Italia

MILAN Dan and I got to bum along on my parents Italy trip. They have been planning it since before Dan and I got married. Unfortunately our wedding delayed their trip, or maybe it's better to say fortunately because 4 years later we got to tag along on the action. We flew to Milan and got to see the Duomo! What an amazing church! We got to walk all over the roof too!
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

was really good except for when he fell and hit his head at the Bargello. He screamed for about 5 minutes and then once he was calmed down he was just fine. In the Bargello there was Donatello's David (he's wearing a hat and sandles) and SO MANY cool things in the Uffizi. It was a rush seeing so many awesome paintings.
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!