Today we spend an exhausting but wonderful day in Venice. We took the train from Padua and from the train we walked through the narrow alleys and over bridges to get to Saint Marcos Square. Had a great gondola ride, toured the Murano Glass factory and had a guided walking tour of Venice. All the delegates were given euros to purchase their own lunch today. Most of them, including the leaders went for real Italian pizza. It was amazing! I took a shot of the whole group in the square and then tried to get as many as I could before they left on their boats. Tomorrow morning we head to Austria. I will not be able to have internet tomorrow because we will be staying in a tent outside of a castle. But after that I am hoping for an internet connection at our Guest House. Enjoy the pictures.

A lot has happened since our last internet hotel. We are now in Padua Italy, our last stop before Austria. Tomorrow we will take the train from here to Venice where we will spend the day. The last few days have been a blur of cities and towns in Tuscany. We drove through the countryside to get to Volterri, the site of the Twighlight series where we learned about alabaster. We visited the American Cemetary in Montecasini (sp?) which is south of Florence, we went to Florence and today we visited Padua. This was of course after spending time in Assissi and Peruga. Our hectic pace will slow down once we hit Austria. Our first night there will be spent in a tent at a medival castle. After that we spend a few days at a guest house and then our last night will be in Munich Germany. Everyone is sad at the thought of our journey winding down although I think we will all be glad to say goodbye to Italian pasta for a while. I don't know if I will have an internet connection at the guest house. If I do I will send more pictures otherwise see you in a week. I hope you have enjoyed our blog.

Hi everyone, as you might have guessed we have not had internet access in a few days. The pace of our schedule has picked up quite a bit since we arrived in Italy. The entire group climbed Mt. Vesuvius and actually at quite a fast pace. They were amazed by the view and the volcano. You can see some of the delegates from my picture. We toured Pompeii and then headed off to Rome. In Rome they showed independence by working together in groups of 6 and following a map to find some sights. We also toured the colliseum, and the forum together. You can see most of the delegates in the picture, a few were still in the bathroom. The weather has been very hot but they are drinking lots of water and we haven't had any dehydration problems. While in Greece we ate lots of Greek salad and lamb and in Italy we seem to get pasta at every meal. In one of the photos you can see a few students running the olympic track at Olympia, we all either ran it or walked it. We love our coach driver, Lucca. He took us to a monastary way up in the hills so we could see a beautiful view. Tomorrow he is taking us into Peruga to a festival for a special treat. You should be very proud of your children, we have received numerous compliments on their behavior. We have become a very close knit family already.

We had another amazing day yesterday. We started the day with some Greek dancing lessons and volleyball on the beach. We had a delicious lunch lamb shish kabob, pita bread and watermellon for desset. Watermellon is in season in Greece right now. After lunch we had a tour of the island and stopped in Ios. It's the town where Sisterhood of the Pants was filmed and all our girls were thrilled. Afterwards we hiked up to a church hidden away in the caves and then off to see a dancing demonstration and show off our dancing skills. It was nonstop action. Today we board a high speed ferry back to Athens.