PADOVA So next we went to Padova where Vinson got to chase pigeons: see previous blog. We went to St. Anthony's church and because Vinson is so cute we got a personal tour with one of the nuns. They have on display his tongue, vocal cords, and jawbone. Kind of interesting :)
VENICE The morning we went to Venice my contact ripped in half. Thank goodness I brought my glasses! With them I got to at least see everything, but they're insanely crooked so I look normal in pictures only if I crook my head. We had a tour of Venice by a slow boat. It was as cool as I had thought, only different. We went to St. Marks square. This is where the pigeons are insane! They recognize the bags you can buy of birdseed and swarm you before it's even opened. Vinson enjoyed it but I think he was a little bit frightened. 
Then we went to the island where they make glass and got to see the glass masters at their work. You have to work with glass for 30 years to be a master! Crazy! After seeing the glass we got lost in Venice, probably one of the best things you can do there, unless you have to go to the bathroom. I think there are only 2 bathrooms in Venice, and if you ask for directions and they don't know they lie to you. We eventually found the bathroom, and paid the 2 euro charge :(
Afterwards we went back to Padua and ate the best pizza ever. It had lots of green olives on it! YUM!
RAVENA Dad went on his mission to Italy, and still speaks well! While he was on his mission he saw some mosaics in Ravena and always wanted to go back and see them again. After checking into our hostel we headed out and got to see two of the 7 mosaics. Fortunately the second one we went to was my dad's favorite from his mission and he was able to buy a book that had good pictures in it. I got my horribly crooked glasses fixed and wasn't so self conscious about taking off my glasses for pictures anymore.
FLORENCE We took a train to Florence and got there in time to check in and then we had a reservation to go to a museum. We went to the Accadamia and saw Michaelangelo's David - he was naked. Here Dan's showing his relief we made it through our first museum.
The next morning we had two museums in a row, the Bargello and the Uffizi.
Incredibly Vinson
These are the Baptistry doors for the Duomo in Florence.
After Our museums we decided to take a hike to see a veiw of the city. We ended up getting slightly lost, but got a good feel for Tuscany. It was GEORGEOUS! 
And we were able to use it as an excuse to see some of the Czech Republic that we hadn't had a chance to see yet. We went to Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) which is a spa town. It actually reminded me a lot of Park City, but cooler :) The coolest part was that they were having a folk dance festival while we were there so we got to see a lot of kroj (traditional folk costumes) from all over the world. Here's a video of the Slovak Folk Dance team. It so made me want to join a folk dance group, here. We'll just have to country dance in our living room more often.
