We thought we were just going to get ice cream…

Tonight, we took our usual walk downtown to go get ice cream. When we turned the corner onto the street, out of the corner of my eye I saw this little dog on the other sidewalk. My dad called it over and it crossed ON THE SIDEWALK!!!! It kept walking away from us because that is where it thought the sound came from. Dad called it again, and it came scurrying towards us. Mandi and I knelt down, and the dog came right up and laid its paws on me! I picked her up and carried her to the ice cream store with us. She was shaking so hard, it was so cute! Mandi had asked to hold er, and did for about 5 seconds, then the dog crawled right back into my lap! I loved it because I love dogs, and my own dogs don’t exactly like how much I cuddle with them. I have always wanted a tiny dog. This particular dog was a Yorkshire Terrier. But, it was the smaller version, so it is only about 6 inches high and 1 ft. long. Adorable little thing!

As we started walking home with it (still in my arms of course) we saw this beam of a flashlight across from the ice cream shop. We thought amongst ourselves ‘Hmmm, that looks like someone who could  be looking for a dog.’ So, we crossed the street and asked the woman if she was by any chance looking for a dog. She replied yes, but she is very tiny. It was so dark out that she couldn’t even see that I was holding the poor little thing. I spoke up and said “We found her!” The lady said really? How did you find her. We said she was walking down the street and she crossed the crosswalk. The woman replied, “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe she was in the street! She just ran away, she is going to be on a leash forever now!

Dad, Amanda and I were very sad to have to give the dog up, but were happy that we found her (Chloe’s) owner. Earlier, when we first found her, we called our Aunt and Uncle in New York to ask what we should do.(They are experts on how to rescue animals) Our Uncle suggested called the Police and asking for the Dog Unit. We were planning on keeping the dog for the night then calling in the morning. We ended up not doing that, and thank gosh we didn’t!

That was my big adventure for the night!

Back home once again…

So, Sunday night at 1:00 AM, we finally made it home from our trip to Wyoming. Out there is just stunning, and unforgettable. I think that this year has definitely made a bigger impact on the four us then usual. Getting on that plane was hard, and some tears were shed. To this day, we are not our normal selves. Everyone wishes they were back in Wyoming riding horses everyday.

On a happier note-more about the actual trip. Every morning we got up and had breakfast at 7:00 AM. Then we went off on our daily morning ride for 2.5 hours. Unreal scenary. My horses name this year was Curly Bill-one great horse! Then, we would come back to the ranch for a 1:00 lunch. If you wanted to (which I always wanted to), you could go on another 2.5 hour ride. You usually go farther away on those rides. In the middle of the week, the teenagers go on a 5 hour ride to a campsite, then camp out under the stars, that was very unforgettable! Then they also go to a movie, and Amanda and I went to see Julie and Julia the cooking movie. I liked it and thought it was ok. She blogs in that movie!! 🙂 After that, the rest of the week was pretty much the same. Eat, ride, hang out, eat, ride, hang out, sleep. Repeat. Fun altogether though.

Being home for the rest of the summer is going to be hard to understand. Because my summer has been travel, unpack, pack, travel, unpack, pack and travel again. Now, I am home for good, and missing Italy and Wyoming more then ever. But, in the back of my head I am saying to myself, home is where I want it to be, and to me, whenever I go away to Wyoming every year, that is where my true colors come out, and where I can be myself, so that is where I choose my home to be…in Wyoming.

Wyoming

Tomorrow, my family and I start our journey to Triangle X Ranch in Wyoming, via Salt Lake City, Utah. This will be our 3rd year going there. Our car to the airport is at 5 AM, not fun!

There is no internet access there, which is why I am writing this blog. Once we get there, we will say hello to new people, and people we already know. After a barbecue later that night, we will all hang around the fire, and catch up, then go to sleep.

Monday-Saturday, we get up and have breakfast at 7, and go for a 2 hour ride. Then come back for lunch, and go for another 2 hour ride (optional).  I can’t blog, so I figured I would put a couple pictures up from last year.

The Grand Tetons

Remmy and Me!

The moon, and the Grand Tetons

 

Hope to blog soon again!

 

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Back home

Hello everyone!

I am sad to say that I am back home in Massachusetts. I miss Venice very much and I miss the calmness of emotions around me. Nobody there really cared what was going on around them. When we were lost in the city, when we finally got back to the train station, there were tons of people just sitting around by the water with not a care in their minds. Amanda said, “Just look at them, they don’t care.” My dad responded with, “they do care, but only about the right stuff.” That all made us stop and think on the bridge for a while. Just looking out over the bridge, at the water and the night sky. It made me think that in America, we are all rush rush, have to get stuff done, everything matters, but in truth, the Italians are right, care only about the right stuff. Relax slow down, you’ll get there eventually. From then on, and even at home now, I roam about, not really going anywhere, just caring about the right stuff. Slowly moving.

What I have gathered, is Venice is not just a trip to some other country or town, it is life changing. I will never look at the world the same ever again. It is hard to grasp onto the fact that you are actually part of a world, where not everyone is as fortuanate as you. We think flying to California of Arizona is a completely different world then where we live, but really, leaving the country is a different world. It makes you think that there actually is hope, and a different world. There is no better feeling then going someplace, and thinking to yourself, “Wow! The U.S. isn’t your only hope. I can’t believe that I am actually still on planet Earth.” Everyone sees the world on a map and says Ohh, I know that there oare other countries and continents, the world is huge, and we see different pictures. But, you don’t get the true sense of it, until you actually go somewhere out of the country you live in.

Goodbye until my next blog!

Our first Day in Venice!

Venice is unbelievably gorgous!

On our train here, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when we pulled into the station, and went out to the streets, we all stood there stunned. There are no main road-it is the Grand Canal! Cars are not allowed here, you have to travel by water, which means you are out of luck if you are sean sick-unless you want to walk everywhere.

Amanda and I have decided that we want to live here! Out of the 3 cities, we can all come to an agreement that Venice is the best!

So, onece we found the hotel-thanks to me pointing out the obvious-we settled in and atarted walking down to a Gondola place that the hotel suggested. The hotel Dude did not give great directions so we asked 3 other people along the way for directions. Thank god we finally found it!

We had to wait 45 minutes until the next group headed out. They are group tours with a singer in one. The ride was absolutely beautiful. The sun was just beginning to set, and it refelcted off one of the buildings at the end. Truely unbelievable!

On our way back, we stopped by St. Mark’s Square (San Marco), by mistake. That was a good mistake, amazing. Amanda and I were trying to find the place where “The Italian Job” was filmed (our favorite movie). When we started to leave, we recognized the starting scene. We went back today for our walking tour.

Not surprising at all, we got lost coming back, Dad was leading. Going through dark allyways at 9:30 at night is not fun whatsoever. I was scared out of my mind. Eventually, we got Dad to stop at some hotel and ask for directions. as it turns out, we had made our way to the complete opposite of the city then we needed to be on. You could just see in the hotel lady’s face that she knew we were in trouble, but didn’t want to say it. So, she told us ‘it would be best’ to take the WaterBus. We made our way to the WaterBus, found Line #1, and took it eventually back to the hotel. Imagine a bus, shaped like a Whale Watching Boat (much smaller though), put it on water, and have the many different stops. That is what it is. It stops just like a bus, and you just get off. After, we got home, and went to bed. It was after 10:00 (Ann) 😉

That is why i didn’t blog yesterday, no Wi-Fi in the hotel room. 😦

Ciao!

A tour of Florence

Bonjourno!

On our last day of Florence, we got a walking tour. We learned a lot of history about it, just like we did in Rome. Our tour guide’s name was Yadri. It started out with us walking to a museum next to an academy of arts, so the museum was called Museum of the Academy. It had a mix of paintings, photography by Robert Mapplethorpe, and sculptures.

Some of the sculptures were copies of the originals, but we know one was the original-the one by Michaelangelo-David. Unfortuanately, we were not allowed to take pictures because of some copyright thing. But, later on in the day we went to a Square, and it had a copy of it, so I got pictures of that one.

The statue of David

 Yadri also took us to one of the places I saw online back in America-the Ponte Vecchio and those other bridges. The Ponte Vecchio is a famous bridge that had shops on it, and the shops stick out over the water.

The Ponte Vecchio

Another bridge in which the view is called the chain because with the bridge+its refelction, it looks like a chain!

After the tour, we went back to the hotel, hung out for a while, then went out shopping in a market!!!!!! I got a little Colloseum, in remembrance of Rome, and a little pyramid that has different sites from Florence on it. Now all I need is someting from Venice!

My mini Colloseum

2/4 Sides of my pramid-the crest, David, and the Medici Palace

The other two sides of my pyramid-The Cathedral and the Ponte Vecchio

By that point, I could eat Dad, so we tried to find the restaurant that Yadri had sugested to us-but I was so hungry that I couldn’t wait any longer to find it. So, we stopped at an outside restaurant-good food! In Rome, my dad got up and asked for the check and got lechtured by the waitor as to how they do things in this culture-as if we didn’t know. We were hoping not to make waiter enimies in Florence. It was all going great until Dad broke the water glass! We got out of there real fast after that, only to find out that the other restaurant was right around the corner!! 😉

The final part of our day consisted of one thing-GELATO!!! We headed off to the place that Yadri had sugested to us and it was the best gelato we had ever had, and it was from a place called GROM, which just opened up a shop in New York, Yadri told us!

Tomorrow we leave Florence on a train and head to Venice. I can’t wait! The next time I post I will be in Venice!

Ciao!

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When driving in Florence-(day #2)

Hello out there!

After waking up and having to tell our tour guide for tomorrow that she was supposed to come tomorrow, not today, we started driving to a Vineyard in Castelfiorentino to have a wine tasting and light lunch.  I had written out the directions to there using my dad’s GoogleMaps off his iPhone because we knew we wouldn’t have Wi-Fi everywhere. Our wine tasting appointment was supposed to be at 11:30 AM, so we left at 9:30. (about a 50 minute drive). With our adverntures of getting to Florence, we wanted to be safe.

We were doing great with me reading the directions and checking maps and telling dad where to go…until we realized that GoogleMaps didn’t know exactly how to get to the Castle, so they sent us to the town center of Castelfiorentino. We thought we had done something wrong, so we found the center of town 3 times, not good! The 3rd time we parked there and asked for directions. By this point is was 11:30-the time we were supposed to be at the Castle.

The lady at the info desk was very nice-and gave us directions with a map, but was very brief. In using her directions, we still got lost. I suppose going up the same wrong street 3 times doesn’t help. Eventually, we went on the main road in hopes to turn left onto the road we sould’ve been on in the first place. But, what didn’t click in was that the info lady said we needed to go under a bridge (under the main road). None of us saw the bridge because we were too focused on the road ahead of us that brought us higher and higher into the beautiful scenic hills with vineyards everywhere. {That is another difference between Rome and Florence-Florence is less ruins, and more Vineyards and like Woming. The houses here remind me of Spain} I finally said turn around, and we went back down that main road, and saw the road below us that we needed to be on. So, we traveled back onto an intersection, and onto the road we had been on 2 times already, and kept going straight, for I had seen this dirt road that we were on before. It led us across the main road and onto the underroad. Finally, we somehow made it to the Castle at 12:45 PM.

A short tour was provided of the Castle, and then we sat down for wine. We young ones (Mandi and me) were provided with 8 types of wine-don’t ask me for the names, I have no idea. All I can tell you is that they all tasted awful!!!!! The bread they provided was delicious though! Amanda and I did not swallow the wine to my parents liking, both here and in America. After that, we all headed back to Florence, an easy trip-just go down the hill. It went much quicker with us reciting jokes, and annoying car songs.

The wine guide sugested we stop at San Gimignano, or San Chimichunga as Dad calls it because he couldn’t get the name right, a nice scenic place with lots of tourits shops. We bought some things for friends there, then really headed home.

Its late here, so I don’t have time to post pictures. Dad has already shut out the lights. I will post again tomorrow, which is when we get a walking tour of the city.

Ciao!

Florence, Day #1

A view of the Alps from our plane to Rome

Ciao!

Today, we got up, finished our packing, and went down to breakfast for the first time. Our non-hisitic jewish friends were not there. 🙂 We decided that we should have gotten up on time for breakfast every morning-it was very good!

Then, we drove to Termini Station to get our rental car that our travel agent was supposed to get for us. Needless to say, AVIS Car Rental had no car for us, and not even a reservation. After being at the station for about an hour and 20 minutes, we found a rental place that would give us a car on the spot-with some bargaining included. 🙂 Our car is a FIAT, which is the European style Mini-Cooper. Very small, and it took me a while to get un-closterphobeied.

Our car, we are riding European Style!

And so, we set off on our 2.5 hour journey to the Hotel Cosimo de’ Medici in Florence. With me reading the maps, Amanda checking the direction and in charge of music, and Dad driving, we made really good time! Once we got into Florence, we had a bit of trouble finding the right road. So, we called the hotel and the front desk lady gave us directions-spelling out every street name, and every little direction. Dad jotted down the notes as she said them. With his messy hand writing and shortened sentences, we had no idea how we were ever going to find the hotel by the night.

Dad's Notes

 Our room is quite comfortable with some channels in English for once! It is great. Once again, we have a balcony in our room here too, but it overlooks the parking lot. 

Me on the balcony in Florence

Our Wi-Fi searching days our over, we have it right in the room here! After we hung out in the room for a while, we checked out the Florence area and found this gigantic and beautful Cathedral-absolutely wonderful! Dinner was magnificent, and so was the gilato! After not having pasta with meatsauce for about 12 years, then having it the other night, I have decided I will not have it for a while-I don’t like it!

The difference between Rome and Florence is that Florence is definately more popular, and Rome has more old arcitechture. When we went to the Coluseum yesterday, we saw that they were excavating the ruins of Rome. None of that is going on here.

No they are not hisitic jews. Thanks for the Big Brother info!

I MISS YOU TOO NILES AND MAGGIE!!! MOM-GIVE THEM LOTS OF KISSES FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ill post pictures now, thanks for reading, and subscribe over on the right if you please.

Ciao! RB

The Cathedral

The inside of the tiny elavator at the other hotel-the one here is bigger!

Rome Day #3 (final day)

The amazing and ginormous Colloseum

One part of the Colloseum

Mandi and me on the Spanish steps (here you go mom)

This is the really tiny elavator in our hotel, about 2 feet wide. It took 3 days to get me and Mandi into it!

Bonjourno friends and family!

Today was our last day in Rome, and tomorrow we are off to Florence. I heard they have really good shopping there. 🙂

Early this morning we set out on a journey to find an internet caffe to find my sister a place so she could update her blog for yesterday. After sitting there for more than an hour, we set out on our journey.

We walked from our hotel (we got up on time today) to the Colloseum (the big famous building that is crumbling and where chariot races were held….lots of windows) It was truely gorgous!!! Only today, I have taken about 470 pictures!! I have a total of 779, or around. This is only our first city!!! My dad was joking that I took a pictures of every single window of the Colloseum, but when I talked to my mom, she said it was only because of my love of monuments and arcitechture.

After the Colloseum, we walked to the Spanish Steps, which my mom had told us to go see. Once we got there, we realized that we had been there last night, after our search for Wi-Fi, if you read my last post. There are a lot of steps, with what looks like a church thing behind them.

It is 9:17 Pm right now, and we are sitting outside that same internet caffe. We just had dinner and met some English speaking people who are staying in the same hotel as us, we call them our Breakfast Buddies. As I was telling my family, the father of our Breakfast Buddies was listening to our entire dinner conversation.

Well, I suppose I should attach my pictures now, Ciao!

Rome Day #2

Ciao again!

First off, thanks to all who posted about my blog about yesterday, it makes me feel good!

It gets very hot here during the day. After we got up at 12:30 PM, we walked at least 20 minutes to the Vatican Museum. In case you didn’t know, Vatican City is where the Pope lives! When we got there, our English speaking tour guide took us on a 3 hour ALL WALKING tour of the museum. I was barely standing up by the end of it. It is respectful to have your shoulders covered when entering the museum, so I had to put on my sweater over my halter top dress. That made me even hotter.

After the tour, we walked a couple of blocks to a Gilato stand, like ice cream, but richer and better. Although, it does melt incredible fast. Our walk home was good, and hot, and when we reached the Hotel Diplomatic, we all crashed on the beds and didn’t get up for a good 10 minutes.

Once we grabbed our bags for another journey, we set out to find a restaurant with Wi-Fi Connection so we could blog. We found one, but no wireless inside. So after we ate, we searched for a place with it, and came to some front of a building, at 10:40 @ night to blog, which is where I am right now.

After a long day of walking, it feels verrrrrrrryyy good to sit down and just relax. Tomorrow is our last day of Rome, so we hope to hit the Collusem, and then the next day we are off to Florence, with dad driving-O GOD!!!

This is me on our balcony over looking a street of Rome!

 

A beautiful square on our walk home

I would post more pictures, but dad and Mandi are bugging me to hurry up. Ill post tomorrow!!!

Ciao!!!!