Off to Florence

I'll start off this post by apologizing for any and all typo or grammatical errors in advance. I am typing this just after our dinner and drinks with the girls at the bar in the hotel. Oh, and my glasses are broken so I am trying to keep my lens in my frames in while I type so I must be very careful. Even the lady who brings "everything but the kitchen sink" on a vacation didn't bring her tiny screwdriver for eyeglasses along so now I will be forced to make a trip to an eyeglass store a "brief 15-20 minute walk" to get them fixed. Enough of that, now I will get on with our day.

We started off the day by leaving our Venice hotel and taking a watertaxi to the bus terminal. This sounds a lot easier than it was. We got to the area where we were dropped off by the water taxi on Wednesday only to find the garbage "barge" was parked there and they were not moving any tine soon. So our brief walk turned out to be a little longer than expected. Once we got on our taxi, he backed (and rather quickly at that) down the canal and onto the main water canal. For some reason, Father Miller's taxi took a different route and even they ended up dead last even though they left before everyone else. Maybe his boat driver was getting paid by the minute.

Once we boarded the bus, we headed to Padua. There we went to St. Anthony's Basilica and went to mass in a chapel in the basilica. I was honored to be the lector for today's mass. (BTW, Rosemary Weaver was the lector at yesterday's mass...forgot that little detail!) We also had a little time to walk around the basillica itself. The tomb of St. Anthony was wonderful. As you walked around it there were bulletin boards where people would place pictures of lost loved ones and there were some military belongings which I assume to those who have family members missing in action. For those non-Catholics reading this, St. Anthony is the patron saint of the lost. That was really quite moving. For those of us who ventured long and hard enough (ahem, Fr. Miller missed this one) we could see the incorrupt tongue of St Anthony. It is unreal to see something soooo old be so amazingly in tact!

After we were through at Padua, we hit the A1 and headed for Florence. We stopped at an Autostop (an Italian truckstop) for lunch. I finally got to eat a really big salad! I swear I haven't had vegetables since we landed in this country! Their idea of a salad bar and the American idea of a salad bar greatly differ. I had six bowls of salad fixings to choose from and two ot them were two different kinds of lettuce. The other choices were green beans, shredded carrots tomatos and garbonzo beans. It was so good to get to eat some vegetables for a change (good Lord, I must be coming down with something!).

We arrived in Florence around 4 p.m. and checked into our hotel. I must say it is a step up from the one in Venice but took a little getting used to. The bathroom is a handicap bathroom and so Cindy's feet don't touch the floor when she is on the toilet. Also, we had to get used to the light situation. You see, I was in the bathroom and the lights in the bathroom went off. So Cindy passed the key card through the slot and they came back on but went off after about 30 seconds. So much for reading while on the toilet! We then found out that we have to KEEP the key IN the slot for the lights and the TV to work!!!

We also have a veranda with a table and chairs so we just HAD to go out and buy some vino and cheese and cracker and chocolate for us to sit out there and enjoy tomorrow night when we have time for our own "leisure". We saw a few shops that perhaps we will revisit tomorrow but that would be only if we can FIND them again tomorrow!

Tonight's group dinner was a 10 SECOND walk to the restaurant. It was in a restaurant across the street. The first course was a pasta dish with not just a marinara sauce but there was something else to it. It was de-lish. The next course was a chicken cooked in olive oil and tomatoes and maybe basil or something along with a side of zucchini cooked in olive oil and herbs. Father, Cindy and I split a bottle of wine -- his mom thinks the wine here is just "too dry" so she only had a taste. He of course had to raz her about it. The dessert (of which Father had plenty -- he had two whole pieces and one person's half portion!) was in my terms just "all right" It was kind of a pound cake texture with some chunks of pineapple drizzled with a blackberry sauce. The cake portion was a little too dry for my taste. After having tiramasu at the dinner before, the bar is now set a little high.

After we crossed the street and were back at the hotel, we went to the cocktail bar and had another drink and visited and joked around with some of the ladies (well there were a couple of men but they didn't last long there!) We're trying to get ready for bed but we have a later start tomorrow for our day in Florence. Stay tuned for more excitement and pictures tomorrow!