Rduff in Russia

 Rduff and frinz on a huge pile of snow. There was about two feet of snow in Novingrod, so that was fun..even if I was not very prepared with my clothes.

The queen of Russia's summer house...nice

Berestra Palace

Questo è Ryan. I just returned from Russia. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. For the first 4 days, we went to St. Petersburg, and the last 3 we went to Novingrod. The trip was a MUN conference. MUN is Model United Nations. So, I was pretending to be a delegate from South Korea. Preparing for the conference was difficult, but actually lobbying and debating was fun and enjoyable. A few times I did drift off into sleep though because of the lack of sleep from the previous night. Aside from the conference, meeting new people was very fun too. I made friends with many people from Egypt, Panama, and other countries. At night we would stay up and hang out in other people's room and the hallways. I'm going to miss doing that. We also toured quite a few museums including the Hermitage, which was nice....I guess?  They were interesting at first, but at the end I had had basta ("enough" in Italian). We also saw some ballet and traditional Russian dancing. This was a very unique time for me, because I have never gone on any trips like this with people my age. It was fun pretending to be in the UN. It was also a great bonding experience- I made friends with a lot of people at the school that I never would have expected being friends with. NOICE RDUFF NOICE

Primavera and more on Venice

C’è primavera!  So I will have to post a few pics of the very beginning of spring here. Sometimes on the weekends, I take long walks east along the Arno River past the end of the paths.  The snow melt from the Apennines is occurring and the river is swollen and muddy now.  The weekend before last, I noticed a number of fishermen wearing red shirts and spaced evenly apart fishing along the river.  I should have gone down and asked if they were a club. There were several people out sculling. At least once every century, there is a massive flood…the last being in 1966 where the water level rose 16 feet over the banks of the Arno and really wiped the city out.  It’s very interesting that the two most prominent floods both occurred on Nov. 4^th in the double digit years 1333 and 1966.  I finally found the plaque on the corner of via San Remigio and Via de’ Neri that commemorates both floods…it was too high above my head to take a picture.
There’s also a lot more activity on Piazza Santa Croce with marionette shows, fiddlers and drummers on the weekends.  Also, posting some more pics from the trip to Venice this past weekend!

Italian flags and laundry!

Band on Piazza Santa Croce

Love this door, even has the lily symbol of Florence

Arno River

Fishermen club on the Arno!

Pazzaglia Sculpture Garden with Italian cypresses

    

Florence is full of towers but most of them have been
incorporated into buildings.  This one is part of a hotel in Oltrarno
(which means "other side of the Arno").  Tower houses "grew up" in Florence
in 1200s and served the dual purpose of home and fortification as there were
frequent rivalries between families ...when necessary the families would close themselves
inside their tower houses which had very tiny entrance doors up high accessible
by ladders they would pull up.  Later in the 1400s the towers signified "prestige" so
wealthy families would just build them on alongside their palazzos.  When a family fell into
disgrace, the top of the tower would be "lopped off," a sort-of tower castration!
By decree, they could not be higher than the Bargello (current day national sculpture museum
that used to be the police headquarters and prison)


Evan and I underneath Palazzo Ducale





Murano glass


 

Top of San Marco Church from the side


 

Mars in the courtyard of Palazzo Ducale



The Virgin Mary with a rifle and votives! (inside San Marco)..ok, I don't
have an explanation for this one yet but I like the sentiment



View of  side of San Marco Cathedral



Roma outside San Marco



canal with leaning tower

View of San Marco area from back of Palazzo Ducale

 

Grand Canal in the morning by San Marco

Jackie, Dad and Evan having gelato in Venice.  

Venice (Venezia)

Ciao ragazzi! We decided to take a little weekend trip to Venice, "the city where taxis are boats called vaporettos." It was exactly like what it looked like in movies (particuarly the Italian Job). It was so weird to me how much water there was, even though I knew that was what it was going to be. There are bridges between every block. They are full of street vendors selling things from plastic balls that you throw on the ground to Venice sweatshirts to keychains. One of the sweatshirts they have is a copy of the white and black striped sweatshirts that all the captains wore. I took a picture with the gondola captains, and it turned out like this: 

My gondola buddies and I



bell tower from terrace view at our hotel.

My carnival friends

The Adriatic Sea behind me

Pops and I at the Ducale Museum

A gondola with a church in the background on the Grand Canal



Venice has much to see like Florence and Rome, but its main feature (the fact that it's built on water) is out of this world. I highly recommend seeing it and seeing it soon, because the water might rise due to global warming.
Evan

Fred in Dallas...ahhh Paris!

   As I write this the family is asleep in Italy, pooped out from their recent travels.  Renee and Evan just returned from an overnight in Venice with her Dad and his wife...Bob and Jackie head back to the states Tuesday having spent nearly three weeks with Renee and the boys.  Sounds like Venice was a blast...Renee will elaborate on a future post.  And all you Evan fans look for a great picture of Evan in Venice coming your way...extremely entertaining is all I will say!

  Ryan returned several hours ago from St. Petersburg...yes that St. Petersburg, the one in Russia!  My sixteen year old has just spent a week of his life in Russia...I'm not too jealous.  He attended a mock UN meeting with some classmates and then did some sightseeing.  So follow along with me: my American son going to school in Italy was in Russia at a mock UN meeting representing South Korea!!!  Unbelievable.  Can't remember where St. Petersburg Russia is?  Check it out:

  A little fuzzy but it is that orange arrow in the west, just south of Finland.  He came back exhausted but had a great time, especially interacting with the other kids...lots of late nights.  He apparently met some great kids from Panama and Egypt...yeah that Egypt, not Egypt Texas (is there an egypt texas?).  Great stuff.

  So back to my trip a couple weeks ago: after a couple of spectacular days in Rome we flew to Paris.  I have been there several times before.  I know a great little hotel five minutes from the Louvre if anyone is going (Hotel Therese).  As in Rome, we stayed in a great location and walked everywhere, though we did end up on the subway one night. 

   We spent some time in the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay, quite possibly my favorite museum in the world...housed in a renovated and spectacular old building that used to be a train station.   The Louvre is also spectacular, though can be overwhelming there is so much to see.  Ironically, they have a great section on ancient Etruscan art, likely found close to Florence.  The boys with a Roman dude:

  These Romans all had significant bootys...or junk in their trunk!

  We hit Notre Dame and the Arc de Triomphe.  I love this picture of Evan near the front of Notre Dame...completely staged...he was more interested in getting a picture of the soldiers with the machine guns!

  More to come on Paris in my next post....a magical city!

Rome again

Evan in Rome

150 year celebration of Italy's unification in Piazza della Rotonda in front of  Pantheon.
View from our balcony at hotel where we were upgraded to a penthouse suite at no charge.
How often does something like this occur?

150 year celebration

Inside the Colosseum. They say the exotic plants that grow in the Colloseum now
are thought to be seeded from the feces of the exotic wild animals they used
to bring in there for wild animal fights and gladiator contests. Over 80,000
used to fit in there...they were seated by class and entered through
the vomitorium all at once---our stadiums are modeled after these

view of Palatine Hill from the Colosseum

The last triumphal arch, Arch of Constantine built in A.D. 315 to commemorate Constantine's defeat of Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge --differs from the other and earlier
arches in that it has "spolia" or parts pilfered from other monuments in the city.
(This is why it's great to see history repeating itself....Evan said this sure looks a lot like the Arc de Triomphe that Napoleon built...)

more ruins by Palatine Hill

Pantheon at night

Greenhill Latin class in Capitoline Museum in front of pieces of  Constantine.
He was originally over 30 meters tall!

The famous she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus --from foundation
myth for Rome
(in Capitoline Museum)

Constantine and Evan

Greenhill Latin class looking at a bronze

Constantine's colossal foot

Fertility goddess in Capitoline Museum...note those are extra, ectopic ovaries!

Courtyard in front of Capitoline Museums designed by Michelangelo

Last week  Evan and I spent two days in Rome (played hooky on Wednesday) to meet up with his Greenhill Latin class that was there for part of spring break.  We met them for dinner on Tuesday night and spent part of the day at the Capitoline museums with the Latin teachers from Greenhill and Parish Schools explaining the symbolism and history behind what we were seeing! (they put the tourist guides to shame with their knowledge and enthusiasm!)  Plus, Evan got to see his friends.  Then Evan and I spent awhile inside the Coliseum with audio-guides.  There was an added bonus in that the hotel we stayed at upgraded us at no charge to the Penthouse suite with a terrace overlooking Piazza della Rotonda.  If that wasn’t enough on Thursday there was a huge celebration (the 150 year celebration of unification of Italy…Texas was a state before Italy was a country!) there on the Piazza and in the Pantheon with the President of Italy, a marching band, the whole megilla.  While we were gone, Ryan and my dad and Jackie saw a hot air balloon land right outside our windows on the piazza for the 150 year celebration of the unification of Italy (it became a national holiday on Thursday!). Ryan left Saturday with his class for St. Petersburg, Russia for a week for a model United Nations Conference and some sightseeing.