Easter

Gondola traffic jam

Venice was a must see for the Norwegians so we headed for the sinking city on Easter Sunday. I figured the place would be deserted what with it being not only a Sunday but Easter too.

WRONG!

The place was packed to the gills. We knew we were in for it when we drove across the bridge and felt lucky to find parking in one of the large garages. I guess everyone wanted to go to Easter service in a medieval Basilica or one of the many beautiful churches on Venice. Almost all the shops were open too.

Not us, we just wanted to sightsee and eat some gelato on this cold and rainy day.


and so we did.

Friends

So great to run into old friends in Venice.
 Especially when you have pee!

The army is really such a small world!

On Easter eve, I was absolutely tickled to see our old friends, Tina and Luke, from Georgia.When we lived in Georgia, Tina and Luke lived across the street from us in Richmond Hill. Now Tina's son is stationed here in Vicenza and she and Luke were here to visit him and see Europe.  It was such a pleasure to have them over for dinner.

It was especially a pleasure because my Norwegian guests did all the work. Emil kindly offered to cook a leg of lamb and Eva made a beautiful chocolate cake and I didn't have to do a thing but drink wine, eat and laugh with my old friends. It was a great evening and at the end of it we hugged goodbye and hoped we would see each other sooner rather than later.

Sooner.

The next day we ran into Tina and Luke in way overcrowded Venice.

Do you have any idea how convoluted and crowded Venice is? Probably not, but take my word for it, it was a freaking miracle that Luke was hanging out a hotel window at the split second we walked by and just happened to see us meandering by.  Too funny and weird!

I blogged about these friends back in 2006. Daytona Beach with Luke and Tina 2006 .

In another weird co-winki-dink...

And they saw each other across the room...

Then, as if seeing Luke and Tina wasn't enough for this friend-starved girl, I'm at work a week ago and I am hustling with a co-worker to manage a crisis and I look up and see my long lost friend Kristi G. who was our neighbor when we lived at Fort Bragg in 2003!  INCREDIBLE. We just stared at each other in disbelief for about 10 seconds and then crossed the room for a fierce hug. I think my co-worker thought I was nuts LOL. I was so happy to see her!

Old army friends = family

In this crazy military life, every time you move you have to begrudgingly say goodbye to your friends and push yourself to start over and make friends at the new place.  Meeting up with them again is such a treat and you have the commonality of army struggles, moving constantly, friends etc. to catch up on.

Cindy, me and Kristi  wine tasting at Villa Sceriman

Then, as a grande-friend-finale,  a week later, my good friend Cindy (who we've been stationed with both in Georgia and Belgium) flew down from Belgium to spend the weekend with us! Unfortunately she is moving back to the states in a few months. Sad and it's another goodbye but who knows, she may pop up and we may be neighbors in a couple years.

In this crazy army life, weirder things have happened!

Wordless Wednesday #71

Venice: Jesus Alley

Italian Dentista

Signe and Emil 

Halfway through our Norwegian invasion, poor Emil came to me holding his jaw and begged me to find him a dentist to pull a tooth.

That's crazy talk!  I was thinking.

But he was indeed in agony. He confessed that he hadn't been to a dentist in years and the toothache he had been nursing was finally at point where he could not stand it.

You see...

He's a Dentist Scaredy Cat. In other words, to me, a kindred spirit. I used to be deathly afraid of going to the dentist from the ages of 15 until about 28. I'm over it now.

I guess birthing three babies gets you to a new acceptance of pain.

Not Emil.

He was scared sh#*less and in a foreign country.

I set out to find an Italian dentist (or Dentista) who was a firm believer in lots of pain meds for dental procedures.

Rumor has that  Italian dentists are not big on anesthesia or a lot of Novocaine and I've read and heard horror stories to back up this rumor.

Of course I didn't want to scare Emil any more than he already was so I set out on a mission.

After several phone calls and the help of our Italian friend, Lucia,  I found a dentist who promised they would put Emil under for the extraction. Please, they said,  come in today for antibiotics and tomorrow for the extraction.

We drove a somber and strained Emil to the dentist. When the dental assistant looked at the tooth she gasped. This is what she saw... viewer discretion advised - this is not for the faint at heart and your teeth will ache just from looking at the photo:

Emil's rotten wisdom tooth

This is the tooth with a massive crater that sat at the back of Emil's mouth. He said it filled up with food daily and he had to picked it out.

Shudder.

He was so nervous, poor thing. On Wednesday, the day after the consult and antibiotics were prescribed, Thom, Signe and I  took him to the dentista for the extraction. He could hardly sit still in the waiting room and must have used the bathroom three times.

But..

The Italian dentista was the best!

They were understanding and patient and they brought him a drug cocktail to slug down about 15 minutes before they called him back for the extraction. It took the edge off immediately and we all laughed as he went from high-strung anxiety to giggly, chatty and posing for snapshots.

They called him back and that's all she wrote, folks...

The tooth came out..

As the rest of Emil's visit with us passed he began to look healthier and more rested. His 22 year old face relaxed considerably and he says he slept well for the first time in at least a month. Of course, the antibiotics helped too.

The moral of this story, young people... brush and floss twice daily and see your dentist as often as recommended or you may have to visit the Italian Dentista who is definately not to be mistaken for the Tooth Fairy.

On to Florence

We took a day trip to Florence... took about 2.5 hours to drive which was much quicker than I was thinking. It was a nice day with a LOT to see. Besides a lot of walking and gaping, we all went to the Galleria degli Ufizzi  and enjoyed some amazing Renaissance art. We saw Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" and " Primavera".

Afterwards we split ways with the 18 year old + crowd and the three of us (me,  Thom and Pat) had an outrageously priced gelato (18 euro for three single cones!) and then wandered and took in the sites.

Birth of Venus by Botticelli

 Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore

Front of the Basilica

Street artist in the morning

Street artist on the way home about 5 hours later.

Statue of  Neptune in the main square

My two escorts

Carol with her Belgian friend Sarah, relaxing (Sarah met us for the day in Florence), Eva, Signe and Emil (the infamous  Norwegians). Oh yeh and the infamous Patrick in the background looking like he's up to no good!

Viking Invasion

well not really but I did have the pleasure of hosting three of Carol's school chums plus Carol for ten days and did we really did have some big adventures. One of which was a trip on the bus to Vicenza for a walking tour of downtown:

a fresco found on the exterior of Chiesa de San Lorenzo

The house of Pigafetta, Magellan's sidekick.

Downtown flower shop

Gypsy lady (my brother thought she looked like Jamie Farr LOL)

Interesting shutters and bars.

Cool shot a la Thom, my photographer husband

A Palladian estate, smack dab in the middle of town... now an old folks home.