Living the Dream

we had an awesome weekend visiting our buddies keith and katie from vandenberg in vicenza, italy. it was great to catch up with them and hear all about their adventures living in italy and reminisce about the good times at 4425. we hiked in the julian alps and stayed in a refugio for a night with keith and katie and some friends of theirs. hiking in the alps is way different from hiking in the US, in that they dont really believe in switchbacks, so the traditional 'trail' we think of in the US is usally non-existent. you are generally always climbing straight up the mountain, often with just a series of cables and clips you are supposed to hang onto as you dangle from the cliffs... it was a fantastic challenge and the scenery was amazing.

we conveniently missed our connection through vienna to croatia and austrian air put us up in a sweet 4star hotel in downtown vienna for the night and gave us a 75 dollar meal voucher for dinner. our favorite part was the room service breakfast delivery... not a bad deal for a ticket that was free to begin with!

hit the palio, an annual horse race run in the piazza of sienna for the last 1000 years or so, with adam and travis -- a fantastic festival in a beautiful city. after almost 4 hours of waiting in the square, and 2 minutes of excitement, the fierce and mighty... goose... neighborhood won. too bad we dont have many pictures since this is the night our camera decided to run away forever with a sienna taxi...

favorite palindrome of napolean and lutheran high's doc sheaffer... we kayaked around this beautiful island off the coast of tuscany for a few days. the water was amazing and paddling fantastic. italian families and hundreds of their strollers and two year olds swamped the streets (maybe the casting call for the movie 'look who's talking 3?') italian families apparently liked this place more than napolean, who escaped after less than a year.

had a great time in portugal visiting the algarve beaches, lisbon, and the -made entirely from bones- chapel in evora. we had a fantastic day visiting the castles, underground passages, and caves of sintra outside of lisbon.

met up with newlyweds adam and travis for the san juan festival in porto -- little old ladies and two year olds on their dads shoulders all wacking each other with plastic squeaky hammers -- followed by the best fireworks display any of us had ever seen. laura even hit a policeman on the head... would love to post the picture, but laura also lost the camera and all the pix from this portion of the trip. kirks nephew is now having fun with the hammer... ask his dad how much the whole family loves being wacked by a squeaky plastic hammer...