Our adventure started very early Tuesday morning at SFO where our GSE big kahuna in charge Christine Goodin came to send us off and take a picture of the team:
After a layover in Philly, we were finally on the long flight to Venice. Even a delay, bit o' turbulence and babies crying couldn't stop our good mood!
We landed Wednesday around 9:45 a.m.-ish and were warmly greeted by a big welcome crowd filled with smiling familiar faces, GSE Italy team leader Diego & team members Monica and Carlotta, as well as some friendly new ones, including District 2060 Governor Luciano Kullovitz and Alessandro Lolli, who is in charge of the GSE program for District 2060. Diego took this pic of us at the airport:
We hauled our luggage to a van and then took a water taxi to our hotel. Venice is absolutely breathtaking, more than we could have ever imagined! Many thanks to Alessandro and Diego for showing us around today and taking such great care of us, you both rock! If our first day is any indication of what lies ahead, we are truly in for a treat these next weeks.
Also, we're happy to report that it's gorgeous weather here, we brought the California sunshine! We basked in the good weather while chowing on pasta, chicken, steak, swordfish, pizza, gelato and more. Don't worry moms and dads out there, we're eating well. Perhaps too well haha!
We're also proud to note that once we landed in Italy, we didn't take a nap once (even though our bodies wanted to!). Instead, Diego helped us stay up for the more than 24 hours and now that it's night time here, we're ready to crash. Hopefully, since we're going to sleep around the proper bedtime, we can set a good sleep schedule from here on out!
Take a look at some of the photos I was able to snap around town today...
Waiting for the water taxi:
Beautiful building off the main canal:
View of a bridge over the main canal, taken while in our water taxi:
First order of business after we checked into the hotel, grab some food and drinks to celebrate our landing in Venice!
Look at all that laundry stretched across the canal... what if your clothes fall in?!
St. Mark's Square:
This is for my bestest buddy: Look, Roxy, it's a Hard Rock Cafe right next to the gondola rides!
Much love to all our family and friends out there, ciao!
Yay! I've been waiting for this first posting!! I'm so happy to see your smiling faces and hear about your first 24 hours away from home! I can take a deep breath knowing you have arrived safely! Now it's time to just sit back and enjoy all the wonderful things that you are about to experience. We love hearing from you so keep the blog entries coming as often as you can!
ReplyDeleteI was wondering when you were going to post (you'd think I'd be patient knowing how little time you're going to have on a computer!)
ReplyDeleteWe're living vicariously through you right now ... I want to know everything!!!
Love the pictures - you look like you're having a great time!!!