Florence

Friday, June 27

We were in Florence all day. Florence has many fine works of Renaissance art from many great artists, including Michelangelo. The most famous is the statue of David. It once was in front of a government building for centuries, but about 130 years ago, it was moved inside the Acadamy of Fine Arts building. We toured the building and saw this magnificent sculpture, and viewed many other fine works of art. Brian and I and a few other students climbed the 465 steps to the top of the dome of the great cathedral here in Florence. On top there were stunning views of the city. Most of the afternoon was spent shopping, and in the evening, Lirico sang at another church. The church was so full of people coming to hear them sang that the whole back of the church was also filled with people standing. The choir did great! It is amazing to hear these kids sing in these churches. Before we left the city, we stopped by the Porcellino, a bronze statue of a boar where people stroke the snout and put a coin in the mouth for good luck.

Pisa

June 26

Today we went to Pisa on the coast, about an hour and a half from Florence, where we are staying. On the way, we stopped at the town of Lucca, where we had lunch in the charming old section of town. In Italy, they have preserved the historical old sections of town by keeping them separate from newer areas. The old sections have plazas, narrow alleys between buildings, and the buildings are never higher than the churches, which are the center piece of the towns. Many of the towns have several big churches. After Lucca, we arrived in Pisa, and saw its very famous landmark, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Its incredible to see this after seeing pictures of it since I was a little kid. Brian and I another choir student climbed to the top. It was odd to be on this winding staircase that would alternate from leaning to the left, back, right, down as you circled your way to the top. We also toured the cathedral, or duomo, with its beautiful architecture and artwork, and we went into the baptistry, that has the amazing ability of sustaining a sound for about 15 seconds. A guide came in every half hour and gave a demonstration of how it sustained a note by singing three different notes in harmony and hearing a beautiful, sustained chord. That evening, we ate at a wonderful restaurant that closed to everyone else but us. We took up the entire restaurant for two hours, and they treated us very well. We had spaghetti, of course. Actually, I have had pasta just about every meal. It's good. I haven't had to get used to weird food here, because I have always loved Italian food. Their gelato, or ice cream, as well as their pastries, are superb as well. After dinner, we went to the Chiesa de Santa Marie del Carmine for the concert. Each time the kids perform, the Italians are enthralled and give them thunderous applause. Afterwards, the choir members mingle amongst the attendees and have fun communicating in broken Italian and broken English. We got home after midnight and were exhausted after a day full of activity.

Verona

June 25

Today, we traveled from Venice to Florence. On the way, we stopped in Verona, where Shakespeare's character Juliette was from. Her family, the Cappelli's were an actual family here in Verona. You can see the balcony made famous in the play, "Romeo and Juliette". Millions of Shakespeare fans come here and sign their name on the walls of the entrance into the courtyard over which the balcony overlooks. We also toured an ancient Roman arena, almost entirely intact for over 2000 years. THey now use it for concerts, operas, etc. We were careful to stay in shady areas, because the temperature was over 100 degrees!

Venice

Tuesday June 24

We woke up early and went into Venice by 8:00 AM and toured the Basilica of St. Mark as well as the palace of the Doges. Venice was one of the most powerful cities in the early Rennaisance perioed, and they city elected a leader or Doge, to govern the city along with a Senate. The palace was beautiful, but not elaborate like some of the castles where kings lived and ruled. We also had time to wander around town and ride a gondola. I had so many scenes from different movies I have seen, such as "The Italian Job" as we went through Venice. It was fairly crowded with tourists, and I was amazed that I actually heard more Americans speaking than any other nationality, including Italian. The Italians, of course, worked in the shops, but they almost always spoke English as well. We went to the glass factory and watched them blow glass for beautiful Venetian glass goblets, pitchers, glasses, you name it.

As wonderful and charming as Venice is, the highlight of the day was hearing Brian's choir sing in one of Venice's renown churches, the Chiesa de San Rocco. When I heard his 18 member choir sing to a packed audience, particularly the songs written specifically to be sung in these churches, I felt chills down my body and had to wipe tears from my eyes. I noticed that many of the other parents there had similar reactions, too. The audience was thrilled with the performance and were touched too. Most of them stayed for the entire 1 hour concert. As the choir was singing, I thought about how these people are listening to these kids who came half way across the world to sing to them. We get to look forward to 3 more performances in different cities during our stay here.

Venice

Today is my first opportunity of posting anything on my blog for our Italy trip. Internet is not that available here, and I had to wait until we got to a hotel with wi fi access. So I'll summarize our trip so far:

Sunday-Monday, June 22-23

We met at 3AM at University High School and boarded a bus to Sea-Tac airport, arriving there at 8:30 AM. We then took off at 2PM for Paris, France. Our flight took us north over Canada and southern Greenland, and since it was the Summer Solstice, the sun never set the entire flight, even though we flew throughout the night and arrived in Paris at 8:30 AM Paris time (9 hours ahead of Pacific Daylight Time). Brian and I didn't get any sleep on the plane, so we were pretty tired. After a layover of 4 hours in Paris, we flew to Venice and checked into our hotel. After freshening up a bit, we went into Venice for the evening and enjoyed a nice walk around the town. Venice is unique, because the only mode of transportation is either on foot or by boat. THere are many charming shops, walkways and obscure little alleys throughout the city. We ate dinner in Venice and then at 9:30 PM, went back to our hotel on the mainland. BY the time we went to bed, we had been up for about 36 hours straight. Needless to say, we didn't have any troube getting to sleep that night.

We're Off!

It's 2:50 AM and Brian and I are ready to go! We travel to Seattle by but where we board an Air France jet to Paris, arriving tomorrow morning at 8AM, then to Venice in the early afternoon. It's going to be a long day.
We're traveling with the University High School's Lirico Chamber singers for a 10 day tour of Italy. It's going to be fun! I hope I can gain access to the internet to post something on a daily basis.

Welcome

I've decided to start a blog to share my upcoming Italy trip with family and friends. More to come!