Venice VIII

Santa Maria Della Salute - This church was built the thank Mary for sparing the lives of 1 in 3 Ventians during the Plague

High water

The sun does shine in Venice!

Kurt on the downside of Accademia

Venice VII

The Accademia Bridge - we crossed this numerous times a day

The canal in front of our hotel from our balcony

A detail on a building

Another detail

The Grand Canal

Venice VI

Above the door way that goes to the Doge's palace. Perhaps, a Doge kneel before the lion - symbol of Venice and St Mark
A rainy afternoon on the Piazza San Marco

The horses that stand on St Marco. These are the originals. The ones outside on the balcony are copies.

San Marco from the Piazza. The flood waters were to the tops of these chairs the day we left.

A view of the horses looking toward the clock tower

Venice V

WOW! This is post # 501!


The following images are of San Marco's Basilicia and the gorgeous mosaics inside

The Holy Family

St. George slaying the Dragon

Various saints and angels

Jesus - Byzantine style

Venice IV

On the balcony at San Marco

One of the many canals and bridges we crossed - constantly!

On the balcony at St Mark's. The Doge's Palace on the left, the column with the lion looking out toward the lagoon.

Prociutto at the Christmas Market.

Yummy THIN pizza. It was soo good!

Venice III

The front of the Fenice Opera House. It's really exquisite inside. Lots of guilding. No wonder it took them so long to rebuild it. I can see why it was next to impossible to fight the fire. It's in a very small, confined area. It took us almost three days to find it! It's hard to decipher maps in the rain and navigate the narrow streets or tell what direction you are going.

A view of the Doge's Palace. We toured it. We were there probably 4 hours.

The courtyard at the Doge's Palace. Notice how it was light when we started and dark (see above) by the time we came back out? The Doge's Palace is right next to/attached to San Marco Basilica.

Along the lagoon. That's another little island across the way. I believe that's San Giorgio than you can see. We didn't make it over there.

Venice II

I'm just going to post pictures. I don't have the energy for a blow by blow...plus I don't think anyone really cares :)

What's the deal with blogger not posting images in the order you upload them? Anybody? Bueller?

Our first yummy meal! Kurt's tagliatelle with swordfish, olives and eggplant.

And to think I went to photography school! Can you say "clash"? This is our comfy bed in our former palazzo hotel.

Lighting candles for safe travel at St. Stefano's

My delish vermicelli and clams

The view out our hotel room. We stayed at the Hotel American Dinesen on the Campo san Vio.

Chili

I made chili this afternoon. I taste tested a cup this afternoon. It will be fine for dinner. I'm baking peanut butter star cookies right now. I may have broken into the bag over the weekend. Still, there were plenty of stars to stick in the cookies.

Kurt and I both have low grade colds. We didn't do much over the weekend but lay around and watch movies. We rented Casino Royale so we could relate it to Quantum of Solace. Again, I say oh la la to Daniel Craig.

We also watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It was decent. It had some funny bits. I like Mila Kunis - Jackie from That 70's Show. We squeezed in White Christmas and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Not much got accomplished around here.

I got the Tales of Beedle the Bard on Friday. It was short at only 107 pages with rather large double spacing. It was cute. I think JK Rowling must have been exhausted from writing the last HP book since this one was so very short. All the $$ is going to a children's charity to I don't feel bad about spending the $ on it.

And so it begins.....

School let out an hour early today due to impending weather. Ugh. I hope they have school tomorrow.

Venice - Day 1

I have to say I really like late morning/early afternoon flights. It was very nice to not have to leave home at the crack of dawn. We flew through Minneapolis then Amsterdam to Venice. Our flights were good and on time. The Amsterdam airport is HUGE. We taxied for over 30 minutes before we got to the terminal. It was prettily decorated with Delft style ornaments. There were lots of cheeses and flower bulbs for sale. I passed.

Our flight to Venice was about another hour and a half. Flying over the Alps was gorgeous. They were all snow covered and pointy. It looked like Meringue. I was sitting on the right side of the plane so I was treated to a breathtaking view of all of Venice as we flew in. I could see the Piazza and the towers and so many churches. It got me so excited for our trip.

All of the guidebooks, websites, and my mother had said Venice was terribly expensive. That was an understatement. It's probably the most expensive place I've ever been! We took the vaperetto (water bus) to the city. It was 12 Euro each ($15.25) and took an hour and a half. It was very scenic though and really neat to approach the city that way. One of the stops was at Murano. The sun was actually shining. Everything was beautiful and sparkly. We wouldn't see that again! We could have take a faster water taxi directly to the hotel but that would have been 90 E each ($114).

It was an easy walk to our hotel the American Dinesen. It's situated on a small canal just a few blocks from the Peggy Guggenheim museum and the Accademia bridge. Our room was nice and comfortable. We had a little balcony overlooking the canal. We had a short nap.

We woke up around 5 pm. Bad news. The Italians usually don't eat dinner until 7:30 or later. Most restaurants are open from 1130-230 then close again until 7 or 730. The guy at the front desk was very helpful and recommended a great restaurant that was open. It was about a 10 minute walk. We went up and over the Accademia Bridge for the first – and nowhere near the last – time across the Grand Canal and through the Campo St Stefano. We had a bottle of white wine. Kurt had tagliatelle pasta with red sauce, swordfish, eggplant and olives and I had vermicelli with clams. The waiter complimented us on ordering Venetian food rather than eating like tourists!

It was still early so we decided to explore. Our first stop was at St. Stefano's church. It was beautiful inside with Renaissance masters art, marble and candlelight. I do love old churches. It was a 4 Star! We headed through the narrow streets and over the canals to the Piazza San Marco. it was gorgeous all light up. Plus there weren't any tourists (or pigeons) to block our view. We decided to tour it first thing in the morning. We got some gelato - delicious Italian ice cream - chocolate and something called Doge's cream. Fantastic! We decided to make our way back to the hotel.

We had read John Berendt's City of Falling Angels a few months ago so Kurt wanted to find the Fenice Opera House. It looked easy enough on the map. We wandered and wandered and asked for help and still never found it. We almost walked to the other end of the island. Venice is confusing. The guidebooks said the thing to do is to get lost. Check! We got that accomplished right away.

We managed to find our way to a cafe so Kurt had some cafe au lait and i had a pastry. It was a great way to end our first evening in Venice.

Just in Time!

We left Venice just in time. Mom emailed and told me about the flooding. We hadn't heard about it since I've pretty much been in nap mode all day. When we left Monday morning I commented on how hard it was raining and blowing. Little did we know!

Too Much Food - Just Enough Wine

Saturday night we had a party for my birthday. Rikki suggested it. She and I cooked up a storm! The theme was wine and cheese :)

I made some South Beach friendly shrimp dip. You use blended up cottage cheese instead of sour cream. It also has cream cheese, peppers and shrimp and a couple of other things. Kurt had veggies to dip in it.We also had Irish blarney cheese, goat cheese mozzarella, gouda and camenbert with crackers and french bread. We made some party ryes with parsley dill spread with ham on top. I made baked crab rangoons and scotcheroos. Brian brought chili, dried beef dip and another dip. We also had some other kind of dip I can' t remember and little smokies. There was also bacon wrapped Asparagus, and bacon cheddar puffs. Rikki was gonna make beer cheese fondue but once we got everything set out she decided against it.

I ordered filled cupcakes which was a crock of sh*t. She didn't fill them she cut them in half and put the filling on sandwich style. I was (and am) p.o.'d. Luckily Rikki made a tartufo. It was an Italian style ice cream cake. She layered Chocolate French Silk and vanilla ice cream with crushed oreos, caramel, and marshmallow cream. The whole thing was encased in chocolate ganache. It was OMG good!

We had 11 people counting us. The last guest left around 12:30 a.m. which is late for us! I shipped the leftovers to the kids and to Kurt's Thanksgiving potluck at work.I love to get out my crystal, depression glass and other pretties and entertain!

Blogger didn't put my pics in the order I wanted and we're leaving and I don't have time to fix it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

That Man has good taste!

My birthday earrings.

Gifts Galore!

Kurt got me the bestest birthday gift ever!

I also got Scene it Seinfeld, a garden rooster, an ipod holder/player thing and a party! I got money from Mom and Dad, my inlaws and Marn to take on my trip. My birthday is still 4 days away!

Quantum of Solace

daniel craig is HOT. and scrumptious! I think he is the best Bond EVER. I like that he is intense. It makes him much more interesting. It's a fun movie!

Things I find funny #2

• In attempting to rescue my strawberry frosted poptart that was sliding off my saucer I spilled milk all over the carpet

Things I find funny #1

• I just used a hotel bottle of lotion on my hands. Turns out it was voluminizing conditioner.

• Nick wants to earn Christmas $. I made a list and put "payment will be determined by quality of work". I get home to find ALL movable furniture in the kitchen and him vacuuming away!

The Skinny

Last Saturday Kurt and I went to the book sale at the library. I bought 2 diet books mainly for new recipes NOT for the diets.
Well, now Kurt is on:

yep....the South Beach Diet. So far he has lost 12# since Sunday. He's being very good about it. I'm being supportive. I'll start it when we get back from the country of carbs and pasta at the beginning of December.

Catching up

Not a lot has been happening around here but I haven't been in the mood to post. Why is it that we either have no invitations or multiple invites on a single evening?

Friday night we went to Okoboji Grill with my parents for my mom's birthday. We and the Steins gave her a Jim Shore ....sculpture? figurine? Anyway, it's the Mayflower one for Thanksgiving. We had a mix up about where we were meeting so it ended up being kind of a long affair. The food was ok (not very hot) and the service was very very slow. Of course, when only half our party was there the server was very attentive.

Saturday we were invited to a surprise birthday party. However, we had already committed to going to the CAAP - Community AIDS Assistance Program - benefit. We try to go every year. CAAP provides AIDS education and other programs as well as supports Hospice. The majority of the money goes to individual assistance for persons living with HIV and AIDS to help with medication, food, housing, and quality of life needs. Brian has been asked to apply to be a board member and he's trying to get me to apply as well.

Table deocrations - jelly bracelets, 80's movies, ring pops, pop rocks etc

The theme was "Rockin' into the 80's" so dress accordingly. Lots of people copped out with concert t-shirts. We dressed up. It was fun. I was disappointed that it didn't seem very 80's over all. The girls mostly did their regular acts. The goal was to raise $15,000. The last I heard we were at just under 14k.

Notice the tight roll jeans and the fingerless lace gloves!

Sunday was spent lounging around. Small chores were done in between naps. I really can't stay out late anymore. Add some gin and tonic to that and I was pretty much a slug all day.

YAY!!!

We're not a red state anymore!!!!!

YAY!!!!

Emotional

8:39 a.m.



I'm watching election coverage. Barack Obama is casting his vote. I find myself tearing up. Please Please please let him win.



They said his grandmother voted absentee ballot before she passed.



I'm hoping her death is a good omen - Imagine the history stories "Barack Obama's grandmother - who raised him - died the day before he was elected President of the United States of America"



Alex called last night. He wanted his dad to take him to the polls. He voted in his first election ever!



I'm off to vote! Make sure you do, too!