FANtastic, aMAZEing, BLOGGless..

I am back home.
It was a Fantastic trip to take especially for a mother and daughter trip.
The best purchase I made on the entire trip was a 2 euro hand held fan.
I can flick it open and shut in an instant.
I used it every day as it was pretty hot in Italy.
They sort of skipped spring this year and rolled right into summer.
Walking all day, going up stairs constantly, running to catch and ride metros gets a woman heated.
The 2 euro fan saved my life many times by keeping me from over heating.
Liz/Healy has one as well and she will agree that for a few bucks it is a great investment.

AMAZING was all we did, ate and saw. And Vennice is a maze. the streets so skinny and they never run straight for any amount of time. You walk down the skinny streets turning right then left then right then left after short stretches. It turly is like walking in a maze. The boat metro is great. they have boat taxi's as well so I can not say I am talking about the boat taxi. It is what Vennice developed to make up for not having a metro. As it is all water below (and some times on land) in Vennice they can not have a true metro system. The boats work like the under ground metros in the rest of europe.
You ride the boats just like you ride the metro. You visit the other islands around Vennice on the metro boat or take it to get to other sides of Vennice.
We always walked unless we had to cross water to get there.
We got a 12 hour metro boat pass which allowed us to island hop. That was pretty cool.

Liz/Healy and I did not blog while I was with her as you noticed.
Being together and having so much to see and do there just was not time for it.
Also we happened to be in areas where getting your hands on a computer for any amount of time was not possible.
One hotel had a computer you could use for 6 euro an hour.
That is about $12.00 us dollars for an hour of internet use.
It takes a quarter of that time for the thing to boot up, get to your web page and then try to get it to switch to english besides the time it takes to find the keys you want. It could end up being a $40.00 blog up date process when you really need to be out enjoying the sights.

When she is traveling alone and stays in hostels it is a little easier.
Students stay in hostals and the computer is cheaper to use, already hot and running, and mostly set on english. However the key boards are still diff. in each country. It takes time to find where the keys are. The hardest thing that is diff. on each computer is the @ sign. You never notice how much you use that till you can not find it. When you find it it is not easy to figure out how to get it in the right place. It can share a peg with two other signs and often you have to hold down two pegs to get that @ to go where you want it.

We saw a bull fight in Spain, A flamenco dance in Spain and a Italian Opera in Rome.
We visited more historic sights and buildings than we can keep track of, enjoyed so much art and sculpture we are stunned and ate so much great food that we were glad to get up every morning and start our full day of walking so we could eat more and still fit into our clothing.

We met lots of people in many places.
You think that you are taking a train, metros, going from one city to another, so that you talk to some one for a few moments and walk away thinking you will never see that person again.
Yet we did run into the same people days later in another city as if all of europe is one small town.
Days later in some street, church, resturant, in front of your hotel you just arrived at you see someone you met for a moment a few days before or a week before and spoke to.
Two girls on our night train from Barcelona to Milan departed ways the morning we arrived in Millan.
We ran into them many days later after we went from Milan to Vennice to Pisa, to Rome. We saw them in Rome at least twice as places so hugh and busy with crowds and crowds of people u would think you could never find each other if you got seperated.
It is sort of funny and interesting how that happens.

So so strange if you stay in hostels as they are full of young people traveling but for us after we started staying in hotels I thought it more unusual.

The blogging is over for me.
Liz will keep up her section when she can and I am sure she will set up a blog connection for Eric when he gets to Europe and starts to travel with her as well.

I do want to say that it was a great trip. Liz may not have long legs and look like the athletic type but she can run you ragged, she can hang and she will not miss taking advantage of the sights where she is at any time. Never did she feel she was too tired or wore out to climb those steps, walk that mile or what ever. She had a great sence of direction, knows her way around a metro, gets the hang of a new city or country very quickly and figures out how to communicate with people who do not speak english and she does not speak their language.
I am confident that the remainder of her trip will continue to be full speed ahead and she will be making the most of every day.
And for a girl who use to be really picky about foods and other things. I think she has reborn.
She will try anything. Wants to experiance all the flavors of the area and has no fear of what she might be eating.
If they eat it then she needs to try it if she can afford to on her budget.(which was expanded while I was with her of course) For awhile we decided we were turning into "foodies".
Where shall we eat next? What food are they noted for? WE must try that.
It was interesting to see the daughter you raised, watch grow up suddenly change in so many ways.
I am proud of her for the changes she has made to allow herself to make the most of this trip.
She still have several weeks left to travel in Europe. She has more countries to visit.
Keep her in your prayers that she remains safe and continues to have a great trip.

Thank you for supporting her during her travels.
If you are reading her blog then I know you are wishing her well and hoping for her good health and safty to continue.

Home with lots to do.
My car wont start. It has to be towed into the shop.
In addition to just trying to remember where I left off when I left to have my Lizzy DoesEurope adventure for 2 weeks.

Love & Best wishes,
Debra