Italy

Well, we've made it to Rome after spending some time in Venice. Our time in Venice was wonderful, depsite a minor food poisioning issue. Lindsay got sick after eating some seafood risotto, but we will spare you the details of that. Thankfully, we still had some time left in Venice after the sickness passed and we were able to make it to see Pearl Jam and Ben Harper at the Heineken Jammin Festival, which was awesome! The concert was one of the best we've seen and we are both anxious to see them in the States a.s.a.p.

While in Venice, we did a lot of shopping, made it to all the main tourist spots, and ate (well, mainly Jon ate) lots of gelatto. Jon has a minor obsession with limone gelatto!

Venice was a breath of fresh air after being in Barcelona for several days because it was such a change of pace, setting, and cuisine. Barcelona was fun, but Venice was much prettier! Also, in Barcelona we were holding onto our wallet really tightly! We actually saw a failed pick-pocketing attempt on the metro. A few teens surrounded a couple with a bunch of luggage and were clearly reaching for thier belongings. It was pretty scary.

In Venice, Lindsay kept looking around for the buildings/scenes from James Bond Casino Royale, but all the areas look so similar, meaning beautiful, so we aren't sure whether we actually saw them.

Outside our hotel

The hotel we stayed at in Venice was wonderful. It was a small, boutique hotel and the owner was very "mom-ish". We are going to talk up the hotel on Tripadvisor. Our hotel in Barcelona was awesome as well! We've gotten very lucky so far. Well, until Rome...

We arrived in Rome yesterday and have already experienced much of the Roman "culture". Our train was canceled form the airport, all the cabs were trying to rip us off, and our hotel's air conditioning isn't working. Yea, no air co in 85 degree heat!! We are still debating switching hotels, but the idea of transferring all our luggage makes us both sweat more, so we may be staying put. Needless to say, we are looking forward to the beaches of Greece. Despite the heat today, we made it out to the Colloseum, Forum, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, and Pantheon.

Tonight, we are planning to have a nice Italian dinner. Then we are going to the Vatican tomorrow, where we have tickets to tour the excavations underneath.

Another highlight of the trip so far is we are witnessing Spain advance in the World Cup! We were in Spain the night they beat Paraguay (pic below), and have been rooting for them ever since. We'll be in Balos Beach, Crete for the final game- jealous??

Our trip is about to take some major turns in that we are heading to Greece after Rome, which will be very relaxing, and then from there to Egypt and Asia. We're expecting Egypt and Asia to be quite different than anything we've experienced before. We are really excited!!

We miss everyone!

Talk to you all in Greece!

-Lindsay and Jon

ps. sorry if some of our pics look kinda funny. We are having to drag them and change the sizes on these dang computers!