Brenda's Report on Italy Trip

I write these, but Brenda is clearly the brains of the operation.  Here's her take on our trip to Italy:


My Dear Family,  I hope all of you are doing well and that the young grand babies are well now.  Anna Grace asked me to write and tell her about our trip so I thought that I would write to all.

	We arrived in Paris at 6 A.M. with wild hair and blood shot eyes from sitting straight up and trying to sleep on the plane.  We waited in lines there for maybe a total of 4 hours, got put on another flight, went to board the plane and found that it was cancelled as well but God is good, we were able to get on a plane around 9:30 that night and made it in to Bologna on the day that we were scheduled.  The airline gave us a free meal in Paris , we had about two things to choose from and one of them was a pasta dish, the other steak tartar..... Phillip ordered the steak and would you believe it was a spiced RAW hunk of ground meat with a raw egg sitting on top.  I was thankful that I had ordered the pasta. Ha!  I think we have a lot to learn about food and a lot of other things.   Our days in Bologna were amazing,  it is a beautiful town with beautiful architecture,  It is the home of the oldest University in Europe, founded in 1088 I believe.  That is the place where Phillip gave a talk to some professors and grad students.  We loved being in a city with so much history.  There were lots of beautiful, old , churches that we got to look inside, with wonderful painted ceilings and great art work and carvings and statues.  I loved it all!  One day we went to Florence, took the fast train, which traveled at around 180 MPH.  It was a great train and got us to Florence in under an hour.  We tried to see Michaelangelo's statue of David but would have had to stand in line for hours so we chose to see a replica of it that was nearby.  It was pretty amazing to see something like that in real life instead of in a picture.  The streets were crowded and it was extremely hot that day.  We found a Palace and took a tour of it and of the gardens in it, talk about talented people.  I think the art work was incredible.  The palace was filled with paintings and porcelain and carvings and antique clothing, you name it, the palace had some of it.  We spent most of our day there and outside in the gardens,  we especially loved it, the air was fresh and the flowers were blooming, lots of birds, rose gardens, more statues.  We loved it.  We walked about what seemed like 500 miles and sweated several pints I would think, but we had a blast.  Then back to Bologna, we helped a Cru team that was there with some projects and loved meeting with and working alongside those wonderful students.  On our wedding anniversary, Phillip took me to Venice,  I never thought I would get to visit that city and always wanted to.  I couldn't believe the amount of water there,  It doesn't have streets with cars in the inner city,  there are boat taxi's.  We walked miles and miles and loved seeing the narrow streets with tall apartment buildings.  Window boxes filled with flowers blooming  and laundry hanging outside the windows on those clothes lines that cross high above the street,  the people lean out their windows to hang up their laundry.  We saw more beautiful buildings,  the San Marco Basilica, ate wonderful food,  I don't think I'll ever enjoy a pizza more than I enjoyed the ones in Italy.  Also gelato is a wonderful creation!  So refreshing!  It was an anniversary that I will never forget!  Then we were back to beautiful Bologna and helped the Cru team give a Tex-mex dinner,  there must have been about 60 or more folks there.  It went well and a good time was had by all.  We feel blessed to have been able to make such a memorable trip.  Our time was to short,  I would love to go back again one day if the Lord permits.  Lots to see and do.  We had a nice, safe, fairly uneventful trip home and when we arrived our water was off,  that comes as no surprise,  then tonight, dinner was in the oven and was halfway done when the power went off!  We had half cooked dinner by candlelight and are now at Phillip's office so we can spend the evening in the light and have a computer,  also, Phillip had some work he needed to take care of.  It was a welcome break to get away and now have water and power outages for a little while,  also,  there was a washing machine in our hotel room.  Can you believe it,?  I was so excited about that!  I think I did 6 to 8 loads of laundry while we were there,  the machine was small and didn't hold much at a time but I cam back with mostly clean clothes.  I bought a clothesline and strung it up across the room and loved it.   Sorry for the long letter but I guess I was excited and got carried away!  We love and miss you all.  Please write when you can.  It means more to us than you know.  We love you,  Mom/Granna/Brenda