You said it's your birthday

And because my mom wanted to see more of Mike's yard...

paging Don Johnson

confession: I over-research trips. I like to have a mental map of the area and a good idea where I could either find amusement or at least a good meal. One of the many details I learned about Italy prior to our arrival was that Italians are fashion forward.

If this is true, then here are the two big trends about to make their way stateside:
1. the Italian landlady look. A housedress. And a perm. And oversized eyeglasses. Even practical when mowing the lawn.
2. Miami Vice. First noticed in the aeroporto and reiterated at the pirateship bar (I mean the restaurant where we got pizza and soda). That's right - pull out your pastels, pop your collars, and turn up the Tears for Fears.

Who knew?

Not even worth the blog it's posted on...

We were supposed to hike the Alps today. They are like 6 minutes away. It was so overcast and rainy we would not be able to see 2 feet in front of us.
Score: Weather - 1, Alice and Chris - 0

This is a video from Mike's porch so you can see how close the mountains are. It looks more or less like a wall of dark gray, but there they were...all day...taunting us with the nearness...wanting us to hike them, yet remaining so unavailable to us.

I can't believe that I'm sharin a kebab with the most beautiful girl I have ever seen with a kebab.

I know. You have to see it to believe it. A beautiful town like Sacile, Italy and an evening at a pirateship bar! Enjoy the pics!








oh wait. No pics. :(
In our attempt at minimalist packing, we (*cough cough* Chris) have forgotten our USB cord that connects are camera to our computer. See part of the problem is that we just got a fancy new video camera, as evidenced by all of the fantastic and Oscar-worthy videos you have been privileged with below. This camera has a USB doohickey built into the side. No need to remember cords, because you push in a button, and a USB arm pops out. Much like a Transformer. Only instead of a gun, or a sword, or a real arm, its a USB plug. Our other camera does not have such a device on it. And no matter how many buttons we pushed, knobs we turned, or promises of the Allspark we whispered gently into its ears (because, as we know, cameras do have ears), we could not get it to transform into a camera with a built in USB arm.

The lack of pictures will soon be remedied and you too can enjoy the sights of Sacile (pronounced 'sah chEElay' -- http://www.comune.sacile.pn.it/).

While there, we enjoyed doner kebab. Not to be confused with Donner kebabs, or Dahmer kebabs...I'm sure those things are very different (at least I would hope). You see, a doner kebab is a traditional Italian...err I mean Turkish (because when I think of Italy I think of all the great Turkish food that can be had here...?) food that is kind of like a gyro with shaved meat. It was pretty delicious and followed by, surprisingly, gelatos. Very soon after said gelatos, Chris placed a sort of gelato embargo on the next few days of our trip. For some (boys, perhaps, who are made of things other than sugar, spice, and those other silly ingredients), 3 gelatos in 3 days is too many (to which Alice replies that I have to eat snails in Paris, followed by a trip to Korea for some puppy dog tails, since that is what little boys are made of).

Tonight for dinner we went to pirateship bar. It may not have been an actual pirateship, it could have been any kind of ship really, but isn't it more fun to think it was a pirate ship? Not only could have we been enjoying a nice dinner, but there was also the chance of finding buried treasure.
Now, when we say pirateship bar, you might be picturing a boat. Well you are kind of right. It's more like half a boat. Inside a building. With a seaside mural on the walls. And instead of pirates there are Italians. Lots of Italians. See, the more we think about it, this is sounding less and less like a pirateship bar after all.
Let me rephrase what I just wrote. "Tonight we went out for dinner. In a restauraunt. And we got pizza and soda."
Much better.

Ciao

5 points to whoever gets the reference in the title of the post. Points will be redeemable at a later date for nothing at all.

Better late than never

Jeanine,

4400- Season 3, Episode 1

you're welcome.

xoxo
Chris.

We both found what we were looking for

2 evenings in Italy and 2 gelatos. So far this vacation is great.

Tara, we hope you are feeling better.



Oh yeah, and happy birthday Paul...not that Tara's swine flu is overshadowing your birthday :-)

Summer Basho

Mike came home from Germany today and, since one of the guys on his base was leaving, we went to a bbq with his EOD people. And there were sumo suits.
Below is Chris and Mike sumo-ing...warning, if there are small children in the room, turn the volume down.

Alice is falling asleep.

It is a strange thing indeed that the portion of our journey that has felt the longest at this point was the ride to JFK from Jefferson. a 64 mile ride took well over 3 hours (and we got rear-ended on the way) and we were fairly nervous about missing our plane, but John and Megan got us there safely and since our entire plane crew was stuck in traffic, there was really nothing to worry about. A 7+hour ride to Heathrow and 2 hour ride to Venice (plus 1 car ride, thanks to Ben Lee) and we are safe at Mike's house playing with his dog and doing everything possible to stay up until 9 pm.

This is a video Chris took during our flight


And this is a video of Max and Mike's house.

How to tell my dog I won't see her for 7 weeks...

Okay, utterly pathetic, I know, but I swear Portia gets better behaved any time Chris and I prepare to go anywhere. She gets more cuddly. She listens better. Heck, I think she even smells better (though admittedly, I believe that has more to do with her oatmeal shampoo than my future departure). And slowly, despite knowing that most of the time, she prefers my dad/mom to just about anyone in the world, I feel guilty about leaving her.
But not guilty enough...
We leave for Venice this Wednesday. We have not even done laundry (so forget about us having packing drills like some people I know -- *cough cough* Sara). I know very little Italian (poco parle italiano), but we're excited. Especially about Switzerland thanks for Uncle Frank.
-Alice

Czeching Out

Okay. We were supposed to go to Prague. I was especially excited about visiting the Franz Kafka museum. But, lo and behold, the train ride from the Czech Republic to Switzerland (which was in fact our next stop) is something like 15 hours. 15 hours on a train...is 15 hours too many when we only have so much time to see the world. We are already doing a great many hours on the trains, which is exciting, but 15 hours... We would have to leave Prague (which is a notoriously scary city) at 4am to get to the train. Instead, we are going to take Uncle Frank's advice and will be hiking the Alps in Interlaken.
We think...

Since we won't be going to the Franz Kafka museum, please enjoy some selections from the Franz Kafka Rock Opera.

Half the hotels...

Chris and I have successfully booked most of the hotels. And by most, I mean 2 out of 5 countries...
this is oddly not too bad for us.

Real Blog Coming Soon!

While we get everything settled for our trip, please enjoy this video of Megan's weird cat.