(Hi, Wendy here... I'm going to add some commentary to David's post in purple so you can tell who's typing what...
Overall, Daisy did AMAZING again with the travel. But we did change elevations during our drive to Italy, and I did not know this was going to happen. Therefore, I didn't wait to feed her until we were climbing and instead she ate and then we changed elevations and I didn't have any milk to give her and she wasn't hungry. So she cried some on the way to Italy and eventually just lost it completely. We pulled off in a small town to settle her down. While I walked around on the street with her, David and Hilary explored a cathedral.
Daddy and Daisy once Daisy was settled down...you can tell she'd been crying.
Getting to Pisa was a challenge -- we got lost several times and when we did finally find Pisa, we could not find the hotel we were looking for which was right next to the tower. I'm not joking when I say we drove around Pisa for well over an hour looking for the leaning tower.
I love Chevy Chase. I'm somewhat into 'Community', that is I've seen two epsiodes, but Fletch, Caddyshack, the sequels... I love. But most of all, the Vacation movies. Christmas is my favorite, but I couldn't help but relate our trip to Pisa with European. I hope this link works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgX6qlJEMc&feature=related Wendy is 100% correct in that we drove around Pisa for over an hour. You would think, since this engineering error is the only tourist attraction and source of income to the town that they would better identify how to get there. We asked a french woman who gave hilary her map, and italian police officer who didn't speak french or english, and of course, none of us italian, and hilary asked a woman walking her bike across the street where the leaning tower was using the universal hand motions of a tower by sticking her forearm up vertically and then moving it down to 'lean'... the woman had no idea what we were asking!
We stopped for directions twice and there were a few roundabouts that we went through at least four or five times as we kept trying to find the right way to go. Eventually, we ended up at the little hotel which was clean, cheap, safe, and really close (two blocks) from the tower.
We really did go through one roundabout for our five times. Granted, it had four or five roads converging but we came from each direction and left through a different one! We were all laughing hysterically. I was crying I was laughing so hard and thankfully daisy was being an angel throughout or 'tour' of Pisa. We did see about the whole city... With regard to the hotel, it is the offseason, but the cute little room that we had for I think 50 or 60 Euros, was no further than 50-75 meters from the base of the tower. I might have been able to throw a football from our room and hit it...back in the day.
By this point, it was after 9:00pm and we needed to get dinner. Eventually, after getting lost on foot looking for a specific restaurant, we stumbled into a really neat restaurant. It was 10:15 and we sat down for a very late (and very Italian) dinner. Here was our appetizer dish, which had artichoke and onions in it. It was like a quiche. The picture doesn't look like much, but it was divine. The tomato based sauce served with it had a little spice/kick to it, and combined it was very good (albeit somewhat expensive, too). The service at this place was extroadoridnary. For one, unlike the french waitstaff, the italians actually talk with you, are glad you are there and enjoy serving you. The waiter and waitress both interacted with us, translated the menu as best they could, played with daisy, and always served the ladies first, whether the menu, water, appetizers, etc. They also put their appetizer dishes down at about a thirty degree angle. Maybe it was intentional, maybe not?
That's it for my commentary -- back to David's original post.)
I know most of the pictures of Italy are food...but that's why I wanted to go to Italy. If you think some engineering blunder from a thousand years ago was the reason... Well you're wrong. But we did see that on day two... Which you can see picts from tomorrow but for now daisy and mommy are sleeping so I'm going to bed, too. Sad to think this time next week I'll be back at work.
