Day 3: Gondoliers Looking for Action, Venice

Day 8: La Certosa di Pavia, Inside and Out

Day 9: Palazzo Madama, Torino

Day 10: Florentine Rooftops from a Florentine Rooftop

Thanks to the magic of scheduled postings, you are seeing this as we are moving out of our Milanese apartment. Wish us luck. We just wish we were still in Florence.

Day 11: No Volcanic Ash Here

Another beautiful day in Milan! This was taken yesterday around 5pm. I guess the sky doesn't look totally blue but you can't tell from looking at this picture that Milan is one of the cities that the volcanic ash cloud is wreaking havoc over (Malpensa airport is basically closed - they say it's open but it's only for Middle East and Africa-bound flights).

I've spent quite a bit of time worrying about our move back to the U.S. and whether we should change our itinerary. We aren't scheduled to go until May 1 but I'm going to go out on a limb and predict utter chaos at all European airports for the next two weeks. The verdict? Our employer has made a secondary reservation for us that does not involve the Frankfurt transfer that our first reservation has. Fingers crossed that they'll confirm Cooper's ticket and, oh yeah, that the airport will open.

Day 19: Yemeni Dancers

19 Days! Holy Cow!

These are some Yemeni dancers, performing during the BIT show earlier this year.

Day 24: Limoncello!

Limoncello from our one-year anniversary trip to the Amalfi Coast. Unfortunately, we didn't save any extra to try out these limoncello cupcakes from Jamie Oliver.

Day 25: View from Bergamo Alta

Now that my husband has returned from his Chamonix snowboarding trip with our point and shoot camera, I can hopefully take more pictures and show you Milan during our last Spring.

Here's another one from last year, the view from Bergamo alta, a medieval town near Milan. We spent the day wandering the cobblestone streets and admiring the clear (smog-less) view from above.

Day 27: BIT Show and Carnival

Curious. I thought all my photos from the BIT show (the international trade and tourism show) were accidentally deleted. Couldn't find them in iPhoto but sure enough, they made it onto the hard drive. Oh well.

This one is fairly recent, mid-February. So this MAJOR trade show was at the new Milan fairgrounds and was open to the public on the weekend. We attended and picked up brochures from a whole bunch of countries we'd like to visit and admired the more dramatic set-ups. The Indian tourism commission had a whole pinkish-orange palace thing going on, the Americans had a big old American car with lots of red, white, and blue; and the Italians had these Venetian Carnival dancers performing throughout the afternoon. Very cool.

Forty days later, Lent is coming to an close and Christians everywhere are preparing to celebrate. Happy Easter!

Day 28, Bolzano

Creepy carving of a wooden face. Taken during the Bolzano Christmas market in December 2008.

Day 29, Pasta in Montepulciano

Rolling pici with my cooking classmates at an agritourismo near Montepulciano. The people on the right were doing it right: flat hands, stretching it out for a foot or more.

30 Days In Italy

Inspired by the more talented folks at the Guatemala Holla, the next 30 days are going to be all Italy, all the time. We've got a bunch of Never Before Seen! images from our two years here, some are good, most are just ok but since we're departing in 30 days, this little retrospective will be a nice look back.

These guys were working on the tram line refinishing project near my apartment. They tore up all these blocks and then, as far as I could tell, put them back into the same place. This seemed to take the majority of the summer. Most of the workers were dressed like this guy in the forefront - short shorts, topless, sometimes in the orange vest. HOT.

Two Years

Here's to 730 days of a wonderful marriage! We're both looking forward to the adventures and travels to come.