Italy Day 2 - Venezia/Bologna

Today was a full day from Padova to Venezia to Bologna.  

St. Anthony's cathedral outside our hotel in Padova. Padova is the city of four withouts: A saint without a name (They usually just refer to Saint Anthony as “The Saint”), a field without grass (the town square is named “Field of the Valley”, but has no grass), a cafe' without doors (it's always open), and a tourist without a clue (my dad).  

Good tram system.  

Buying the tickets to Venice.  

Waiting for our train at the station in Padova

Our first photo of Venice!! This was the bridge right outside the train station. As soon as you arrive in Venice you get a feel for the whole city with the grand canal right there in front of you. 

Mom makes us eat healthy. If it were up to me we would stick to a diet of only pizza and gelato.  

Unfortunately Venice is such a hot tourist destination that it's hard to take a timer photo without anyone walking by.  

In Hangzhou there is an "experimental district" that imitates Venice. It's actually really nice, but there clock tower is only about half this size, and they don't have any churches. 

At the pizzeria in Padova a guy told me I look like Bruce Lee, so I decided to practice a few of my moves on dad.

Unfortunately the old man has a few moves of his own (cheap groin shot)

Ponte Rialto

Using the rudder to steer the boat.  

We spent a little longer in Venice so we decided to break up the trip to Florence by spending the night in Bologna. Good decision. We stayed in a monastery that Napoleon Bonaparte turned into a prison, and then became college dorms.

Piazza Maggiore in the middle of Bologna

Eating on a street restaurant. The prices were good, but unfortunately the food was disappointing. When you're in Italy you start to have high expectations for everything you eat. 

An old Fiat 500. 

A full day to be followed by another full day tomorrow! : D

  

Italy Day 1 - Milano/Padova

Dad got home Saturday evening and we still weren't sure where to go on vacation. Mom took a nap after packing for Panama only to wake up and find out we were headed to Milan! It was funny how long it took us to realize that going to Italy would be the best trip possible. Great food, great sites, great people.

Before flying to Milan, we went down to Houston for my cousin Kayli's birthday party. Glenn picked us up at the airport, we had a fun party (I beat my sister at an Xbox dancing game – doubling her score – but then got beat by my cousin Bethany).  

Made it to Milano, fashion capital of the world. Mom and I immediately started modeling for photos.  

My old companion and close friend Matthew (pronouced: Mattew) came to meet up with us. We had some great pizza and a fun time catching up. My mom asked why we took the trip to Napoli last year when all pizza in Italy is so tasty.  

Milan isn't much of a tourist city, but does have the beautiful Duomo. For me, Italy's Rome and Milan are like China's Beijing and Shanghai. Milan is very business-oriented just like Shanghai.  

“NON LICE”

Victor Reyes, my former Zone Leader in Sicily lives in Milan and was able to meet up to explore a little and get some ice cream. He was my Zone Leader when I was serving with Anziano Destefanis so it was especially fun to have the three of us back together. We just wish that Anziano Acerson could have made it too.  

The Duomo is the fourth largest church in Europe.  

On the tram. 

Getting our first gelato this trip : D

An Arch that Napoleon had built. 

Stopping for a drink

Dragging the suitcases around felt like we were having a transfer day or something. Haha.  

We got passed by a massive group of teenage girls. 

Victor and I had to hold Matthew back from chasing after them.  

Pizza for lunch, Pizza for dinner. Day = Success.  

I LOVE TO SAIL!

Okay, so I've recently read the book The four-hour workweek, which is an amazing book that I highly recommend reading. One of the things you do is write down a list of things you would want to do in the next 6 months if you had unlimited free time and a million dollars. One thing I wrote down was to go sailing, and I realized that was something I really wanted to try doing. 

So I looked it up and found this Boat and Yacht club that was having an open day where anyone could go try sailing for free! So awesome! : D 

I went with Liz and Mike Saylor from my branch. Unfortunately Mike was feeling pretty sick at first so Liz and I just went out with this awesome kid named Garrett. 

He's 17 but he's been living in China for the last 11 years!

Sailing is AMAZING! I couldn't believe how much I loved it. It was especially fun when I got to take over and I realized that it really wan't that easy. haha. When the wind starts to pick up you can really get some speed and tip the boat! haha. 

I was also so happy to finally understand how it works! I just didn't get it before. 

Sailing is officially my favorite way to get around on the water. You don't have the noise of an engine, and you don't get so tired like when you have to paddle. It's the best!

I also learned that you can get a decent used sailboat for just $500! It's totally not that expensive to get into. 

After we got done sailing there was too much wind to go out again (bummer). But there was a scavenger hunt that the club had set up for the participants that day (about 60). 

The scavenger hunt seemed really tedious at first (How many steps on the rainbow bridge: 80, How many cables holding up the flagpole at the end of the campsite: 8, how many levels on the white pagodas in the boat yard: 20), but it actually ended up being super fun (How it was so fun: good company).

Mike on the rainbow bridge

In the end we got 17 of the 20 questions right!! The closest anyone else got to us was 6. 

IN other words, we dominated. 

They were only planning on one winner, so they had to track down 3 shirts!!

New Love: Sailing. Another love: Free t-shirts. 

I was so happy! What an incredibly perfect day. : )

Hangzhou Hike!

Last week I finally went on a hike behind the west lake. What was supposed to take just a couple hours took up most of the day, but we had a fun time and made new friends.

Popular hikes in China --- always a paved trail. haha. 

Florian and I decided to forge our own trail. It turns out that avoiding all the switchbacks saves some serious time, and we ended up really far ahead of the group (giving us a nice chance to rest).

At first I took a photo of these guys as a joke, but then I decided to join them! : D

It was a fun hike! At the top there was a buddhist temple, and ice cream! I decided to save my money on the temple entrance fee and buy ice cream instead. haha. (the temple didn't look that cool, whereas the ice cream was very cool. ha)