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.

Today was an action packed day. We began the day by doing a service project. We cleaned up the side of a road by using hoes, shovels, plastic bags and heavy duty gloves in the town of Pyrgos. The roadside was overgrown with weeds. These weeds weren't any normal kind of weed but weeds with 4 inch thorns that could pierce through armour. We worked for about an hour and made quite a difference. We then went into the town and walked around through the narrow paths and among the hillside homes. From there we went back to the port and took a boat to a small island which is part of Santorini, swam at the beach and had lunch. After that we took the cable car up to Firo, had some free time and then got on donkey's for a tour of the caldera. It was quite an adventure for all of us. We then came back to our hotel, had dinner and then swam in the pool.

Hello again, I am lucky to have internet access again tonight! I am sitting on my balcony overlooking Santorini. Today we got up very early, 5:15am and took the ferry to the island. It took 8 hours but was a beautiful journey. Some of the delegates made friends on the ferry. The boy in the picture is from South Africa. After arriving in our hotel, taking a quick swim in the pool, we headed off to the beach(about a 10 minute walk) and had dinner. Afterwards we stolled home after walking for a while on the beach. The sand is black and very hot during the day. Tomorrow we will be getting up at 6:30am, heading off to the cable car and a service project. Afterwards we will be taking a boat to riva beach and that back to the main island for a donkey ride to the top of the caldera. We are all very excited. We will be staying at this hotel for 3 nights but the

Hi everyone, last night everyone went to bed early and got a great night's sleep. We started the day learning how to cook Greek food at a restaurant and the students cooked lunch for all of us. It was delicious. After that we were off to the Acropolis. Here are a few pictures from our day. Tomorrow we get up early for our ferry to Santorini. I'm not sure if we will have internet there or not.

Hi everyone, seven days to go and I'm already having trouble sleeping because I'm soooo excited. I hope everyone had a good time at the picnic. Look for an email regarding the reunion. Make sure your parents know how to log on to this blog so that they can follow our journey

Welcome

January 10, 2009

Hello everyone and welcome to our blog. While January in CT seems far away from July in Europe, you will be amazed at how quickly the months go by when you are anticipating such an exciting adventure. This blog will be a place where we can post questions, information and pictures about our journey. While we are traveling we will use it to send home messages and stay in touch with our families. Please feel free to post sites that you look into while learning about our destinations. Check out this site http://www.walledtowns.com/wtfc/towninfo/austria/friesach.html to learn more about the town of Friesach, Austria. Let me know what you think.

Lisa