have any. In the courtyard of the supposed balcony, you can also write a letter to Juliet, but they took the wall of notes down and I was disappointed that I couldn't leave a note there. 

After paying homage to the Juliet's statue we headed to a pharmacy where I picked up some cold and flu medicine.  I couldn't have done it without my Rick Steve's Phrase Book.  Then we headed to the Pietra Bridge for a great view of the Adige River and large museum on a hillside.   Then we walked back towards a huge medieval castle that even had a moat around it.  It was cool looking.  The entire group then met up in front of a giant arena called the L'anfiteatro Arena that predates the Colosseum making it over 2000 years old. 

Finally we headed to a group dinner where I had my first ever gnocchi experience,  I wasn't too impressed unfortunately.   But all the group dinners were fun more for the people than for the food.  The town is very beautiful, it had that very quaint feeling but the people were trendy looking.  I guess it was a great combination of of old and new.  This was Sergio's favorite Italian town.

Ciao!

Pisa and its Tower

We left Florence feeling sort of crappy, I had a full on cold with sneezing, soar throat, itchy eyes, & runny nose.  Plus we were sad to see it go so fast, we new we would be at our final tour destination...Venice by the end of the night.  So several hours and an Autogrill stop later, we were in the city of Pisa.  Our trip manager Laura asked us try and get the most creative Pisa picture we could think of for a prize.  After looking in vain for a pharmacy we took our silly hanging on to the tower picture and then I sat in the shade of the tower while Sergio ran around taking pictures of tower.  I have to admit that was underwhelmed by the whole experience but I'm not sure if it was the tower, which deserves some recognition or my cold that was keeping me from being more enthusiastic.  

Ciao!

San Gimignano & Wine Tasting in Tuscany

On our 6th tour day we headed through the Chianti wine region and stopped in medieval town of San Gimignano, famous for its surving towers.  It has 13 but once had as many as 72.  There was great views of rolling hillsides and vineyards as far as one could see.  It also has the world champion gelato shop that in fact had some really fantastic gelato. 
After our stop in San Gimignano we headed to the Fattoria Castello Il Palagio in between Florence and Siena. This place is a vineyard that is allowed to call their wine Chianti Classico and Chianti Reserve, it comes only from this particular region in Tuscany and is under the label of black rooster.   They showed us the wine cellar with huge barrels bigger than a large van and then we had our wine and olive oil tasting.  The olive oil is also produced there as well as some other products, that  I may have to declare when we go through customs, including: olive oil preserves, and balsamic vinegar.  It was such a gorgeous day there,  I wished I could have stayed there for a week and help pick grapes for a few hours per day LOL.  Our tour guide at the vineyard said that it used to be the thing to do in the 70's and 80's but now everything wills have to go to machinery because they're are enough people going to the vineyards to pick.  Oh well, there was also a castle which we got to see, but only from the courtyard, it was very well kept because they have been holding weddings there.

When we returned to Florence we cleaned up and met up with our new found friends: newlyweds Jackie and Matt and celebrating their 6 year anniversary Jenice and Jon.  Our tour manager Laura made reservations for us at Osteria dei Baroncelli where they specialize in Florentine Steak.  It is a big hunk of beef quickly seared and both sides and served with potatoes.  They sell this beauty by the kilo, uh yeah. I'm salivating just remembering the explosion of beef goodness in my mouth.  They have a website in case you're interested www.osteriadeibaroncelli.it.  An  interesting thing happened on our way there (we didn't have an exact address but just a description) we were all a little confused and then out no where we see a Antonio Banderas' look alike and we asked him if he knew where the restaurant was and he ever so kindly walked us to the restaurant.

No one wanted our night in Florence to end so we walked over to the famous bronze boar and as is the tradition, we rubbed his snout for luck to return us to Florence again soon.  Then we found a highly recommended gelato shop called Per Que No? translates to Why Not? And got some really great gelato there.  Slowly we made our way to a large piazza were a live band was playing and we paid the price to enjoy the beautiful night al fresco with an espresso and jazz playing to bring our Fiorenze experience to its conclusion. 

Ciao!

Florence...

Nice view of Florence and my stunning wife.

Rome...

Just one pic on the phone. A little church near the Colossium. Supposedly houses chains used to chain up Peter. So its called St. Peter in Chains.  What is true is that it houses Michelangelo's Moses.

Firenze aka Florence

We arrived in Firenze, and checked into our very much centrally located hotel.  It was only a few steps away from the famous green and white marbled Duomo with it's outer babtistry famous for it's beautifully carved bronze doors.  We had dinner as a group at local place, they served Spaghetti and meatballs, they were delicious. Then we roamed around and snapped pictures of the Santa Croce Church.  It was founded in 1294 and is the final resting place of Michaelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli and a monument to Enrico Fermi.  We were able to go in the following afternoon and explore better with an audio self-guided tour. 

The first morning there we headed out to our included leather demonstration which was then followed by a walking tour of Flornece.  Our guide is a Florence native and she took us to the Piazza de la Signoria to explain the many statues there including the famous David by Michaelangelo.  Now a replica is there and the original is at the Museum Academia.   FYI if you want to see him make a reservation by phone about 1 or 2 months in advance. 

We walked to the Ponte Vecchio were we asked our guide about the locks on the bridge and she said that they are love locks, the keys are to be thrown into a body of water. BUT that if you are caught doing it you could be fined because now it is considered vandalism.  Finally we made our way back tot the baptistery near our hotel and she explained that it was built because you had to be baptized before being allowed into a church. 

Once the tour was done we had freetime which allowed us to make the trek to the Boboli Gardens, which turned out be simply and over priced viewpoint area in my opinion.  But it was fun, then we went into the Basilica di Santa Croce so Sergio could pay homage to Galileo.  It was as beautiful inside as it was outside.  People wanted yo be buried inside the church to humble themselves because they knew their graves would be stepped on,  so the floor is covered in grave stones.  It was cool but eerie.  

After that we went back to the hotel and washed up for our group photo and the best meal of the tour in the hills of Tuscany.   We had a typical, yet lavish, 6 course meal.  The grand finally and my favorite thing was the roasted pig leg, WOW it was so delicious!  After that the bus dropped us off at Club Space were we danced with our new friends.  Finally we called it a night and looked forward to our day trip to the winery and San Gimignano.

Ciao!

Rome: Day 1 & 2

We took our tour of the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, and the the Spanish Steps on the first day.  Our tour guide Pietro (Peter) is incredible,  I feel I learned more from him in the short hours we were together than in the whole time we've been in Italy.  The tour has really given us a break from having to plan everything out, but leaves very little time on our own.  Hope this will explain why blogging took a plunge.  We are still alive and well and it's been so much fun. 

One free time opportunity took us to see Leonardo Da Vinci's Moses at a very small, rather inconspicuous church.  We caught a bus near the Pantheon and then after a little map check found it.  It was stunning!  Honestly,  we don't know  too much about it besides what is in our guide book, but it was worth it.  After we got back to the hotel we cleaned up and had a "pizza party" with entertainment; which consisted of a pianist and operatic type singer, who was actually very entertaining.

Then our very awesome kiwi tour manager, Laura, offered to take us to her friend's bar and lounge for $20 open bar.  What I thought was going to be trendy and dull turned out to be SOOO much fun.  The group of people that decided to go first crammed into bus, I mean really crammed (I felt bad for the locals who were already on it).  Then we got there and it was very nice, small and we the had the whole place to ourselves.  After lounging and enjoying the first round, the party really got started when the DJ showed up and started playing what sounded like our 5 star ipod playlist of dance music.  We decided to call it quits early because we had the Vatican very early in the morning as well as checking out of our Rome hotel.  We waved down a taxi and were in bed by 1:00AM. 

The visit to the Vatican today way beyond all my expectations.  To start we were shown a poster of the Sistine Chapel, because tour guides are not allowed to linger to explain the Michaelangelo's work of art once inside.  We were absorbed by the amount of time and the struggles involved in its creation.  But then to actually see it with my own eyes, I don't really have the words to explain the awe that I was in.  The size of it was staggering larger than I had anticipated, and also the actual quality of the work.  He isn't called the master of the renaissance and a master for nothing.  We've seen several churches on our own and nothing can tickle the precision in his work.  For example, Michaelangelo created a "false structure" it looks like supports are holding the roof up.  We've seen this in almost all churches usually along the center but the perspective isn't as believable as in the Sistine.  He planned and calculated for every angle, and it shows.  Can you tell I was impressed yet?

Anyways, moving on to the next AMAZING thing.  St. Peter's Basilica (period).  Wow, talk about big, imposing, balance, beauty, wealth and power.  This is the largest Catholic Church in the world, by a lot. It is so overwhelming when you walk in, there is so much to look at in there, but it's not crowded feeling because it is so vast.  To the right is Michaelangelo's famous sculpture of Mary and Jesus.  Directly in the front is a glass window which is the focal point of Bernini's beautiful work of art.  There is so much more of course, but it's so hard for it to all sink in and then you walk out in front and see this magnificent facade among the hundreds of Bernini's columns and the giant Roman obelisk and the thing is still so HUGE!  I'm thinking,"how far back do we have to get before it looks normal!?"  Needless to say we had a blast taking tons of pictures at the Vatican. And our story will continue in Florence.

Ciao!

Trevi Fountain

<p>Saw it during the day. Will go there at night before we leave for a night shot.

That train ride...

Was certainly better than our first. Having non-smelly neighbors helps tremendously. Oh and also having the state police occupying our cabin helps put any fears at easy. According to the cop my Italian is pretty good. I think so too although Stephanie is laughing pretty hard at the moment. Scuzi! I'm trying here. For the record she did have to help me spell that.

Oh by the we are in Roma. Our hotel was a shot walk from the train station.

Room is pretty nice. AC as well.

We hungry and need an ATM so we are doing fast food with free WIFI!

Pictures to We Survived Napoli

National Archeological Museum, birra (beer), pizza, hand made earrings (they have that in SD), another church, long narrow streets, and this is what it used to be like when kids had no Sony Playstations.

We Survived Napoli

Today our goal was to see the artifacts of Pompeii and Herculeum at the National Archaeological Museum in Napoli.  On our way back to our hostel in Salerno yesterday I had spotted a Foot Locker store and thought to myself, ,"if that place is open tomorrow morning I am going to buy a pair of shoes."  My comfy shoes are apparently alright for a day at the mall, but not for 4 days of non-stop roaming around Italy.  They were especially inappropriate for hiking Mt. Vesuvius and even worse for Pompeii, man that place is ridiculously big.

Anyways, Sergio and I, with my sparkly new Reeboks, set out to the train station once more to Napoli Centrale.  I was more sleepy than nervous but we found the tourist information booth and were given directions for using the metro to get to the museum.  We found our way down to the subway, which smelled like the Pirates of the Caribbean, and then got off only a few yards away from the museum.  So far so good is what I was thinking.  The historical center is super old and dirty, maybe Rome will look clean because of our trip today LOL! 

The museum was great I'm so glad we came, I felt jipped when we went to Pompeii and all there was was tour groups and the skeletal remains of a city.  There were Roman and Greek statues, the Pompeii and Herculean artifacts and a beautiful great hall that is the largest in all of Europe!  We also made our way into the R rated "Gabinetto Segreto" a room filled with very naughty sculptures, paintings, drawings and mosaics from the excavations of Pompeii and Herculeum.  You'll have to use your imagination on this one (this is family blog people).

After the museum we headed off to find food, more specifically Neopolitan Pizza.  On route we saw this huge fight break out between some locals.  A woman was pushing a trash bin into a guy on a scooter and about 6 polizias were just standing around watching, while on lookers filmed using their phones and cameras. We didn't stick around to see the outcome.  As we walked towards a church we were eager to check out we found a place called Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba.  Sergio had the pizza marinara con funghi (tomato sauce and mushrooms and oregano) and I got the same but just tomato sauce and anchovy.  The pizzas were incredible, how will I ever be able to eat pizza from the Monrovia pizza company again and not think of what I'm missing in Napoli? 

After that we headed to the a church next to the Church of San Lorenzo Maggiore since that one was lame.  And it was beautiful all on its own but then out of no where a guy came out and starts paying the organ, filling the whole place with music.  Luckily we were almost out of there before he started playing Pachabelle's Canon in D...not a cellist favorite if you know what I mean, if not it just means you weren't an orchestra geek like me. 

After the church and an espresso break we bought tickets for a tour of Napoli's underground.  It was too cool, you would never guess that there was such vast open spaces under such a huge city.  Apparently, the underground is as old as Napoli! The Greeks built the city from quarries of tufa stone deep underground (or probably slaves).  Then the Romans dug even deeper creating 400km of aqueducts.  The ducts were abandoned because of the cholera epidemic in 1884 (so sad) and then used once more as a bomb shelter in WWII.  I was so taken away, we had to squeeze through narrow passages with candlesticks, it was incredible how modern it all looked. 

After that we made a run for it, it was dark and we didn't want to find out if the pick-pocket stories were fact or fiction.  Well, that sums up our adventure in Napoli, I would love to detour to there again soon and see more this misunderstood city.  It really wasn't much worse then Mexico City.

Ciao!

Volcanos and Ruins

Today we saw Mt  Vesuvius! I mean not just see it. We went all the way to the top and touched it!

It's an active volcano too from what we heard. That explains the stinky steam. Pretty neat.  Ok after staying up there to eat a protein bar, we headed down. Sad story on the way down an elderly person fell and broke a leg. Blood definitely around her. She was awake and first responders were already attending to her wounds.  As we departed in our private taxi the ambulance arrived. Hope she is well.

We then got dropped off at one of the entrances to the Pompeii ruins. But we detoured over to a fast food joint for some pasta and pizza. Very good considering it was fast food.  Fueled up we ventured into the ruins. And for the first hour I think we were completely lost. So pretty soon that started to take a toll on our feet.  We finally made it to another entrance where we bought an expensive map of the ruins. This map did nothing to help us out at first. Even with my extensive map training. We learned to stick to tour groups and went into places they went. That's how we found the baths. Now the House of Vettii was CLOSED! That's like the whole point! Other than that it was so vast! To the point that it was just too much. It's like an empty museum. Everything found at the ruins was either sold off, stolen or is on display at the National Archeological Museum at Naples and other European museums.

Regardless, by this time it was over for us. Tired and hungry, we left via the entrance closest to the center and headed to the Duomo of Pompeii. That thing was huge as expected. With a live mass happening as well. So we threw in the towel and headed towards the train station.  After convincing Steph I knew exactly where we were headed we found the train. Bought tixs and headed home.

We closed the night with dinner in the historic center of Salerno for what had to be my best meal yet. Worth the price too.

Now we are doing laundry and planning tomorrow's day. Napoli and the pickpockets await us.

Wish us luck.