Florence: Venice's more-interesting, but less-photogenic sister

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The Church of the Holy Cross, Florence. Gawdy Renaissance deco in all its glory!


























Italians LOVE their motos.



















Florence: Venice's more interesting, but less photogenic sister.


























Bridge from one side of Florence to the other.
















Typical view in Florence. Hard to get a good picture because there is nowhere to get far away from it all.














Fake David. This guy is a re-creation that stands where the real, original David stood in front of the Medici Castle.






















I'm pretty sure this is Poseidon... hanging out... looking awesome.





















A view from Florence from that aforementioned bridge. Everything is packed really close together!






















In front of the Medici Castle, looking at the Uffizi (an art museum, it has the Birth of Venus and lots of Da Vinci).

















Me in Florence... with ponies!

















If I look fat in this picture it's because I just ate my weight in gelato (Italian Ice Cream). It's the delicious-looking stuff next to me. I apologize for nothing!
















Can't get enough of that wonderful Duff!

















That impressive church again.
















Ariel view of the Medici Castle.

More Venice pictues

pictures of venice

Sarah is prettier than me. This is us on the Rialto (you don't know what that is, do you?), it's the main bridge over the grand canal in Venice.



















Venice at night... excuse its beauty!


















Me in iconic Saint Mark's square. You may recognize it from such movies as that awesome 3rd Indianan Jones!

















Saint Mark's Basilica











Gondolas!

















A Venetian street.



















Everybody VOTE COMMUNIST!!!

venice!

so i cant figure out spell check, caps, or punctuation beyond commas on this italian keyboard so... sorry!
venice is the most beautiful place i have ever been in my life, and i grew up in yosemite! i cant post pictures as the hostel computer is not set up for that. i will post more, and show you pictures when i get back to germany.
seriously, soooooooo pretty here!

some photo explaination

So here I am in Germany! This is how green Germany is, what downtown Gissen looks like, me and Sarah in front of the Gissen "Dirt Eater" statue (more on that later!), me with Hidran (Sarah's former host mom and nice German lady who showed us around), me eating what LOOKS like pasta but is ACTUALLY ICE CREAM... Germany is amazing, me drinking two beers but they are NOT two beers- one is beer lemonade (tasty!) and the other is the thing Europe should be famous for... BANANA BEER!!!!! SOOOO GOOOD! Also, the family that is letting us crash with them.

Germany is a wonderful place. In one day I was in a Castle, had ice cream that looked like pasta, beer with bananas in it, schnitzel, warm sauerkraut (no really, its great I promise!), went on the Autobaun, saw an 11th Century monastery, was a stones throw away from where my Goedert side of the family lived post-WWII, spoke some bad German to a waitress and some bad French to some others, ... did I mention I had not one, but TWO banana beers? And this was all within six hours of landing. Tomorrow at 5am we get on a train for Venice. I probably won't post untill I get back to Germany but feel free to email me with crap you would like me to bring you back from Italy/Germany/France/Amsterdam... I'll do my best with the Euro at $1.51 against the dollar.

some photos

Euro-Trip

After months of geeking-out hardcore with Sarah, it is finally time for us to take our awesomeness to Europe.
We start out in Steinback, Germany then we hit Venice, Florence and a town called Cinque Terre, back to Germany, then its the Alsace town of Strousbourg, Paris and Amsterdam, back to Germany, then we collapse on a plane that will take us home.
While I am SUPER excited about traveling, the thing I am really pumped about is the food. I'm looking forward to Beer with Lemonade in Germany, Lardo (an Italian specialty, akin to pate) in Italy, and I think almost anything in Paris will be tasty.
Thus far, we have spent $415 on airfare, $500 on a Eurorail, and roughly $400 on hostels. So, it's looking to be about $1,315 for everything. According to many of my friends who have been to Europe, this is excellent. Normally a just a plane ticket would set you back $1,200 but in todays economy... lets just say I think the airlines made a mad grab for passengers and got Sarah and I!

So, wish me bon chance with my travels. In the meantime, here are some random pictures to entice you to check my blog often!

The first is a 12th Century Eastern Orthodox church outside of Moscow. The second is St. Basil's in Moscow's Red Square, and then are some random snapshots of Yosemite... because I have lots of those.