Inside the Fishbowl

Blog Vacation

Hey everyone.  I've been on a little blog vacation this week.  My wrist has flared up again, and as you all know typing is the one thing that really irritates is.  So I've descended into lurkdom for now.  I'll be back when I have full mobility in my wrist, or when something really great happens that I simply can't contain.  There's nothing on the horizon right now, but you never know.  Something might happen!

Updated Sidebars

Hey all, I updated my sidebars today.  I changed my craft books, my music and I've added a ton of links to all of the blogs I read.  So if you have a second (or two, or three, or ten thousand) take a look around. Oh, and if I comment on your blog and I left you off, don't feel shy about emailing me to be added!  Have a great day everyone!

Barefoot Contessa

One of my favorite shows on TV is Barefoot Contessa with Ina Garten.  (I lifted this photo from House Beautiful magazine's website)  I've been thinking a lot about why I love Barefoot Contessa so much.  I never cook any of the recipes, though they look delicious.  Too much butter, and butter heavy dishes do not fit into my diet plan for my yet to be revealed Thanksgiving vacation.  What I've decided is that I love Ina herself.  I love her baking segments.  I love how she gets into her ingredients and touches them, leveling the flour with her fingers and using her hands to pour the dry ingredients into the mixer.  She likes to make contact with her food.  Sometimes on Food Network shows you get the feeling that the chefs don't actually like to touch the ingredients. It's all to sterile, and lets face it, that's not realistic, is it?  Not that I cook in a dirty kitchen.  I don't, I promise!  But do you know what I mean?  Oh, and having said that, I love that she spills flour all over the place, and gets huge puffs of powdered sugar our of her mixer.  Her kitchen must be a mess when she's through, but that's ok, because mine is. too.

I love that she used ingredients that I can find at any grocery store.  When she uses peanut butter she uses Skippy.  When she uses mayonnaise she uses Hellman's (or Best Foods for we Westerners).  She also doesn't always use a brand new jar of every ingredient.  Sometimes her jars have been opened and used previously.  The only thing that I can't get is her homemade chicken stock, but she sure inspires me to make my own!

I also love that she just genuinely seems to love feeding people.  I know it's the premise of the show--cooking for entertaining, but she really seems to enjoy it.  I'd be happy to be a house guest at her house any time.  If I was ever invited I'd want to be invited to one of her beach meals.  They are always so fabulous.  I love when she sets a full table right on the beach.  It's so romantic and simply beautiful.  

I always learn things when I watch Barefoot Contessa, like how to shave Italian parsley from the stems, and how to get an egg shell out of the eggs when you've accidentally dropped on in.  I like learning these things from somebody who is not a trained chef, who's learned by being taught by others, and more importantly, through trial and error.  

Finally, I absolutely adore when her sweet husband Jeffrey is on the show.  He is such a dear, and I love the way they look at each other.  They love each other.  She shows her love for him by making his favorite dishes, and catering to his quirks.  He has this idea that he must eat roasted chicken every Friday night.  I can see something like that bothering me, but not Ina.  She just finds new and inventive ways to make roasted chicken for her love.

So thanks, Ina, for sharing your culinary skills with the world.  I think Barefoot Contessa is the best show on Food Network.  It wouldn't be anything without you, though.

PS  I lied when I said I never make Barefoot Contessa recipes.  I've made her Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins.  They are divine!  Run out ad get yourself some blueberries and make them for your 4th of July breakfast. These white and blue little beauties with some fresh strawberries on the side would make the perfect patriotic meal.

Free Live Music in Salt Lake City

I'm lucky in that Jeremy likes to feed my healthy obsessions.  And since I'm newly obsessed with live music, Jeremy found this concert series in downtown Salt Lake City that I thought some of you would be interested in checking out.  We'll definitely be going to Josh Ritter on July 17 and Yonder Mountain String Band (a band we sadly missed at Bonnaroo) on July 31.  This concert series looks cool because there's also a crafts and food market that accompanies it.  Only two and a half weeks until my next concert!

Bonnaroo!

Sorry to be such a blog slacker.  I think I might have broken one of the top ten blogging rules. . .return when you say you will.  Summer seems to be putting a damper on my blogging activities.  Or maybe it's that I feel obligated to post about our trip.  I hate feeling obligated to post anything!  But, really I have to at least make a list of all the bands I saw perform at Bonnaroo this year.  There were so many, and many of the them I want to hear more of.  ITunes is going to make a lot of money off of me this summer!  So, without further delay, here is my recap of the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.

I met up with Jeremy at Midway airport in Chicago.  He was there for a conference, and my flight from Utah happened to have a layover there, so it worked out perfect.  It was a night flight, so when we landed it was already dark, and we all we could see of Tennessee were the countless malls and stripmalls off the side of the road.  The darkness also made our favorite sign in the South stand out.

When we arrived at our hotel in Columbia, we had to head down the street for a little midnight waffle fix.  How do they make their waffles so good? Oh, and I could have stayed there forever talking to the sweet waitress who called my "honey" and Jeremy "baby" with her ever so charming Southern drawl.  The Tennessee accent is my favorite after North Carolina.

We stayed up so late getting waffles that we decided to sleep in a bit, which probably worked in our favor, since we got into the best campground at Bonnaroo. But more on that later.

Our plan was to take the backroads down to Manchester, the town where Bonnaroo was held.  There are no words to describe, and unfortunately no pictures to show, how beautiful Tennessee is.  I devolped a new dream while I was there.  I want to own a horse farm and live in a startlingly white house behind all the pasture lands. Wouldn't that be idyllic?  

We made the obligatory stop at WalMart (obligatory for us that is. I almost never go to Walmart at home, but when on vacation I can't seem to keep myself away) to get a case of water and snacks for the weekend, and then we were truly off.  We knew we were close when we saw the line of cars all waiting to get onto the grounds.

At this point the line was a little less than a two hour wait, but amazingly we didn't mind.  Bonnaroo had a radio station for the weekend, so we just sat in the car listening to music, talking and inching our way forward.

We finally arrived at the gates, received our cool wristbands and festival guide and then made our way to our campground.  Bonnaroo is a huge place.  It is on a 700 acre farm.  People who are camped on the edges of the farm can face up to a 45 minute walk into the main festival area.  We got so lucky.  We were camped within view of the main stage.  Our campsite was less than five minutes from "Centeroo," which is obviously the center or everything.  It was also right next to the tents only area of the grounds.  Jeremy had decided that he could only be happy in the tent area, so this was a real score for us.  We only had to carry our gear for a few minutes in the blistering hot sun to get to where we really wanted to be.  

After setting up camp, we went to the main area to seek out food, and learn the lay of the land.  We set ourselves up at the That Tent for the first show and enjoyed one of many cups of the best lemonade on the planet.

 

The shows didn't start until 5:45 that first day (Thursday), so we didn't see very many bands, but I did see one of my favorite show for the entire festival.  Here's the list:

Newton Faulkner--one of my favorite performances of the entire festival!  He does this cool thing where he plays his guitar and beats on it at the same time to produce percussion sounds.  Very cool.

Back Door Slam--very good Southern rock type of band

Nicole Atkins and the Sea--very mellow, which led me to. . .

(I took a short break here for a nap on the lawn while Jeremy watched the NBA finals)

Vampire Weekend-I slept through this one, too.  How does one sleep through a loud performance?  Well I did--the lightest sleeper ever slept through it!

--

We turned in after Vampire Weekend to get ready for the next day.

Here's Friday's lineup

Drive-By Truckers--Jeremy really liked these guys.  I thought they were fine.

Adele--I enjoyed Adele.  I knew one of her songs because she was the itunes featured artists.  One of her songs was the free song of the week. Do you ever check those out?  I highly recommend it.  All of the stuff isn't good (not even half of it) but I have found some good artists that way.

The Bluegrass Allstars--these were our surprise favorites.  We weren't even going to see them, but they were on right after Adele and we had nothing else to watch.  They were amazing.  Bluegrass music is cool!

The Swell Season--this is the name of the group made up of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova who starred in that movie Once.  Their song won the Academy Award for Best Song.  I haven't seen the movie, but now I need to check it out.  I only heard a few of their songs.  iTunes will be getting money from me on this one for sure.

 

The Raconteurs--If you didn't know, this is Jack White of the Whitestripes side project.  They sing that song Steady As She Goes.  Great show!

Willie Nelson--Willie was a big diappointment.  It was the only show that the sound engineering wasn't very good. We could hardly hear hear him.  We didn't stick around very long.

Chris Rock--yes, the comedian.  He "opened" for Metallica.  I usually like Chris Rock, and he had some funny stuff, but he was just so vulgar, and I thought his constant jokes about black people was not the best material for a festival full of white people.  Just my opinion.

Metallica--Metallica was a very controversial band to have at Bonnaroo, but I actually found them a very enjoyable band to watch--and I am not a Metallica fan at all.  We didn't stay for the entire show, but we stuck around for a little over an hour.  The best part of this show for me was the guy headbanging.  I hadn't seen that for a long time!

I have a confession.  Even through I enjoyed myself Friday, I still had a few moments of thinking, how am I going to do this for another two whole days?  Until I went to Bonnaroo I enjoyed seeing live music, but it wasn't one of my favorite things to do.  I felt bored some of the time.  But then Saturday happened.

Saturday's Lineup

Saturday was a day full of people we'd never heard of (and obviosuly some we have), but it was the best day.  We discovered the delight of choosing a venue and just staying there to enjoy whatever came our way.  The first three groups were at the This Stage, then we headed over to the Sonic Stage to hear smaller, more intimate performances from Mason Jennings and Donavon Frankenreiter, then we parked ourselves at the What Stage for the rest of the night.  It was a laid back kind of day--perfect, really.

The Wood Brothers Band featuring John Medeski and Kenny Wolleson--a very pleasant surprise. We knew nothing about these guys, but liked their soulful sound.

Mason Jennings--my absolute favorite from Bonnaroo.  I loved all of his songs.  He's on Jack Johnson's Brushfire label.  Everyone Jack Johnson has on his label is great!

Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck--this one ended up not being quite our thing, but we wanted to see Bela Fleck, an amazing banjo player, who was part of the Bluegrass Allstars.

Mason Jennings (again!)--See I told you I loved him!

Donavon Frankenreiter--Also very good.  Jeremy didn't enjoy him as much, but I think that had something to do with the insane heat we were sitting in.

BB King--what can you say about BB King.  He's a legend, and at 82 years old, he still puts on one great and very entertaining show.

Iron & Wine--I went to this one alone.  Jeremy wanted to stay for all of BB, and we really liked where we were sitting at the main stage.  I really, really enjoyed this show.  If you're not a fan of Iron & Wine's more mellow first two releases (though if your not I don't think we can be friends) you might want to check out Sam Beams newer stuff.  His show was much more rocking than I thought it would be.  Lots of fun!

Jack Johnson--I thought this was the perfect chill kind of music for the festival.  It's the kind of music you want to listen to on a warm afternoon as the sun is going down.  I think there were some who weren't happy about Jack Johnson's presence at the festival, but I enjoyed this performance immensely.

Pearl Jam--these guys were amazing!  Their show so took me back to when I was 15 and all I wanted to do was listen to Pearl Jam and Nirvana.  I need to go dig through my CDs to find their albums and put them on my iPod.  Kaitlin needs to broaden her musical horizons.  

Sunday would have been an amazing day as well, but Jeremy got a little skittish about the idea of spending another day in the Tennessee summer with no shade.  And the thought of trying to get out of Bonnaroo on Monday morning when everyone else is trying to leave was quite distasteful to him as well.  So we decided to leave Sunday morning.  I'm ok with that decision, but Jeremy still maintains that he was 49% stay v 51% leave.  The ratio kept switching throughout the rest of the weekend.  So here is who we would have seen if we had stayed.

Rogue Wave--another one of Jack Johnson's bands, so we probably would have liked them.

Yonder Mountain String Band--to fuel our newfound love of Bluegrass

Aimee Mann--I would have gone to this one by myself, but I know it would have been great.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss--I'll just have to buy it!

Death Cab for Cutie--the concert at Thanksgiving Point was such a disaster, I wanted to give them another chance.

I came away from Bonnaroo changed somewhat.  And no, 'm talking about the extra poinds I packed on while eating all of that fried food!  I an addicted to music.  I realized that my musical tastes are somewhat limited, though I thought I liked a pretty diverse mix.  I was forced to be in the moment at the festival.  I couldn't do anything but be there.  I didn't have Internet access, or blogs, or phones.  All I had was a backpack with what I needed to get me through the day, a small folding chair and my Kindle.  I sat in the sun, or shade when it was available, and read, talked to Jeremy, or napped.  Life was slow and musical.  The perfect vacation.

Home At Last

I'm home.  Jeremy and I had a wonderful time together.  I'm sure I'll tell you much more than you ever wanted to hear, but for now I'm enjoying listening to Kaitlin's sweet little voice, and decoding Alex's ever improving language.  I missed my babies, and today is theirs.  I'll be back Monday.  Happy weekend!

I'll Be Seeing You

Just checking in to say goodbye for a couple of weeks.  I'm heading to Tennessee tomorrow for the Bonnaroo Music Festival with Jeremy.  I'm so excited.  It should be a lot of fun.  Jeremy and I are really branching out with this one.  First of all we're camping for 4 days with thousands of other people. Jeremy loves to camp, but he's more of a camp alone in the wilderness kind of person.  Also, there are tons of artists performing of all genres--from Metallica and Pearl Jam to Willie Nelson to Jack Johnson.  I let Jeremy be in charge of choosing which act we go see.  I'm worried that he leaned too heavily in my direction.  I hope he chose some that he'd like as well!

After Bonnaroo we'll be hanging out in Nashville for a few days, seeing what there is to see, and we have tickets to the Grand Ol Opry to see Charlie Daniels.  I've never been to Tennesee, not to mention the South (unless you count Florida, but does anyone count Florida?) so if you have any tips for me, let me know!  

When our time's up in Tennessee, we'll be heading to Chicago for eBay Live.  I can't wait for this.  I get to go see Jeremy give the presentation he's given for the last several years.  It was really good timeing, because eBay just announced that they won't be doing eBay Live anymore.  I've heard that this is quite the experience--it's crazy!  Did I mention, I can't wait!?

Also in Chicago I'm planing on visiting the Art Institute, because I can't go to Chicago without going there, and we're going to see Wicked.

Sorry for no pictures.  I promise to bombard you with them when I get back!

I guess the theme of this vacation is live entertainment.  Should be a whole lot of fun!

Summer Travel 3: Florence, et al

This wasn't supposed to become a three part post about my trip to Italy last summer.  When I began I just didn't have anything to write about that day, and I thought I post a few of my favorite Italy pictures.  But then I had so much fun looking through the photos and reliving the trip.  Lots of great memories came back to me, and I couldn't narrow the photos down to just two or three per location, so I expanded.  Thanks for sticking with me through this little walk down memory lane.  And as you might have guessed, this will be my last Italy post.

Florence!  I was most excited about going to Florence.  I don't exactly know when my love of Florence began.  It might have been when I was 13, a freshman in high school, taking my very first art history class.  It might have been a few years later when I saw A Room with a View for the first time.  All I know it that by the time I read Galileo's Daughter (how many years ago?) and bawled my eyes out at the end--of a non-fiction book, no less!--I was already hooked!  

After the Alps we drove back to Venice and caught a train to Florence.  Jeremy and I were beyond excited.  I had wisely brought a book about the building of the dome of the cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore.  I say wise because Jeremy's main complaint during this trip was that he didn't know enough about the art/buildings/places to really appreciate what we was seeing.  Ross King's book provided just enough context for Florence that Jeremy was more interested than he had been in Venice. 

We arrived in the late afternoon, just as everything was closing.  No matter, we went to our hotel, the beautiful Hotel Adler Cavalieri, dropped off our bags and went out exploring.  I'll never forget my first view of Brunelleschi's dome.  I had seen and admired pictures of it, but nothing could prepare me for the actual thing.  

I'm not sure there is a place in Florence where you can't see the cathedral.  It's spectacular.  My favorite time to see it was in the late afternoon, when the light turns golden, and the marble that covers the exterior takes on a warm glow that I have only seen elsewhere in the Italianate buildings of the vineyards of Napa Valley.  I hardly need to say that, though I'm not Catholic, seeing the cathedral was a somewhat spiritual experience for me.  I think that works of art of great beauty touches the soul and can actually bring you closer to God.  I have had three experiences like that in the last year.  The first was at the Louvre when I saw the Winged Victory, the second was when I first saw the dome, and the third was when I saw Michelangelo's David at the Academia.

Jeremy and I wasted no time in climbing to the top of the cathedral.  We wanted to be at the cathedral when the stairs to the top opened so that we wouldn't have to share the view with too many people.  It was worth it!

None of my sweeping panoramas did justice so I chose this photo of a building on the hillside.  Look at those Italian Cypresses!  Is that not what you would expect to see in Tuscany?

The best part about climbing to the top of the dome was that Jeremy and I had read all about the architecture of the structure.  We knew that the herringbone pattern of the bricks was unique at the time and that they were essential to the stability of the dome.  We knew all about the lantern at the top of the dome, that it was placed after Brunelleschi's death--that he didn't live to see his masterpiece completed.  We knew about the frescoes painted onto the interior and we gladly, even thankfully stopped to appreciate them.  Climbing to the top of the cathedral was one of the highlights of our entire trip.  I would recommend it to everyone who is going to Florence.

After we went to the dome, we went to the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo to see more of the artwork surrounding the great cathedral.  There were many works of beauty there, but I was most struck my Michelangelo's Pieta.  

It is different from other Pietas in that it depicts people other than The Virgin holding Christ after his crucifixion.  This is Nicodemus who supports Christ along with his mother and Mary Magdalene.  It is thought that Nicodemus is a self portrait of the artist.  It is also thought that Michelangelo intended for this sculpture to adorn his own tomb, but he abandoned it after he found an imperfection in the marble.  Can you imagine abandoning something this far along?  How long must it have taken to get to this point?

We also went inside the cathedral to see the dome from the bottom.  It was magnificent.

Those Italians really knew how to draw one's eyes to heaven.

We did all of things you're supposed to do in Florence.  We went to the Galleria dell'Accadamia to see Michelangelo's David and all of the other gorgeous sculpture there.  We went to the Uffizi to see the beautful Boticcelli's.  We ate lots and lots of gelato.  But for me the true beauty of Florence  is to be found outdoors.  The Arno was magnificent. It was hardly the rushing river in a Room with a View.  Instead it was calm, and the surface was glassy enough to perfectly reflect the bridges that cross it and buildings that line it's banks.

On cloudier days, the surface wasn't as reflective, but the view down the river was beautiful nonetheless.

Another highlight of our time in Florence was visiting Basilica di Santa Croce.  I wanted to see this church because it is where Lucy Honeychurch goes on her solo journey in Florence.  But then I found out that both Michelangelo and Galileo are buried here, and that became my primary reason for wanting to visit.  As I mentioned earlier, I have had a thing for Galileo since I read Dave Sobel's Galileo's Daughter.  I know the girls in my book club will probably think I'm crazy, but I loved this book.  The things that he suffered through for his convictions are incredible.  The fact that he escaped execution is a miracle, in every sense of the word.  I really, really wanted to see his tomb.

 

Oh, I really need to do  little editing on that photo!  Look how crooked it is!  

Two last highlights of my trip to Florence, which I have no pictures of, sadly.  First was visiting the paper stores that seem to be everywhere and the bindery, Il Torchio.  I bought several handbound books in Italy, and many more beautiful papers, mostly woodblock printed papers and marbled papers.  I have only used one piece.  I can't seem to part with it.  I must remedy this soon.  Second, my birthday.  I celebrated my 31st birthday in Florence, and I have to say it was not the best day.  We didn't have much planned, and if my memory serves me correctly, it was a particularly difficult day for Jeremy headache-wise.  We didn't have anything planned for the evening--just dinner.  Jeremy was supposed to ask the hotel for restaurant recommendations.  That evening we set off to the "restaurant" when Jeremy told me that he'd booked a tour for the night--previous to our trip.  He loves to pretend that he has nothing planned and then surprise me with something great.  This was beyond great.  It was wonderful.  We went with a group to this underground restaurant--literally.  It was below ground in an old wine cellar.  The food was fabulous.  The group was fun, full of people from the US and Europe.  After we went to the local Anglican church to listen to a soprano sing arias from Florentine operas.  It was spectacular.  The best part is that Jeremy even enjoyed himself, even though he had to listen to opera.  I had a wonderful birthday, thanks to the tricky planning of my very sweet husband. 

During our time in Florence, we took two day trips.  Of course, we went to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower.

We didn't stay there long, though. It was our last day in Italy, and we had gifts to buy!  Besides it seemed a little too cliche and touristy, even for us.

Our favorite place was Siena.  Siena is a must see for anyone visiting Tuscany.  If we ever go back, we will book a hotel there and stay a few days.  

In Ortisei we spent a god deal of time in our room watching Italian television while we waited for the rain to stop.  We didn't know it at the time, one of the things we watched was the Palio, a horse race that takes place around Siena's Piazza del Campo.  Siena is broken down into 17 districts or contrades.  In the Palio, ten of the districts race against each other for neighborhood pride.  It was really quite funny to watch these hulking Italian men (compared to professional jockeys) try to knock each other out of the race.  But funnier still is that if a jockey falls off his horse, the horse can continue the race riderless and still win.

We had read that when you're in Siena if you hear drumming you need to drop whatever you're doing and run to find them.  Well, we were eating lunch on the pretty little patio of a cafe, when we heard drums.  We couldn't just leave, so Jeremy went down and walked in the direction of the noise.  A short while later he came back and told me to get ready.  The procession was going to pass right by us.

This is the traditional costume for this contrada.  Can I just tell you that it was really hot this day?  And these men were wearing velvet and heavy tights!  That's neighborhood pride, I tell ya!  And this was a huge group of participants.  The procession took several minutes to pass us by.  None of my photos did justice to the event.  You'll just have to take my word for it--it was really, really cool.

   

Siena had much more to offer. But we were at the mercy of a Sunday train schedule.  We had just enough time to visit the cathedral and see some of the marble inlay floors, the baptistry and the little museum that is attched to the cathedral complex.  I snapped a photo of this pretty little sculpture of a girl sleeping that I adored, before Jeremy reminded me that the museum didn't allow photography.  Why do they do that?!

Isn't she gorgeous?

Our trip home was eventful to say the least.  In Florence they checked out bag incorrectly.  They were supposed to check them through to our final desination, but instead the they only checked them to Toronto.  Our flight out of Milan was seriously delayed.  Our layover in Toronto, which was supposed to be three hours long, was only 45 minutes.  We had to go through Canadian customs, get our luggage, get in the very long line at the ticket counter, recheck our bags, go through American customs ant try to make it to our flight, which, they informed us, was full.  I was having a nervous breakdown.  At this point I just wanted to get home.  I wanted to see my children.  I wanted to sleep in my own bed.  By some miracle, we made it to the gate before they closed the flight, and our supposedly full flight suddenly had two available seats.  We got on.  We were sitting on the back row of a little 52 seater commuter plane for the 4 hour flight from Canada, which seats didn't recline.  But we didn't care.  We were on our way home

It took me a year to write about this trip.  Mostly this is because I needed some distance from it to be able to honestly say that this was the trip of a lifetime.  Spoiled brat, that's what you're thinking right?  Looking back, I now see that this was an amazing and wonderful vacation.  I'll never take it for granted again.

Summer Travel, Part 2: Ortisei

I never intended to do multiple posts about our trip to Italy last year, but I had a hard time narrowing down the photos I wanted to use for my Venice post, and it was so fun reliving that trip a little, that I decided to do a little series on this trip.  I hope you don't mind

We left the stifling heat of Venice in a rental car and headed north.  Jeremy has a friend who went to the Dolomites when he was in Italy years ago, and he's always harbored a not-so-secret hope of seeing them himself one day, so we couldn't visit Italy without a trip to the mountains.  

The drive from Venice into the Val Gardena was spectacular.  The landscape changed from a very Italian landscape, to an alpine one very quickly.  The higher we went, the more German everything looked.  All of the signs in the Val Gardena are in Italian, German and the local dialect, Ladin.  The churches started to have steeples instead of campaniles.  In short, we felt like we had entered a different country.  In fact, if we had visited the region before WWI we would have crossed the border into the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

I'll admit that I slept a good portion of the drive.  I can't seem to stay awake in cars unless I'm reading, and I can't read on windy mountain roads unless I want to get sick.  I'm not sure which annoys Jeremy more.  I almost think it might be the reading.  I awoke in plenty of time to know that we were in for a nice relaxing three days, because who can't help but relax in mountains such as these?

This is the view from our hotel window.  We stayed in a small town called Ortisei, or St. Ulrich if you prefer German.  That church on the left is the smallest church I have ever seen.  The weather in the mountains was cold--a welcome change from Venice.  It was also rainy, which ultimately had a huge impact on our plans.  Lucky for us, the rain let up long enough for us to take the tram up to the local ski area.  It sounds cheesy, but being there in the Alps I understood why Fraulien Maria couldn't help but sing "The hills are alive with the sound of music."  I am generally transported to a very spiritual place when I am in the outdoors, but this was unlike anything I have experienced. 

Jeremy got all crazy on me, talking about coming back and hiking the Alps for a summer.  And I got all crazy thinking that I might actually want to do that.  Kaitlin and Alex would go crazy for that kind of adventure.  Kaitlin especially would love the wild flowers.

They are everywhere, multicolored and perfect.  My favorite part, and the thing that I would never tire of are the cows.  They actually have cowbells around their necks.  Their living conditions are so different from the cows I've seen on Jeremy's parent's dairy.  I'd definitely choose to be a cow in the Alps.

For our first full day in Ortisei, we hired a company to take us climbing in the mountains on a via ferrata route.  Anyone who knows me knows that this is way out of my comfort zone.  I am not a naturally adventurous person, so the idea of rock climbing, well it doesn't scare me to death, which was my first thought, but it makes me very, very nervous.  Really it was my gift to Jeremy for letting me drag him all over Venice to look at paintings by artists he isn't familiar with and sculpture that doesn't speak to him the way it speaks to me.  The morning that we were supposed to go it was pouring rain.  We went to the guide shop, though we strongly suspected that our trip would be cancelled.  Nobody was there.  We had an entirely unplanned day.  Since we had a car we decided to drive to Austria.  We had no idea how far away it really was, but with nothing better to do, we thought we should go for it.  When we were almost to the border I realized that I didn't have my passport with me.  Since we didn't know (and still don't) the rules for crossing borders in the EU, we just turned around.  If the drive hadn't been so beautiful, we probably would have been disappointed, but we had seen several things that we wanted to stop and see, so the day wasn't a complete loss.  

Italian autostradas are not like American freeways.  There are almost no exits.  We missed everything that we wanted to see.  Everything but the monastery in Sabiona.  As we approached from the east, this is what the monastery looked like.  We thought it was a fortified castle.  After driving around Sabiona for a while we found the begining of the trail leading to the top.  It was a 45 minute hike, but still we had nothing else to do, and I had a new pair of Alpine walking shoes to break in.  We took off up the hill.  The views!  the views were spectacular.  Houses and churches dotted the hills.  It was a scene straight from a postcard.

Yet we were still unprepared for the monastery itself.  It is the home to 11 Benedictine nuns who live in seclusion.  it must be a beautiful, simple life.  They have time to contemplate God and create gardens that look like this:

Of course, I know nothing of nuns.

Here's one more view of the monastery.  This is a view from the west.  Isn't it amazing how different it looks from one direction to the other?

I didn't take a single photo our second and last day in Ortisei, but it was a great day.  We walked around town, and up into the hills.  We found the pretty little cemetery, and had a nice time walking around reading the grave markers.  We bought a little hand carved wooden nativity.  We talked and rested and ate good food.  Ortisei was a needed break after we pushed ourselves to see so much in Venice.  Our feet never ached, we were never overheated.  We had massages at a spa in one of the hotels.  Ortisei prepared us for our long week in Florence.  I only have great memories of our time in the Dolomites.  Someday I look forward to taking our children there.    

Summer Travel

I have long felt guilty that I never posted a single picture of our trip to Italy last summer, so, since I have no fabulous international travel planned for the summer, I thought I'd relive a bit of last year.

At this time last year, Jeremy and I were excitedly counting down the days until we were to leave for Italy. We we beyond excited about this trip.  It was our first really big vacation together outside of the country.  We were going without our kids.  And we were going for two whole weeks--an eternity.  Our first destination was to be Venice, the most romantic city, we had been told, in the world.  Having heard this, our expectations for Venice were high.  We were prepared for a romantic start to our vacation.  In short, we were ready for Venice to romance us.  But apparently those people who think Venice is so very romantic have never been there in July.  Venice in July is just hot, humid, and if truth be told, a little smelly.  And though we were a bit put off by al of these things (Jeremy more than I--his migraines are triggered by heat and smells) we pushed though and saw a lot of the city.  

Our first stop was Piazza San Marco. It was a truly amazing thing to see.  All of the splendor of Venice on was on display, and though it is faded and crumbling, anyone can see that Venice was once a mighty place. 

We decided to take the elevator to the top of the campanile to get a view of Venice in it's entirety.  I loved the domes that sit atop Basilica di San Marco. And the red tile roofs that span the entire city.  How can one not fall in love with this view?

Of course I hadn't been inside the basilica yet, to admire its gold mosaic opulence.  Even after admiring those Byzantine masterworks, I still think I prefer the unadorned simplicity of the domes.  

That first day we also walked through the Palazzo Ducale.  The art that these people lived with!  I can hardly imagine what it would be like to live in a house whose walls are decorated by the great masters of the day.  I don't know if I would even want to know.  I'd be too afraid that my children would drag their cars across them--or worse.

One of the beauties of Venice is the Bridge of Sighs.  It had a rather terrible use--it was the bridge that prisoners crossed as they went to meet the executioner, yet is is quite beautiful and very serene, considering it is in the midst of all the tourist hubbub.  

In Paris last year I discovered that I really love sculpture.  Venice is full of sculpture.  We went to the Frari church which if full of sculpture.  Most of my photos are too blurry to show, but this one came out pretty well.  Isn't it the very essence of calm?

The Venetians were a people who must have appreciated color and attention to detail.  The buildings that they built had the most vivid colors of stucco.  Everything is faded now, but some people have restored their buildings with the same vivid colors.  They are so pleasing to look at, especially the old, faded ones.

There is so much to love about this photo (and I'm not talking about my very mediocre photography skills!).  The terra cotta building with the pointed arches, the bright red building the sits right next to it, and the bridge!  I never tired of seeing the bridges in Venice!

This photo is a little dark, but look at that brick work and the balcony garden next door.  Seeing sites like this made me forget the heat and smell and wish I owned an apartment in Venice.  We were sitting in a campo waiting for the doors to open for a concert that we saw in Venice.  The sun was setting, and the air was cool--one of our most pleasant evenings in Venice.

This pretty doorway was on the backside of a house.  We passed it on our gondola ride.  There is no "street" access to this door, so the pretty sculpture is solely for the enjoyment of the owner of the house and visitors.  I loved these details.  They were everywhere.  I think that the most beautiful parts of Venice are in the canals, the parts that are inaccessible to anyone who doesn't have a boat.

This is the Benedictine monastery and garden at San Giorgio Maggiore, a church designed by the Venetian architect Paladio.  The garden isn't as spectacular as the gardens in Paris, but it is beautiful, nonetheless.  And don't you love the salmon colored stucco with the white trim and red roof?

Jeremy and I both agree that our favorite part of Venice was Verona.  Verona is everything Venice would be if it weren't for the constant assault of salty air.  It was spectacularly beautiful, easy to navigate, and the best day of the Venice leg of our trip.

In Verona we took the only picture of one of us eating gelato the entire trip.  This is amazing since gelato was a big thing for us.  We ate it at least twice a day.

Verona is the home of a Roman coliseum ruin.  Every summer they have an opera festival in the coliseum, which we would have loved to attend, but the trains stop running before the end of the performance.  If only we'd thought to rent a car for the day!

We toured the Castelvecchio, the old military fortress that now houses a nice museum.  There is a bridge at the castle that had gorgeous views of the city.

And just to prove that I was there, here's a picture of me at the castle.

Although Venice wasn't our favorite part of Italy, it's the place to which I feel the most desire to return.  I don't think we gave Venice a fair chance, and if we had to do it over again we would definitely do some things differently, like stay in a more centralized hotel.  Still, I feel nostalgic when I think of Venice.  It is after all, where I discovered the simple joy of eating a fresh caprese salad while sitting by a quiet canal.