I forgot to put up a picture of our interesting key chain attached to our hotel keys in Venice. They didn't want us to leave the hotel at all with our key, so the keys chains weren't super-portable.

I'm finally up to Monday (I need to get this done faster!). Monday was a day of transition for us. We had stayed in Venice from Friday night until then. At that point we were moving to Florence. We packed up the night before. Donna, my roommate, was so organized!! She was funny to watch. She had to think it all out and reorganize. I really enjoyed staying with her!
Anyway, when we got up Monday morning we ate breakfast at our very hot hotel, loaded our luggage on our ver cold bus, and headed for Florence. It was only 159 miles, but we had 2 restroom breaks and lunch.
At this point we had 2 kids sick. One girl, Emily, had strep throat. She was able to get a z-pack at a pharmacy in Florence without a prescription. That didn't do the trick, but she wasn't allowed to buy another one without a prescription. I felt so sorry for her!! But she persevered! The other one, Trent, had gotten sick the night before we left for Florence. He got a stomach virus. His parents were on the trip with us, but he didn't even wake them up! Thankfully, once we got on the bus he wasn't sick anymore!
It seemed like everywhere we went we were running late. Poor Lara (our tour director), was constantly telling what time to be where and how important it was to NEVER be late!! We did everything on time that day, but we still got to Florence a little late. Our new hotel was vastly different than the first. It was much nicer and had an a/c that really cooled the room. There was no elevator in this hotel and Logan, Trent and Damon's room was on the 3rd floor. Donna and I got our key, turned around and found our room right by the front door!!!!! That was so nice!! The only complaint I had about this hotel was that the bathroom door was like a shower door. And you had no choice but to cross in front of it when you stepped out of the shower. At least this one had an enclosed shower. (Looking back, I wish I'd taken more pictures of certain things). Once we got to this hotel we had about 5 or 10 minutes to get our things in the room and be ready to walk/run several blocks to meet our Florence tour guide. It was boiling hot and we took off. As we were making our way to the meeting point I noticed that my shoe was rubbing the bottom of my foot - that was just the beginning. Once we got down there we met our tour guide - he was really good!!! We started off at the end of this street (I cannot remember the name of it) On one side of the main street was the Arno River and on the other was the city. We started down a street. It had big beautiful wooden doors on either side of the street that were used for government business. There were also statues in recessed areas lining this same street. I took pictures of many of them. Especially ones that were of significance to us. The first one we saw was Amerigo Vespucci

There were quite a few beautiful and interesting statues on that street. One of the stories he told was particularly interesting. He told us that Leonardo da Vinci's father had something like 16 legitimate children and was well known, powerful, and wealthy. However, Leonardo was an illegitimate child of a servant. The man refused to allow Leonardo to use his last name, so he us da Vinci - or "of Vinci" - the town where he was from. The interesting thing is that no one knows or remembers his father's name or the names of any of his "legitimate" siblings!!
When we got to the end of this street it opened out into an amazing square called Piazza della Signoria. In this area there are many cultural activities. One night there was a ballet the next night an orchestra! The only problem was that during these things there were tons of people, it was hot, and there was no place to sit. The first thing we saw when we got to the square was:

David!!!! What an amazing statue!! He talked about how Michelangelo had studied human anatomy by performing autopsies (which was not allowed by the Catholic church) at a famous college in Padova. This allowed his art to be so much more realistic. Logan was so shocked that I would take a picture of a nude male statue!! I thought that was pretty funny. We saw several other beautiful statues right in that area. One my very favorites was the bronze statue of Perseus holding Medusa's head with blood dripping from it and the headless body at his feet. (Gruesome, I know, but I loved it!!)

We went on to see many beautiful buildings including churches, Michelangelo's birth home, and government buildings. It was all so amazing. But this was my favorite part. Another fascinating thing he showed us was Ponte Vecchio, or Old Bridge. It spanned the Arno River. It had once been a place of business that contained many shops. In the middle of the shops was an open area. This had been built to allow water to run through in case of flooding. Years earlier a flood had wiped out the original bridge and businesses.
That night we ate at a hotel down the street from ours called Hotel Mediterraneo. It was a beautiful hotel. The lobby was very cool! We then went to the restaurant and it was also air conditioned very well!! The food that night was delicious. One of the funniest things that happened was Darrin Feris', a man there with his wife and 3 kids, reaction to our getting real ice water that night. When he looked and saw the ice in our glasses he said, "Ice. I think I'm gonna cry!" Ice was hard to find in Italy!!!
I did something brave for me that night. I let Logan go back into Florence with a group of his new friends. They walked around and looked at things and had a good time!! It was so good for him! I do kind of feel like I held him back a bit on this trip. But he was so sweet to me and it was a great thing for our relationship!!! And at the same time, he made some new friends for life!!
Here's a link to my Flickr album that has all of my Italy pictures:
Italy - a set on Flickr
Florence was my favorite city that we stayed in. It was beautiful and very artistic. You could walk anywhere safely. Since our hotel was on the Arno River, all you had to do was find the river (which wasn't hard) and follow it back to our hotel. If I get another chance to go back to Italy, I definitely want to go to Florence for a longer time.
Here's Logan on the Arno River:

All I've talked about lately is Italy. I'm working on a lot of knitting right now. I'm making progress on my 2nd sock in this pair. I finished the first one in Italy

I've turned the heel on the second one and I'm moving on. I'm using Lorna's Laces in a berry color that I can't remember the exact name of. It was given to me by my Mom on my birthday in 2007. The pattern is from More Sensational Knitted socks. It's lots of fun. The other thing is a blanket I've been working on for Kelby for several years now. It's made up of 12 squares. I finished the last one last week and blocked them all out over the weekend. Yesterday I started putting the squares together into strips. I should finish those this evening and then I'll start putting the strips together. I'm using Crayon 100% cotton boucle from Knit Picks. Kelby chose purple, blue, and red. I've used size 11 US needles and doubled the yarn. Here's the pattern:
Retro Throw Pattern Free Knitting Pattern from KnitPicks.com
I'm so excited about it because Kelby's still excited about it. He keeps thanking me for doing this for him, so that makes it all worthwhile!! I'm just so sorry that I didn't finish it sooner. I have plans to knit ones for Logan and Chuck!! (But those are in the planning stages - and a secret)

That's all for now..Knit On!
Shama D