Europe Trip - Day 11

Day 11 - Dardago, Italy

Isn't it pretty??

The little village by the lake

This was like a life size kind of chess set. I thought it was awesome!

If you can see dad's banana split there... the bowl is in the shape of a swan.

Doesn't that just look delicious?? And it was

Gelato time!

Funny little statue that was in Barcis

Today was very chill... We woke up... just as early as usual (UGH) and went to church. It was an English speaking ward which was nice cuz I was afraid it was going to be an Italian ward and I wouldn't know what was being said. :) We only went to sacrament and then headed out. We rewarded for going to church by going out and getting gelato afterwards. ha! I wanted to go home to change before we went on a drive, so we went back to the house. We were there for a bit while everyone changed to go, but we decided to grab some lunch first. We went to this little restaurant called "De Genio". Good stuff. What I've learned while in Italy is that they order differently. It's interesting. Usually everyone starts with an appetizer... then they have the first dish, which is a pasta of some sort... then they have a second dish, which is a meat... and then they have their side dishes... then desserts. It's a lot of food. I've only been ordering one of the dishes because I can't eat an appetizer, two different dishes and a side dish. That's a lot of food. :) Once we were stuffed, we went back to the house again. Now it was nap time. I haven't had nap time in... months!! Dad and Don went and took a nap. I tried posting those other blogs real quick and helped Carrie with her cat Tiger. He hasn't been feeling well... and she's worried about him. We were trying to give him some medicine and such. After all that... I finally took a nap. It was like an hour, but of course it didn't seem long enough. They came and woke me up because they were ready to go on the drive. I pulled myself out of bed and we were off. It was a really pretty drive. The village we drove to was called Barcis. It's right next to a lake... and was so pretty. We walked around for a second... and lo and behold... there was another gelato place. Once again... we had gelato. Twice in one day... I must have been a good girl. :) HA! The gelato here wasn't just scoops... they had some fancy stuff you could order with fruits and everything. So we sat down and enjoyed our gelato. Afterwards we walked back to the car and drove home. That's pretty much my day today. Pretty laid back... and not running around like crazy for once. I played on the internet for a bit. Tried getting on video chat with my siblings, but the connection wasn't very good or something... and it was just a big pain... so I got off anyway because it was getting late and I still had to repack all my, newly washed, clothes and go to bed. We have to get an early start in the morning to head to Nice, France. It's going to be about an 8 hour drive. No way I'm going to be able to stay awake during this drive. :) Well I'm off like a prom dress (that one was for Brian). HA! Peace out... A town!

P.S. So I was working on my blog... heard a noise... and saw this crawling along the floor. Look at this thing! It's creepy. I've never seen a scorpion in person. I had my mom come and help me get rid of it. HA!

Europe Trip - Day 10

Day 10 - Venice, Italy

The canals here are really cool.

Who wants a gondola ride???

Racing down the streets of Venice

Ah... Venezia (Venice)

They have the coolest masks here... but they all remind me of "Eyes Wide Shut"... if you've seen that weird movie.


This is our "taxi" to Murano.


Italy.... WOOHOO!!


Going through the canals on the way to Murano to watch the glass blowing


Heating up the glass in the furnace.


Shaping the glass with these oversized tweezer looking things.

He made a flower vase first... and when they're done shaping it... they put a piece of paper up to it and it starts a fire. They're showing how hot the glass still is... and not to touch it!


Check out this glass horse... it was cool to watch him make it.

This is one of the "buses" that we had to ride in.

Cute little pizzeria that we ate at to get out of the heat.

Ah... this was so much fun!

They kept landing on mom too cuz she was holding the extra pack of crackers. :)

Looking out from the Rialto bridge.

Must be laundry day :)

Ah... I love it.

This place was so beautiful. I loved it. That cave looking thing is where the water first comes out of the ground from the mountains.

At dinner with my surprise cake. :)

I’m going to type this up tonight, but I’m so tired of dealing with slow Internet connections to actually put the other blogs up… I’m gonna post this tomorrow while I have lots of free time. ☺ Today was Venice day. Don took us to the train station… because Venice is about an hour train ride from here. He dropped us off and were stood on one platform and started second guessing ourselves about if we were on the right train… as usual. ☺ We thought we should be on the one next to us so we switched and jumped on that one. It wasn’t the one we were supposed to be on, but it wasn’t a big deal because that train went to Venice too. It just made more stops so it ended up taking us an extra 30 minutes to get out there. Once we got there…. We tried to hurry over to Saint Marcos square because that’s where Don told us we could get a ride over to Murano. We wanted to watch how the glass stuff was blown. The city does a promo thing to get tourist to go to the island to check out the glass blowing (and to hopefully buy something), so they with transport you there on a “taxi” for free, BUT you have to catch one of the “buses” to get back. That’s where they get you. They’ll take you out there for free, but then they make you pay for your way back. ☺ So we found the spot and they took us to the island. When we got there they showed us back to the area that they do the work. Apparently they don’t “work” on Saturdays, but they will do demonstrations for you. So the workers weren’t doing their normal work, but they did have a guy come show us what they do. It’s actually pretty cool to watch. They are very good at it… and they say that they start learning how to do it at a young age. After the demo… they take you to… what I guess would be a show room. Just different rooms with the stuff that they’ve made and hope you will buy. It was pretty cool stuff. Mom found a vase she liked, but they were asking for a lot of money for it, so she wasn’t going to get it, but the guy kept trying to haggle with dad for it. Finally mom wandered off and had me go back in to tell dad that she said no. ☺ That’s we avoid confrontation in our home. HA! We finally got out there and headed for the “buses”. They leave about every 10 minutes, so we had to wait. When it finally came, we boarded and headed back to Venice. We were told by the guy on land that you pay for the bus when you get on it, but there wasn’t anyone to take money… and we didn’t know who to ask… so we accidentally were stowaways I guess. ☺ Oh well. Once we got back to Venice… we had been so tired and thirsty so we went to find somewhere to eat. It was a HOT, humid day… so I was kinda awnery too. I felt bad once I had gotten out of the heat and got a bit of water in me. We ate at this little pizzeria we found just off Saint Marco’s Square. Then we grabbed some gelato (yummy) and headed to the middle of the square so I could feed the pigeons. ☺ I was pretty excited to do that. They used to have people who sold bird food in the square, but weirdly enough I guess they don’t anymore… or they didn’t today at least. So we had stolen some crackers from the pizzeria just so I could feed the birds. I enjoyed it. It was really fun for me. By that time we had to hurry back to the train station to catch our train back. So we rushed back as fast as we could… but still managing to probably take the long way… and left. Don was there to pick us up and he drove us back. Along the way he gave us a bit of a tour of a couple cool places… including a gorgeous spot where the water comes out from under the ground from the mountains for the first time. I loved this place. It was so pretty. We went back to the house to grab Carrie and go to dinner. Don and Carrie took us out for a graduation dinner for me. They’re so sweet. I love them to death. They took us to this really good Italian restaurant called Le Masiere… and even managed to surprise me with a Black Forrest Chocolate cake. We just kinda sat around and talked… then finally headed back to the house. Everyone was a bit tired, so we chatted on the webcam with some family for a bit… then slowly everyone meandered off to bed… which is what I really need to be doing right now… so au revoir!

Europe Trip - Day 9

Day 9 - Italy

All packed and ready to go! I had to get a picture on this cool tree before we left. There are just tons of random castles in Europe... they're everywhere. So many tunnels on this drive If there weren't tunnels... We saw a lot of mountains... beautiful ones too. What I could get of Don and Carrie Gambles home. The streets are small... and I was up against the neighbors fence getting this pic.

Don's Chique Cento. This is the coolest little car. :) ha

Carrie's car
Don's pickup... HA
When I first got here... this is how the puppies were. It was cute.

This is Digger

Meet Murphy

The view from the balcony in the room I'm sleeping in.

They came with us to dinner... and were so tuckered out by the end. :)

The Internet here is being picky… so I had gotten one blog posted and decided it wasn’t worth trying to mess with tonight… so this will be posted later on. Today was another day of mostly driving. We woke up and got ready… then me and mom went out to find a grocery store. We weren’t about to leave this area without trying to grab some Milch Reis. It’s a Bolivarian thing. It’s kind of like a rice pudding, but oh so much better!!! You can get a pretend kind in the states, but it’s just not the same. ☺ By the time we got that and headed back to the hotel… we needed to hurry and check out. So we packed all of our stuff real quick and headed out. Today we head to Italy. We’re staying with my dad’s friend Don Gamble and his wife Carrie. They live in Durango, Italy. Cool little place. It took us till about 4 to get here. We drove though a bunch of mountains on the way here. Most of the mountain roads between Austria and Italy go through tunnels. There are lots of tunnels. We kept loosing the signal on the GPS system, which was fine since there weren’t any turn offs or anything we needed to worry about. When we finally got here Don was very happy to see us and showed us around their house. They’re pretty much remodeling the entire thing so he was trying to show us all the new parts they’ve been working on. After the tour… we were talking… and I found their puppies. OH SO CUTE!!! They have two puppies that are about 3 months old, Digger and Murphy. They are adorable and I’ve been playing with them a lot. They also have a cat named Tiger. He’s a very loving cat. He has two colors of eyes too… it’s kinda weird. Anyway… we just kind of chilled around the house till it was time for dinner. Mom read some book on China and Russia she found… and Don taught Don how to play backgammon. I played with the puppies and wandered around. We finally walked to the city center… which is like 2 minutes away… to eat at a pizzeria. Of course you have to have pizza when you come to Italy. It’s a must! It was delicious. After dinner was over… it was kind of late… so we walked back and have just been doing… whatever we needed to do. Sorry this one is so short. I finally got the internet to work, but it’s being a pain… so I’ll deal with it tomorrow. I need to shower and get to bed because we have to get up tomorrow to head out to Venice for the day. So I’ll let you know how that goes. Bye Bye!!

Europe Trip - Day 8

Day 8 - Sound of Music/Kahlstein Haus

Morning market in Salzburg

The bus we had our tour in... just a little flashy...





The lake... and back of house... that they used in the movie


I am sixteen going on seventeen!!!!

Best shot I could get of the Noonburg Abbey

Fortress on the hill... cool huh

This was one of the cool lakes we saw on our way to Mondsee. Gorgeous!


The inside of the church where Maria walked down the aisle and got married

The stairs in the Do-Re-Mi song


Doe... a deer... a female deer

Ray... a drop of golden sun

Me... a name... I call myself

Far... a long long way to run

Sew... a needle pulling thread

La... a note to follow so.... Tea... a drink with jam and bread.... That will bring us back to DOE!!!


This is my new steed. Giddy up horsey (In Dawson's voice... for those who know. HA)!

This is my new Edelweiss necklace


To get to the Kehlstein Haus... you go in that tunnel... walk to the end... and go up an elevator to the top... you can kind of see the house at the top.

The Kehlstein Haus


The hills are alive… with the sound of music. Or at least they were today. ☺ Had to wake up at get ready for our Sound of Music tour this morning by 9. Someone came to the hotel to pick us up and take us to where the tour bus started… which was only like 2 or 3 blocks down the road. Man we’re lazy. ☺ As soon as we got there, we were all put on the bus and off we were. Our tour guide today was Peter and the bus driver’s name was Manfred. Peter was really funny. He sounded a lot like that actor Jon Lovitz. He was pretty entertaining to listen to… AND he hardly had any accent. It was nice. He was easy to understand. He was usually doing funny remarks during his dialogue. I enjoyed it. We were all over Salzburg looking at the different places they used to film the movie. Things that were weren’t allowed to go up to… we just kinda drove by. It was pretty cool though. If you’re a fan of the movie like me… it was interesting to learn some things about what happened during the filming of the movie. For example, the part where Maria and the kids fall off the boat into the lake… they had to do it two times. The first time… Maria (Julia Andrews) grabbed Gretl when they fell off the boat, but the second time they did it… she didn’t grab her and Gretl went under. They pulled her out just in time and she was ok after she coughed up water. After we saw everything in Salzburg… it was off to Mondsee, which is where the church scene was done, but it’s not in Salzburg. You have to drive through the mountains to get to it, but we saw such beautiful scenery it was well worth it. It was so green and there were some gorgeous lakes along the way. When we got there we had about 45 minutes to do what we wanted. So we went inside the church to have a look at where the scene took place. Then we walked across the street to have some apple strudel for lunch…mmmmm good. Wasn’t the most nutritious lunch, but it tasted yummy. Mom and I went and looked in a souvenir shop while dad just chilled where we had eaten. While in there mom found a new breadbasket type thing… and I found a necklace I really liked that was in the shape of the Edelweiss flower. That would now be my second souvenir for myself on this trip. ☺ I’m getting better at finding things for me. We then headed back to the bus and left Mondsee. That was the end of the tour. When we got back dad went back to the hotel room while me and mom walked around and took pictures of the Mirabell Gardens, which is where most of the “Do-Re-Mi” song was filmed. Now that you've seen the pictures.... you'll have to go watch the movie again to see where they are in the movie. :) We went back and chilled in the room for about a half hour and then headed out to Berchtesgaden, Germany. It’s only about a 20 minutes drive away. We went to go see the Kehlstein Haus or the Eagle’s Nest. It was Hitler’s vacation house that was on top of a mountain. Beautiful scenery, evil man. Can’t believe he had something so nice. Blah. We only had a short while there because we had left so late to go and we had to catch the last bus up… and the last one coming back down. After that, we hurried back to Salzburg because we though it’d be fun to try and catch a marionette show but we were too late. The last one had started at 5. So we grabbed some dinner by Mozart’s birth house, hit a souvenir shop, and headed back to the hotel for the night. Wish I had Internet right now… I have withdrawals when it’s not available to me. Guess I’ll hit the hay early. Adios!