Welcome to the Amsterdam airport! … And the future!! Where everything is in English, tulips are more popular than ketchup, and dutch children are painted on napkins.

We survived our 9ish hour flight by binging out on movies, playing group Tetris, and getting a spectacular arial view of the northern lights! Ryder managed to capture a few great photos. It’s hard to describe the northern lights with out waxing poetical with shimmering vertical clouds of ever changing color and shape… gosh I’m sleep deprived.

When we got off the plane it was straight to the restroom, or as I like to say, the beautiful water closet where everything you do is completely private. Why oh why can’t we have bathrooms in the US like this?? Mom and J were shocked at all the English everywhere. We wondered around the airport (5 hour layover, yay for sarcasm) and found some amazingly satisfying Poffertjes each the size of a half-dollar.

Currently we look like the walking dead with my mom slumped over her backpack, hugging the blanket I stole from the plane, my sister lying next to me across the air conditioning unit, Ryder on his phone per usual, and my dad, after some coffee, rearing to go. OK, only 2 hours left, then a 2 hour flight, then a 1 hour train ride on no sleep so far… I think I can, I think I can… 🙂

Hello Again!

The Ross family is back! This time we are on a journey to Italy, specifically Florence and Rome, with the Grossmans for 2 weeks! This will be Tawny, Steve, and Justine’s first time to Europe 🙂

Yesterday we drove down to SF from Sacramento. I can’t believe how terrible the air quality is right now, not just in the valley, but even in the bay. We had to drop off the Koa dog at the dog kennel in Elk Grove (I would highly recommend Duck Pond Kennels for anyone needing to leave furry family while traveling). I cried like a total baby when we left him, but he is in good hands.

We spent the night at a motel near the airport, got up early this morning to eat breakfast and catch our shuttle to the airport. We are currently sitting, waiting for our flight. Only 15 hours until we are in Rome, yippee!!!  We will be connecting in Amsterdam. I might have time to post there (5 hour layover) otherwise see you all in Rome!! 🙂

Thank you all for sticking with us through our exciting trip!! We’ve been back for a little over a month now and are getting ready for the holidays! I’ve finally started feeling better, back to my old energy. I had no idea pneumonia could take so much out of you! It’s a shame our trip ended the way it did, but the experience was worth it (minus the hospital stint)!

Ryder is now consulting full time, while I’ve been employed with a company in San Luis Obispo. We are ready to move down there after the holidays and will spend the next few weeks enjoying family, friends, and hopefully a little snow 🙂

We wish you all a happy and healthy end to 2012 and a fresh new beginning in 2013!!

Yesterday we met Giancarlo, the mask maker, back at his shop to follow him to the post office to mail our mask. We also brought other souvenirs with us to mail home when we met Giancarlo, and he was so generous to find us boxes in his shop and use his packaging supplies to help us pack our other “to mail” items. During the process, he filled us in on some disturbing facts about Venice and the mafia. He told us that local italians never pays for the tickets to take the water buses around Venice because they are 7 euro for one hour of travel, an astronomical price when you consider that to use the subway in Paris, France, it’s 1 euro per ticket destination. He explained that this huge hike in prices is due to the mafia controlling the transportation in Venice. He also said the gondolas are mandated by the government to be 80 euro for 40 minutes, but because the gondoliers are in the mafai’s pocket, they charge tourists anywhere from 80 euro to 140 euro for sometimes less than half an hour! We couldn’t believe it. After Giancarlo took us to the post office and helped us mail all of our purchases, we treated him to some cappuccinos and said goodbye.

We walked back to our hotel, packed up, and took the water bus back to the train station, passing under the Rialto Bridge on our way. We didn’t bother actually walking on the bridge because the Ponte Vecchio is way cooler. Our train ride was 2 hours to Verona and pretty relaxing.

When we reached Verona, we caught a bus from the train station to a different train station closer to where our room was that we were renting on airbnb.com. Our host picked us up from the bus stop and dropped us off at the small flat. It was very nice and clean if a bit small. We hung out in the flat, then walked 10 minutes from the flat into the city center to find some dinner. Feeling nice and full after, we followed the crowds to a famous square in Verona called the Piazza dei Signori. We wandered among the shops still open and passed by the statue of Dante. Next, we found an alley way that looked like a very sad attempt at Bubblegum Alley in San Luis Obispo. The alley way was chock full of graffiti and led us to the famous Romeo and Juliet balcony!

The balcony was very pretty, connected to the House of Juliet and set in a small courtyard with a bronze statue of Juliet. Apparently, if you touch Juliet’s right breast, you will receive a new lover. There was quite a queue of young men waiting for their turn to touch the statue’s boob. Go figure. According to the English panel below the balcony, the building once belonged to a very promenant and wealthy Italian family called Cappello (This family is believed to be Shakespeare’s Capulet). There is also apparently a “tomb” of Juliet below the building.

We left the poor statue and headed back over the river to our flat, purchasing some groceries along the way. When we arrived back, we noticed a very strong rotten egg smell in the apartment that reminded me very strongly of propane or natural gas. Ryder couldn’t smell it very well because his sniffer is broken, but we contacted the owner who said he would look at it in the morning. We couldn’t leave the windows open because we were directly above a major (and loud) street. With the windows closed, we both started feeling sick, dizzy, and experienced headaches. Eek! Ryder tried turning off the gas valves, but the feelings and smell persisted. Finally we called airbnb and told them the situtation, and called the owner to get him to come over to fix it. Well he finally showed up at around 11pm and explained that some electrical things were done two days ago and must have stopped the heater from turning on properly. He apparently “fixed” it, but we still didn’t feel comfortable at all sleeping somewhere with gas problems. We told him we’d rather leave and he showed us the door.

Now its 11pm and we walk back toward the bus stop only to discover that the busses are no longer running this late. The owner of the flat meets us farther down the street and tells us his wife wants us to stay at their house in their extra room. She was mad at him for just kicking us out onto the street so late. We graciously declined the offer, deciding to try to catch a night train to Rome instead. We finally managed to hail a cab and were taken back to the train station. On the way, I caught quite a few glimpses of street walkers about their business. Talk about the city of love. Once at the station, we tried to reserve tickets for a night train, but couldn’t manage to get any sleeper beds within the same compartment. So, we instead booked a night at a hotel near the train station, caught another taxi, and finally got into bed at 1am. Phew, what an experience.

Today, we are going to take the train (5 hours) to a small hotel located within the Cinque Terre national park. Unfortunately, there is no internet available at this hotel so we will not be posting updates until we reach a new destination on Monday (probably Rome), so expect lots of photos and stories on Monday (unless we can find an internet cafe). Until then, caio!

Today we woke up at around 9:30am and moseyed on down to the breakfast room for some cereal, eggs, and cappuccinos! The hotel has a tiny terrace off the breakfast seating area were we settled, sipping our cappuccinos and watching boats glide by on the canal below. Ryder wanted to venture off the main Venice island today to see glass blowing on the neighboring island, Murano. He went down to ask the concierge where we should go to catch a boat ride, and he told Ryder for us to be in the lobby at 11am.

Ok, 11am and we are met by an Italian guy who tells us its a five minute walk to the boat. He asks us were we are from then assumes we are following him for the next 4.5 minutes. We reach our destination; a dock in a canal running next to a hospital where the ambulance boats park (Yep, that’s right! Need an ambulance in Venice? It floats!). He says the boat will be here soon and then another Italian guy walks up who is introduced to us by Italian guy 1 as his “associate.” Hmm ok. A few minutes later, a boat pulls up and Italian guy 1 helps us in then says “Ciao!” and walks off with Italian guy 2. Now we are alone in a strange boat with a mute driver (we’ll call him Italian guy 3 just to be consistent) who backs up, heads out of the canal, and into open water outside of the Venice island. I have a momentary flash of, “Oh great, we are so getting sold into slavery,” then I realize its Venice and it helped that the boat seemed to be headed directly towards the neighboring island. I know mom, I know, don’t get into boats with strangers. I really wasn’t that worried, I have Ryder to protect me 🙂

The boat ride out was pretty awesome. It looks as though the waterways are marked off by large pylons spaced every 10 feet or so, creating a sort of “boat freeway” between the islands. We passed a few private boats, taxis, shuttles in the distance, and an entire island turned into a cemetery. Finally, we pulled up along side the island of Murano. We were dropped off by Italian guy 3 at private dock a bit down the outside of the island.

Another Italian guy (You guessed it, Italian guy 4) met us at the dock and ushered us into a glass blowing studio! Three men (who we found out later were brothers) were working together to create a glass chandelier; what this particular shop is known for. The glass blower (gaffer) used a long metal rod (about 4 feet) to pick up a portion of the liquid glass (called a gather), then would use gravity, rolling, and some blowing (parison) into the metal rod to get the desired shape (marvering). At one point, he used metal tongs to pinch the bottom of the hot glass, then twisted the rod to get a spiral effect. It was really neat to watch.

According to Boise State University, the art of glass blowing was discovered along the Phoenician coast in 20 B.C. This new technique changed the use of glass from jewelry and ornaments to necessities and is still done in basically the same way today. Constantinople provided the center of glass working after the decline of Rome, while Venice rose as the glass working center after the Dark Ages. Venetian glass was also known as cristallo because it resembled rock crystal. Today, the good stuff is dubbed Murano glass.

After an allocated number of minutes, a smartly dressed salesman lead us out of the studio and into a show room where we discovered 6 rooms full of plates, cups, bowls, vases, glasses, pieces of art, and anything else you can think of all made from glass! We walked around a bit then headed out into the heart of the island. After venturing into a few shops and purchasing some gifts, we ran into two gentlemen we had met on the train from Florence to Venice, Doug and Frazier from Victoria, Canada. It was so great to run into them again! We decided to have lunch together and had the best time! After a couple of hours we parted ways and headed back to the main island. We took the local transportation this time 🙂

Back in Venice, and making our way back to our hotel, we stumbled across a shop selling Venetian masks. This is actually quite common in Venice, lots and LOTS of stores sells masks, but what was unique about this particular shop was we could see a woman in the window actually making one of the masks! Well, my artistic curiosity was piqued so we walked into the shop. The owner greeted us at the door, showing us the two different types of masks him and his wife (the woman working on the mask) make. They had a few ceramic masks, the rest were made by hand out of paper-màché from molds they had made themselves. The masks were then hand painted and decorated. Their shop was full of beautiful designs and unique masks. We purchased one, had some fun working with the owner to figure out packaging, then said goodbye, planning to meet up with him to go to the post office tomorrow to mail our mask and some other things.

Back on the street, and again making our way back to our hotel, we were talked into a gondola ride by a very persistent gondola oarsman dude guy… what do we call him? Anyway, we got into the gondola and set off! It was quite a neat experience to see Venice from the canals. We drifted under bridges and around other gondolas, waving at fellow tourists who floated by. Our gondola oarsman dude guy was very talkative and in English with a smattering of Italian (maybe it was the other way around) pointed out the water marks along the canal where the water line had risen high enough to flood the first floor! After a bit of confusion we realized he was telling us that in November and December it is very common for the water level to rise higher than the first floor of most of the buildings in Venice during high tide, then wash back out during low tide. At almost every building he would say, “Lady, excuse, lady, lady look, see…” He also explained a bit about gondolas, showing us how the boat tips a bit to the right making it slice through the water and easier for him to maneuver. All in all, it was a very interesting and entertaining ride through the watery “streets” of Venice 🙂

After the gondola, we FINALLY made it back to the hotel to drop off our purchases, then we headed back out into the city for dinner. We ate at a small corner restaurant, grabbed some gelato, and walked back to the Piazza San Marco to enjoy the live classical music wafting across the square played by three small orchestras set at intervals along the piazza. Tomorrow we leave magical Venice for Verona!

P.S. According to Wikipedia (cringe), a gondola dude is called a gondolier 🙂