Back from Italy

We arrived back in Vienna on Saturday evening after a long but uneventful (thankfully) drive home from Florence. We had a nice day of tourning on Friday in Florence. It is a beautiful city but I don't think we scratched the surface. It is definitely a haven for art lovers - something that is a bit lost on our family. But we did our best!

We went to the Uffizi Art Museum in the morning. I believe this would be considered one of their most famous/popular art museums in Italy and it houses a ton of 'famous' art and artists. We rented one audio guide which Julia and I went off and did and we bought one book guide, which the boys used on their tour. Julia did well for about 1/2 hour looking and listening but then she got a bit bored. I actually really enjoyed listening to the guide and looking at the beautiful art and I believe I got more out of this art museum than I have others I have done in earlier days of my life! Julia would go room to room with me and just sit in the one chair that is set up in each room. She did love buying postcards at the end :)

After spending the morning there, we decided to axe our plans to hit another museum to see the "real" David sculpture as to not torment the kids any longer. Instead we walked around Florence a lot, saw the David "fake" sculpture in a beautiful piazza with fountains and other sculptures, and just explored town.

After a bad dinner on the 1st night in Florence, we were determined to have a good dinner our last night of vacation. We did get some great meals, but it is surprisely hard to find GOOD Italian in Italy. Perhaps it is because it is easy to do bad Italian?? Anyway, after doing a bit of reasearch we went to a fabulous place. It has a seating at 7:30 and so there was a HUGE que of people waiting to get in (a good sign!). It was a quintessential Italian meal... starting with prociutto that they were shaving right there (and hocks hanging from the ceilings) to 1st course pasta to 2nd course meat (we all tried rabbit and the veal was amazing) to amazing dessert at end and biscotti type cookies we dipped in wine to eat. There were huge jugs of chianti on the table and I think you were just charged if you drank some so you just poured what you wanted. At the end, the owner would just come over and write something down with a total Euro amount and give it to you. (you really had no idea what you were paying for our buying - no menus!) It was so fun and we all had a great last night in Italy!

Yesterday was Halloween, but not really here. Seemed a bit odd, but the kids didn't seem to mind at all which was really nice. They did set up a big 'party' for Eric and I and that was so cute and fun. They dressed up, danced, did a scavenger hunt for us, we 'trick or treated', they poured us water and had candy in cups for us. They had a BLAST and Eric and I enjoyed having them entertain us for a bit.

Today is an Austrian Holiday so the kids don't have school. Eric still has work so he headed back today. I still have German class (and missed all week last week!) so I will bring them to the UN where they can have lunch with Eric while I am at class. This is a real treat as the cafeteria at the UN is AMAZING!!

My parents fly out of Chicago tomorrow and get here on Wednesday morning. We are all excited and busy trying to get things cleaned up, beds moved around, etc... I warned them staying here is a true "European Adventure" -- bad shower situation, small apartment, hang your laundry, food is different, etc... Hope they still like it :)!! We are ready to show them Vienna!

I need to download pictures off my camera - I actually filled my memory card! Maybe I will try to figure out how I did that slide show to the right so if you want to look you can and if not, great too.

Hope you are all great! Thanks for reading.........