Buinjourno Italia! - a day late...

FYI: Darn it! Pics are loading way too slow. Kids meeting at my room in 5 min to go to beach after Venice. Sorry this post is a day late. Wifi here is not easy! I have to climb to the roof to get any and it still wont load pics! I'll load Venice update tonight or tomorrow-

So much has happened while you slept peacefully in your beds. Connor just reminded everyone that nobody has been able to lay flat in more than 24 hours and everyone agrees that they are most excited to lay in a bed, flat, that is not moving!

Our flight was fine...uneventful other than that nobody slept except Samantha who caught about 2 hrs. David dozed on and off for 15-20 min at a time and everyone else including me never slept at all. But that just means we'll sleep well tonight and wake up on Italy time.

We are traveling in a luxury bus that is very comfortable. Every one of the kids slept almost the whole way from the airport to our first stop, Verona. We were all surprised by how beautiful Verona is. There's a 'coliseum' very much like Rome's main attraction but this one is not in ruins. It's gorgeous and it's called Arena Di Verona. They have operas and plays here throughout the summer. Pavarotti has played here and I've personally seen a taping of Il Divo singing from this exquisite ancient Roman amphitheater. I recognized it as soon as we arrived. (@mom, remember the Il Divo special called Ancora? That's where we were!! I know you'll remember it!)

We walked from the arena to the small and quaint city center where Juliet's balcony is located. Naturally, Juliet is fictional but it's based on the two ruling parties of the time whose children fell in love. This is supposed to be where the real 'Juliet' met with her love. The kids loved it.

Next, we had free time so we walked all over this very affluent city window shopping and visiting an open air market in the center of town. We enjoyed our first gelato from the busiest of the gelato shops and it was all that we had imagined! Connor chose lemon, Drew had strawberry, Jessica enjoyed creme de panna cotta (quite the sophisticated palate), and Samantha and I had the richest most amazing dark chocolate! Hunter didn't want the gelato and instead had a lemon Powerade type drink and David didn't want anything. I forced everyone to either buy a water or take a long drink from the natural spring water fountain shown in the picture. I don't want them getting dehydrated, it's pretty hot and a somewhat humid here in Verona.

Jessica notices amazing details in architecture and she's already got Samantha spotting gorgeous sights, big and a small. The two of them are taking great shots of gorgeous buildings and the architecture within them.

We haven't really started mingling with the other groups yet, I think our kids are a bit shy and they are just too tired to even attempt meeting new friends yet. However, the other students and teachers are very friendly and I'm looking forward to them mixing. The Massachusetts girls are very nice and outgoing. They remind me of our Irvine kiddos but not as tan!

For the remaining 45 minutes of our free time in Verona our group unanimously chose to sit on benches in the shady park and not walk anymore. Pretty funny, right? Connr and Hunter fell totally asleep on the bench hunched over with their head on their arms resting on their knees!

We met up with our group of 49 and we are now on our way to our hotel in Venice! We'll check in, shower, change, have dinner at 8pm and finally catch up on some well deserved sleep.

Dinner is over. Not great but it's included with the hotel. They did have a GREAT salad bar with lots of antipasti grilled vegetables. Samantha, Jessica and I were content with that. Drew has eaten about 123 Cliff bars already so I'm not worried about him. Hunter seems happy to try anything and David was so sleepy I think he had no idea what he ate! Connor demolished his pasta so I know he'll sleep well too.

The hotel rooms are weird but hey, we're in Italy and tomorrow we spend the whole day in Venice proper. We also signed up for a gondola ride tomorrow and my group of wonderful travelers are excited. It's 10:00 pm here and we're going to bed. I'll try to get the kids to write tomorrow's blog post. I'm way too wordy!

Ciao!

Addendum: I couldn't get on the WFi last might so couldn't post this until morning. Sorry. Cute news of the morning is that the boys couldn't figure out their AC last night but were saved by a tiny USB fan they hooked onto their dresser.