Seattle Visit

We experienced much more than just tulips on our visit to Seattle.  Marcia's daughter, Amy, and her family live on Queen Anne Hill in a quaint, historic neighborhood.  It seems like we could've walked to a nearby Trader Joe's.  We picked up some snacks and flowers there before we headed over to Marcia's brother's home, located in a historic district called Capitol Hill.

Ray is an architect and his new project is adding a garage, after digging out the front lawn.  Seattle permit laws required that he install pilings to protect the neighbor's property before he could even begin the garage project.  Ray told Regina, "oh yeah, financially we should've torn the house down and started from scratch."

Marcia told us this tree is the reason Ray and Beth's home is in this particular historic district.  It's so large I could not get a good picture of it in its entirety.  

The Studebakers preserved the historic flavor of their home, by adding gorgeous moldings and saving 

the single pane windows.  

Ray and Marcia's brother, John, helped with the design and installation of the wood paneling and fireplace surround.  Even the light fixtures are new, but fit the period of the home.

There are book shelves everywhere because Ray and Beth are avid readers.

Tucked behind the mirror over the fireplace.

Just taking a shower proved to be quite an experience because this great shower and the heated tile floor.

One the beams are in place Ray plans to install a terrace over the garage roof!  We are going back for the house party celebrating the new garage!

Marcia took us all out to dinner and we had a lovely view of hundreds of fishing boats.

After dinner her granddaughter, Amanda, grabbed the camera and took several great shots!

The entire group - she jumped over a half wall to get us all in!

Regina and Amy

Tyler concentrating on his book

A couple of Selfies

We attended daily Mass at St. Ann's on Wednesday and then treated ourselves to some great Seattle Coffee, brioche, and croissants at Le Reve Bakery, owned by a friend of Amy's.  

The art work in the bakery are student projects that will be auctioned off at the school's fundraiser in May.  Marcia helped Amanda's class each make a 4x4 pastel rendering of an apple.  

Other student art projects

We saw lots of views of the Space Needle going back and forth between Ray and Amy's homes.  The spring day made the water of Lake Union sparkle and I didn't even mind the traffic. I thought about the possibility of my granddaughter, Bradleigh, living in Seattle if her dream of attending Seattle University in the fall comes true.  The O'Shaughnessy's are attending an open house this weekend.  Text message, "We liked SU, but Bradleigh LOVED it.  Now we have some serious decisions to make."  Bradleigh might just follow her Kopczynski cousins to this lovely city!

Doors and Gates in Italy

Marilyn Irvine told me her daughter made a great collage of pictures of different doors she photographed while in Europe.  Mine is not a collage, but interesting doors nevertheless.

 Wrought Iron Gate in Montecatini

 Shutters in Montecatini

 Florence

 Hooks to tether horses

 Florence - the Baptistry

 Lucca

 Lucca

 Lucca

 Siena

 San Gimignano

 St. Peter's in Rome

 St. Peter's

St. Peter's

Home from Italy

Where does one begin to describe and blog about a trip to Italy?  I took 732 pictures!  What did I take pictures of???  Lots of churches, doors, cobblestone streets, granite floors, food, towers, gates, city walls, flowers,  and a few pictures of people.  The highlight of my trip was being at St. Peter's square and hearing Pope Francis deliver a short address to the crowds gathered in the square.  I recognized just a word or two, but a bi-linqual person told us the pope talked about blindness  from Sunday's gospel. (John 9: 1-41)

A sweet tour manager, Claudia, guided 47 Chamber of Commerce guests all around Tuscany in just seven days.   We toured Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Siena, San Gimignano, Cinque Terre, and Pistoia.  Paula and I extended our trip by traveling to Rome and did it without a tour manager!

Claudia, our tour manager

 I will have to write a blog post for every day just to help me remember where we were and what we experienced.  Today, I'm just reflecting on several things overall....

Paula's husband, Bill, drove us to the Spokane airport and we arrived three hours early!  We met up with other members of our local Chamber and all wondered why we arrived so early considering it would be 16.5 hours before we arrived in Florence.

 Phil and Marilyn Irvine

Mona McRoberts and Carole Asbury

I told the Montecatini hotel clerk, "we Americans are so spoiled," when she tried to explain why their WiFi was so slow.  Several times throughout the week it didn't work at all. 

We had breakfast everyday in our hotel, including bacon and eggs.  We were a bit surprised to be charged for a bottle of water at our first meal, so we saved the bottle and re-filled it with tap water for subsequent meals.  The dining room tables were set so beautifully for every meal.  We noticed only salt shakers on each table and eventually we discovered one pepper grinder to be shared by all 47 of us.  What?  Italians do not season their food with pepper?

Coffee came from a machine and one could choose regular, latte, cappuccino, or chocolate.  I thought the regular coffee was a bit too strong so I drank a lot of cappuccino every morning.  Our room had an electric tea kettle, but no coffee or tea.    Starbucks does not exist in Italy....at least we never found one.  The coffee shops we visited served cappuccino in small cups and espresso in even smaller ones. I wonder what Italians think of our super-sized coffee servings??

My companion, Paula, endured my impatient moments (long, inefficient lines) and my need for a little wine every night.  She delighted me with her interaction with strangers....  She loves people and had no trouble making new friends on the plane, the train, at St. Peter's Square, in the pizzeria, or on the street.  She teased a young man on the airplane, appearing to steal his wine, because the hostess ignored us.  She learned he was traveling to Africa to surprise his family that he had not seen in two years!  They became fast friends throughout the rest of the flight!  She thanked all waiters profusely, finding out about their birthplaces and families.  We met servers from Bangladesh, Egypt, Romania, Holland, Croatia, and London.  She had the ability to get people to help us with our luggage, find our way when we were lost, and share their stories!  

We ate Gelato every day, sometimes more than once, sometimes as our bedtime snack.  You can buy it in small little take-away cups and the servers give you three choices, even for the smallest cups.  We could get Gelato in bars, deli's, restaurants, pizzerias.  Lemon became our favorite choice.  We found out the difference between our ice cream and their Gelato courtesy of Huffington Post:

Since we know we're not alone in pondering important life questions such as this one, we decided to get to the bottom of this. Here's what we found:

• Gelato has less fat than ice cream. While ice cream is normally heavy on the cream and has a fat content of at least 10 percent, gelato uses more milk than cream, and generally also uses less egg yolks -- if any.
• Ice creams are churned faster and harder than gelato. Ice creams typically increase in volume (with air, through churning) by at least 25 and up to 90 percent. This makes them a little fluffier. Gelato is churned at a much slower pace, keeping it dense (and sometimes more flavorful).
• The temperature at which the two are served is different too. Ice cream is best served at about 10 degrees F. If gelato were served at that temperature if would be way too hard, and would lose that elastic texture we love. Gelato is normally served 15 degrees warmer than ice cream. If ice cream were served at the same temperature as gelato, it would melt and become way too soupy.

Spring arrived at my house while I was away.  Everything, including the Lewiston Hill, is green.  That, along with my own bed, made the homecoming so sweet.  

Italy, Day 9 - Rome

I wrote some of this post while on the regional train to Florence.  We walked from our hotel in Montecatini to the train station in less than five minutes, suitcases full and heavier.  We are taking 4 seats with suitcases and backpacks.  We met other Chamber  of Commerce people from Michigan, going we're we are... same train, same hotel.  I'm trying to stay awake and enjoy the views from train.  I notice terraces full of grapes and olive trees.  Everything is green, some trees blooming, white blossoms.   I notice laundry hanging out windows in the gorgeous sunshine today, first real nice day.   We change trains in Florence, get in fast one that takes 1.5 hr to Rome.  Claudia warned us about Rome, a big city, and lots of pick pockets.

Whew, with the help of new Wisconsin friends, Joe and Laura, we got off the regional train and on the speed train to Rome.  I slept some, but noticed more vineyards and gated type communities.  It seems like poor people live near the tracks.    We walked a short distance from the train station and found our Hotel Massimo d'Angelia on via Cavour.   We have a great room, high ceilings, but it's very noisy.  We opened the windows, 3 of them.. 2 glass and one like a wood door, painted white, to get some fresh air.  The room became amazingly quiet when we shut all the windows for the night.

View of a busy city street from our hotel window

We walked across the street for a pizza lunch, then back to hotel.  A sweet hotel clerk, Monica suggested the easiest way to see Rom is to walk.  So we walked to Colosseum, all around it.

The history fascinated both of us and we wondered if the people really watched Christians eaten by lions here.  We then walked to the Forum area and saw gorgeous sights without standing in line to pay for admission.

We walked up a hill to a sweet church built in honor of St. Bonaventure.  

We stopped at one of the four major basilicas in Rome, Basilica of St. Mary Maggiora.  

I actually attended Mass at this church on Sunday morning.  The Italian priest said the Mass in a side altar and I found myself quite distracted because of the language, so I noticed all the marble carvings, the beautiful floor, the incredible art work.  I've decided that a simple church lends itself to better prayer time for me.  And oh, the priest said the Mass with his back to the people....

We ended the night with our favorite dessert - more gelato.