What a great week we had with our friends from Germany! In addition to our Pisa trip, we also enjoyed a perfect day at the beach to celebrate Songbird's birthday and a trip to Venice. We also had to have an UN-birthday party to celebrate all the birthdays we've missed since our Switzerland trip together in April. R. also kindly helped (okay, she did ALL the work) Pianogurl and I modify a dress so that Pianogurl could go to homecoming with the girls from Vicenza. In the middle of all of that sewing, we managed to try some more calzones in our pizza oven, with less success than last time, but edible results, nonetheless. Gelato was purchased at least three times and cappellacci was declared awesome by all who ate it!

We're so grateful for good friends! I was holding their baby and feeling amazed at how much she had grown and realized I've seen nearly all of their children as babies and watched them grow into little people. It made me grateful for the tender mercy of friends we've lived close to on many occasions in the last 10 years.

Now our house feels strangely big and strangely silent...

It says here if I push this little thing back,
you'll see St. Marks square 

Pisa starts with "P"

What happens when you drive 12 kids in two mini vans to Pisa? Well, let's just say it was a day sponsored by the letter "P"!

One of the things we find foreign here in Europe is that grown men who have cause to relieve themselves do so on the side of the road whenever the need hits! No attempt is made to disguise what's occurring. They just pull over, stand next to the vehicle and well...water the landscape. It's one aspect of the culture that we aren't so anxious to embrace. So when we received a distress call via walkie talkie from the other van, we pulled off at the first exit. Unable to find a bathroom, the three little boys who were in danger of explosion, settled for a precipice. The kids did not think I was funny when I pointed out that now they could always remember they peed on the way to Pisa...I still think it's funny.

Another half hour or so down the road, one of these same boys (whose name, incidentally begins with "P") is in desperate straights for a potty. Again, we pull off the exit and this time find some kind of gym complex to come to the rescue!

Arriving in Pisa 3 hours later (after a GPS re-route), we quickly eat our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pretzels in the Parking garage and head to the piazza at the top of the stairs...only to be re-routed, as we realize there are 9 other people who haven't used the potty for a pretty long time. As luck would have it, the women's bathroom is locked (worker accidentally pocketed the key after work the day before), so it takes about 30 minutes to potty all the people.

Pisa bell tower clock

Finally, we are heading toward the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa! The town is lovely and filled with the typical Italian shops. Lots of pizza, pasta, gelato and pastries peer at us from the shop windows. The kids point at everything and we stop in one shop to look-with-our-eyes-and-not-our-hands -- which still results in a lot of touching. Apparently our children have eyes on the ends of their fingers?

Our first view of the tower is breathtaking. We're looking at the back, but it's really beautiful and the lean is substantial. We have several leaning towers in Ferrara, and I definitely wouldn't want to occupy property under the lean, if you know what I mean, but the leaning tower is even more precariously situated. I was reading that they realized it was leaning during the first phase of construction and having been working to correct the situation ever since. I can't imagine the anguish of spending so much time or cash on a project that is in danger of toppling over! Then on the flip side, if it weren't leaning, Pisa most likely wouldn't still be on a the map!

Self explanatory

We enjoyed jostling with the tourists in the roped off lawn area to get the perfect holding-up-the tower or knocking-down-the-tower tourist shot, but with the sun at that particular angle, it was hard to see what we were photographing until we looked at our photos at home that night.

I'm slowly beginning to connect the history we're learning with what we're seeing and had an "aha" moment when I read that the church looks different from many in Italy because it's Byzantine. Pisa, along with Genoa and Venice, rose to fame and wealth during the Middle Ages because of their trade with the Byzantine Empire. Pisans were anxious to please their business partners and retain their protection against larger city states.

Byzantine era mosaic on the exterior of the Pisan Baslilica 

We toured and photographed the interior of the basilica, but passed on the rest of the attractions because our little people were wearing down and we still had a pretty long hike back to the parking area. There was one funny moment when R. and I approached the ticket desk to pick up our free pass to visit the basilica. A very bored woman asked how many people we needed the ticket for, to which I replied, "16 -- 12 kids and 4 adults." Her eyes nearly popped out of her head at the mention of 12 kids! I'm thinking maybe we need to have some school shirts printed up for when we tourist with lots of kids?

Note St. Mark's lion stepping on what looks like a deer

Neither little girl were impressed with
the replica lamp found in the Pisa basilica
where Galileo put together his theory about pendulum movement. 

The ceiling was replaced with the one pictured
here after the fire of 1595.

Here's an extreme close up of the ceiling.
Got ceiling? This place does.

The central fresco...
can you see the sword of justice?

Can you see it now?

Another memorable moment was when Rosa took one look at the glass case containing the mummified remains of St Ranieri, Pisa's patron saint, wearing a hair robe, and announced that it was Snow White. St. Ranieri actually has a pretty unusual history. He began is career as the equivalent of a rock star, gave up his fame to go into business and spent the rest of his life giving away his money as a monk! We didn't look at the baptistry, but supposedly it has acoustics good enough that you can sing harmony with yourself! Perhaps on another trip?

The kids did well on the hike back and were rewarded with Pisan gelato! After a quick time check, we realized we wouldn't make it back home before about 8 p.m. and had better procure food to fill the tummies before the drive! We ate pizza at a little restaurant on a side street in the true Italian fashion -- outside at little tables with umbrellas.

Hygiene and some hand sanitizer makes everyone happy.

It was one of the surreal moments -- everything you ever imagined Italy to be, although slightly less romantic with 4 tables and 12 vociferous children...after a while we started to hear music from a neighboring piazza and hiked that direction on our way to the parking area. It was strange to see/hear Nirvana in the middle of an Italian piazza!

After another half hour potty stop at the one-seated free public restroom, and we were on our way! The drive home was particularly peaceful after the little girls in the back of our van feel asleep. It was literally like turning off a loud movie when they dropped off! They have such a great time together, giggling and playing. I was impressed with how well all the kids did with that much driving and hiking. What a great day and great memories we'll have of our day in Pisa, sponsored by the letter "p."

Norway...the Seattle of Europe?

View from the ferry that runs from Downtown Trondheim
through numerous beautiful fiords to a number of Norwegian islands 

Norway…like Switzerland with water.

For the past three weeks, I've been in Norway much to the chagrin of all of us.  We prefer to travel all together to where ever works takes me.  However, this time the cost was just so expensive that it was not possible to bring everyone.  The flights alone would have cost over 3200 Euros ($4268.80).  Hotels, food and ferry were all quite pricey for one person.  I can just imagine the cost for seven…$10,000!

Thanks to today’s technology, you can see why I was there for work (BAW 13 or here).  It was a cool experience to get to work with and meet fellow military members from 11 other countries. 

So I had one interesting outing I wanted to share.  Flying over Norway and into Trondheim, I was impressed by the beautiful landscape and the incredible amount of lakes big and small.  Luckily, I had the chance to go on a fishing outing during the three weeks.  It was rainy and fairly cool (not cold).  We were bussed out of town some 45 minutes or so.  **Before I proceed, I must admit I had very American expectations for the outing.  Since Brekstadt was surrounded by water I figured we’d go to the pier, hop on a boat and in 20 minutes be fishing** Back to reality, we turned onto a small mountain road and after a brief stop continued for 20 minutes travelling into what was later explained by our guide as the Norwegian forest.  So we’re out in the middle of nowhere, I don’t  have a fishing pole, its raining and I can’t see any body of water anywhere (which is hard to do on the coast).  The guide explains that we have a small walk, less than a kilometer, to get to the cabin where his friend has food and fishing poles.  We begin to walk and start trekking downhill, the soppy ground is getting my boots wet and there is no trail.  We proceed, with no trail in the Norwegian forest, for 15 minutes and my feet are wet.  I finally see some water and the views are stunning.

Pristine, unadulterated Norwegian forest...amazingly beautiful

As proof that animals live and die here, we found a possible
deer skull and his bones a few meters away

Along the way, the guide points out hunting spots and techniques they use to bring down moose (by the way, we ate moose/elk stew for lunch that day).  We continue uphill a ways and over a ridge where the guide pulls out a map and stops to contemplate our current position.  I’m thinking “does this guy know where we are?”  Turns out he does.  We continue fighting through the small trees, bushes, tree branches whacking us in the face and finally emerge to a bridge this hunting group built to get to the cabin.  The area was beautiful and pristine.  The boats were small and unimpressive based on what I had expected (1 canoe, 2 small metal boats with oars/an engine).  I fished for two to three hours, got one bite and lost two lures.  I also learned later that for the nine of us that made up the group there were only 4 fishing poles.  I had grabbed a pole and gone to the lake while everyone else stood around drinking coffee.  The small number of poles explains why only one of the dudes in the boat was fishing.  After lunch, I took some nice pictures of the area since I didn't have a fishing pole.  We finally had to leave and hiked back to the road to get back on the minibus that left us there 5 hours or so before.  

One view from our Norwegian fishing spot.

I couldn't resist taking this shot...it took about four photos to finally get it right!

I must admit the hike back didn't seem as long as the hike there.  So that was my Norway fishing experience.  I arrived back to my room and found a number of guys heading out fishing.  They asked if I wanted to go (wet feet,  no fish and tired) and I said no thanks.  Turns out they caught tons and tons of fish.  Oh well!  I have a reason to go back to Norway now. 

I had a chance to tour through downtown Trondheim before leaving town.  I visited the oldest church in Norway, an Army museum that had Viking swords, and just walked around town. 

I'd love to be able to sit in a lazy boy and
hang my fishing pole out the back window!

Cool army museum that recounts Norwegian history
from Vikings to modern day...and it was free.

Cool 16th/17th century swords...not Viking relics 

Lovely view of Trondheim's church, Nidaros Cathedral,
the world's most northerly medieval church and
built over King Olaf's grave (Norway's patron saint) .

I really liked the detail in the windows and the dude sticking
out his tongue at me.

There has to be a great story here...the man on the right looks
very severely at the man in the center holding 3 heads in a basket.
There are others here also missing all or some of their head.

I also walked through downtown Brekstad but there wasn’t too much to see there.  I did get to tour around the local church/cemetery which had a few 18^th century graves. The pier area was neat because of the water.  You could actually see jellyfish blobbing around.  Not something I expected.  The weather the whole time was beautiful, around 55-70 degrees and sunny mostly.  

Riding the ferry was impressive...60 knots is fast.

Local church & cemetery in Brekstadt.

Lovely view for the man fishing in the boat or from the shore.

How many jelly fish can you see?

Lots of lovely water!

The fishing guide described it best: “Norway is like the Seattle of Europe….lots of rain, some clouds and some sun.”