Wine bar

One of the funniest/"funnest" things we saw.....a wine shop in Venice that had big barrels of various wines for around 2.50 euro per liter. Tell the shop keeper what you'd like, and he fills up a plastic liter bottle from a spigot. Not "fine" wine, but definitely decent table wine. Maybe Bill and I will start a similar concept store in Seattle :-).

More Venice

Venice!

Arrive in Venice this morning. It's gorgeous!

Fast food

This was our mad-dash-between-trains-vending-machine lunch the other day. Bill couldn't resist something called 'freaky fries' :-)

Above verona

We took a hike up the hill to see the views of Verona

Pisa and Lucca

We weren't really planning of going to Pisa, but found ourselves with an extra night. So we took the train to a cute walled town nearby (Lucca) and found a B&B, then took a local bus over to Pisa. Hoards of tourists and souvenir stands, but the tower was interesting and and the church beautiful. We're back in our quaint lodging relaxing before going out to find dinner.

Cinque Terre

Stopped for a drink at Riomaggiore (town 1 of 5) after boat ride to visit all five.

Vernazza hike

Hike above town this morning

Cinque Terre sunset

Cinque Terre

Landed in Vernazza (town 4 of 5) in the Cinque Terre last night. Absolutely beautiful.

Died and gone to heaven

Second night in Florence, found the coolest place called the Proscutteria. They make up awesome plates of cured meats, cheeses, bread, small fishies (yum, anchovies). I didn't want to leave.

Florence

We got into Florence yesterday afternoon and mostly just strolled around. This morning we got up early to get into the Uffize before the lines were long. Was easy as pie, and the museum was amazing. So much gorgeous renaissance art! I wish I remembered all the art history I learned long ago! (picture is from the top of Uffize looking down at ponte vecchio)
After the Uffize we went to the Pitti Palace, which contains, you guessed it, more amazing art! After wandering through room after room after room just covered with classics, we went upstairs to see the "modern" area. Ha ha....they define modern as anything after 1800!!!
Then we went to the old Central Market where locals were shopping for their produce, meat, cheeses, and had lunch at a little pasta shop, delish. after lunch, we headed to the Duomo (translation: huge church!)....amazing, especially the huge dome by Bruneschelli.
Tired, we are back at the hotel for a brief siesta, will head out to wander the streets and find dinner soon.

More and more duomos!

We left Siena after lunch, and headed to Florence. Dropped off the rental car (Bill was happy to not be driving anymore!). Spending afternoon/evening strolling around the city, planning our strategy for tackling the major sites tomorrow. Picture is of another gorgeous church, the duomo of Florence.

We have found that Internet/ wi-fi is sketchy and hard to find throughout Italy. And, weather has been warm....in the 80s most days! Looks like it will cool down as we go to the Cinque Terra and Venice.

Siena Duomo

Spent last night in Siena (totally divey hotel room, but the price and location were great!). This morning walked the Siena sights - this over-the-top renaissance church. We also climbed up to a cool vista to look over the sprawling rooftops of the city.

Florence

From the bridge in florence

Siena

From a tower in siena

Siena

The top of Siena

One of the many alleys we explored in Umbria and Tuscany in the hill towns

Hotel in Assisi

Hotel in Assisi with swimming pool

Umbria and tuscany

We have now been to several "hill towns" in Umbria an Tuscany including Orvieto, civeta, Assisi, cortona, montepulicino and now we are staying in Sienna.  Food and wine has been great. We saw festivals in Assisi and Sienna that proved we were in the right place at the right time.  We were in Assisi on October 3, and it just so happens that is the anniversary of Francis of assisi's death.  Pilgrims were everywhere and we saw a huge festival with drums and flag throwers and free food! Tonight in sienna, we ate dinner next to a huge celebration for a sienna community that won the all city horse race last month.  We weren't invited to participate but we saw several hundred people dressed up like animals and monks have a huge feast.  Tomorrow we are heading for Florence.

St.peters basilica

Today was the Vatican day. We walked all the way to Vatican city and then ended up wAlking all day long and our feet are really tired. We started at St. Peters which was huge. I didn't get an idea of how big it was until we walked all the way up to the cupola to see the view. 551 steps! We have been to a lot of big churches but this was the biggest. After having some more pasta and gelato, we went to the Vatican museum. Went through an incredible maze of old roman heads, tapestries, maps, paintings, until we made it to the Sistine chapel. It was amazing! We then found our way to the Italian masters section and saw Raphael, bernini, Leonardo, michelangelo, and others. We waddled our way back home and now are thinking about how to find dinner with the least steps. More pasta!

Lost in alleys of Rome but who cares

Crazy Italian soccer fans

Viva Lazio!!!

Italian futbol

We went to our first serie a soccer game today lazio versus sienna at Olympic stadium in rome.  It was very fun. We bought lazio scarves and sat in the upper lazio section to watch lazio dominate the game and win 2  to 1.  We learned lots of new Italian words including how to chant "bull shit".  I am a total European soccer fan and want to see a game in each European country after seeing this Italian game and the English game a couple of years ago.  

    It was 90 degrees yesterday but it cooled down to 75 today and rained all afternoon. That forced us to take our time getting home and stop into several eating and drinking establishments on the way home.  Excellent food and wine everywhere and we just finally made it home.  

That's not all we did today.  In the morning we went to the Italian national museum and saw lots of roman heads and a Lot of roman bodies without their heads cut off. The heads mostly did not have noses and the bodies had their boobs or penises cut off.

Spanish steps

I just wast sitting there and they kept bringing me Italian beer

Morning view from our Rome apt

Rome

First stop for Italy adventure 2012 is Rome. We are renting a small apartment at the top of an old building right in the center of all the action.  And I mean small... It is really just a shed on the edge of a huge rooftop patio.  It has a bathroom but that is underneath a stairway.  I am not sure how they got a toilet, sink and a shower in there.   This morning we saw the coliseum, forum, a bunch ol roman ruins, the Jewish ghetto, and the travistere.  Now we are going on a walk to the pantheon, Spanish steps and the trevino fountain.  Lots of good food so far but nothing is cheap. Pics to come in another post.

Nylands go to Tulum

This morning we got up early to visit the Mayan ruins of Tulum. They are spectacular. Along the way we took a photo of the Nyland clan.

Tropical paradise

Had a great first full day at villa luminosa today. We all slept a bit late, then some enjoyed coffee on the decks. After a morning of snorkeling, reading, and general lazing about, we headed down the the closest beachside restaurant. Fish tacos, cold beer, and an amazing view of the bay - yes please and thank you!

Then most of us went swimming/snorkeling in the cenote across the street. A cenote is a sinkhole/ collapsed limestone area filled with crystal clear water, mangrove forests, and fish.

Bill and the boys snorkeled again in the bay put front of the villa before dinner. Picture is sunset over Tankah Bay. Tomorrow we plan to be up early to be at the Tulum ruins before the tour buses.

Innocent Bystander

The Swiss is open for youth musicians on the 3rd Sunday of every month. Jess, Ryan, and Alex did a great job. videos on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nylands4/sets/72157629254268118/

Australian Exchange

Last week Jess passed his drivers test! He just needs to wait until his 16th birthday on the 26th before he can start driving. We are all ready...

The same day he passed his test, we also welcomed Ben to stay with us for a couple of weeks. He is an Australian exhange student that we are hosting. He only got to go to school for one day with Jess, the rest of the time he was sightseeing with the other Australians or sightseeing with us. We took him to the Seattle Waterfront, shopping, a rock club, and are going to a UW basketball game tonight. They have also had just a lot of time to hang out with Jess's friends and play video games. He is fitting right in with the Jess and his buddies.

737 celebration

I had a crazy day today. At work, we had a big party to celebrate going to a rate of 35 airplanes per month. I volunteered 2 of my teams to speak at the ceremony and share some our accomplishments. One of the team leaders got sick so I ended up having to be the speaker. We have 3 different shifts and 3 different celebrations so I ended up getting up at 2:30 am to be ready for the 3rd shift party at 4am. The 1st shift one was as 9am and the 2nd shift was at 5pm. Then I had to run the boy scouts parent meeting at 7pm. It was a long day.... I am tired but I am not sure why I am not in bed yet.

After the 1st shift celebration, they let the media talk to me and ask probing questions..... Speaking from a script was much easier. I talked to a few newspapers and channel 4 news.
Here are some links I found...some quoting me
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2017205845_boeing11.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-10/boeing-will-build-max-model-alongside-current-737-jet-in-efficiency-drive.html
http://renton.komonews.com/news/business/707255-boeing-celebrates-737-success-party
http://www.seattlepi.com/business/boeing/article/Boeing-building-737s-at-record-rate-2456444.php#photo-2018808

Bloggin

I haven't done this for a while and I am reevaluating if I will continue. It is a nice log of what we are doing in our lives but I am also spending time on putting it all into pictures on flickr. I am not sure if I need to do both.

Anyways... I will catch up on what has happened lately. Meg always has to work the week between xmas and new years and I always get it off so we do a boys only road trip. This time we ended up going around the Olympic Peninsula. Started with 1 night at the beach house with Gerrit and nephews. The next night was at a rented forest service cabin by Brinnon. 1907 log cabin without electricity and piped in water. We did some hiking in the rain and saw some waterfalls.
The third night was in another forest service cabin near Sequim. This time we had electricity but no water at all. We went to the Olympic Game Farm and then went and saw a movie.

The next day we started driving big time. Jess did almost all the driving because he is getting ready to take his drivers test. We started by going up to Hurricane Ridge. It was so windy and cold that we didn't last long. Ended up at Rialto Beach around 2pm and saw some huge waves crashing against the logs. It seemed like a lot of fun to be on the ocean during a storm so we went over to the La Push resort to find a room. The power was out and that made us rethink our plans. Ended up driving a couple more hours to Ocean Shores where we finally got to sleep in a room with a shower.

We then drove back to the beach house and spent the weekend with my parents and Meg. The boys ended up lighting off some fireworks on New Years Eve.

Other things happening. We got a new computer!!! the old one was so slow that there were a lot of things it just couldn't do.
On Friday, we will be getting an Australian exchange student to stay with us for a couple of weeks. Also on Friday, Jess will be taking his driving test. If he passes, he still won't get his license until his birthday on the 26th.
Travel plans coming up.... Meg and I will go to the Canadian Okanagon for a wine testing weekend in February. and the big trip... we booked a big house on the Mexican Yucatan peninsula for 10 Nylands during Spring Break. Meg and I are also planning on a fall trip to Italy for our 20th Anniversary but nothing has been booked yet.