Italy!

It's been a little while since I updated, so I thought I'd take advantage of waiting on Steve and Andrew to shower to write a bit.  We're going to the Academia to see the David statue today and there's a neat da Vinci exhibit that we may try to do and possibly Ufizi gallery as well.

Italy so far has been amazing. Venice was so cool and incredibly walkable. Steve got in Sunday evening. Sunday Andrew's third cousin, Serena , and her family came to Venice and we walked around the city with them then went to Treviso where they live (including a fountain called Fountain della Tette, which is pretty much how it sounds) on Tuesday and saw the city and had some AMAZING pizza.

We also took a gondola ride--complete with venetian sparkling wine, or prosecco) which was really fun. We went through some of the smaller canals and were only on the Grand Canal for a bit, so it was really neat to see more of the city. We walked to St Mark's square, which was amazing. We pretty much just walked, ate--including the best tiramisu I've ever eaten - - and drank our way through the city, which is how vacations are supposed to be, right?!

We came to Florence yesterday and we all understand now why people worried about us driving around the "crazy Italians". Until now we really hadn't had to do much driving within the city, but our apartment is in the heart of Florence, so it was the worst of the worst. But Andrew did a wonderful job navigating the streets and we got here in one piece.

So far, Florence has been neat. We saw the Pidi Palace yesterday and walked up to the Palazzo Michelangelo--a wonderful panoramic view of the city--and had drinks and watched the sun set over the city, which was really cool. We then had dinner. Andrew got ravioli with cuddle fish and ink, so I took advantage of his ordering something I didn't want to share and got a Caprese salad. It was heavenly and of all the delicious food we've had, it's been my favorite!

I suppose that's all for now. One more day in Italy, then the craziness of Oktoberfest! I'd like to post more pictures, but blogging from my phone makes it hard to do that in addition to writing more substantial posts. You can follow me on Instagram (Ssmack) for more pics, or I think Steve is tagging Andrew in everything he posts on Facebook, so you can keep up with us that way too. (pops I'll just have to give you a run down and show you pics when we get home or you can have Jami or Kase show you some of our pictures!)