Italy!

Continuing with our travels...
Saturday we left Salzburg to drive to Udine, Italy.  The drive was beautiful!!!  There was a lot of snow once we got up in the mountains.  And once again, the trees were GORGEOUS!  I took a lot of pictures, but none of them captured how beautiful the colors of the trees were.

We got to Udine that afternoon and walked around with our personal tour guide, Lorenzo, Jesse's friend from FC (who is from a town near Udine).  I love Italy!  I fell in love with it 2 1/2 years ago when we went there for the first time!  We really enjoyed our time there.  The main reason we were there was for Jesse to preach at the church in Udine.  Jesse preached the lesson while Lorenzo translated.  This was the first time Jesse preached with an interpreter.  He did great!  It was different for him, but he adapted well.  The members of the church were so warm, inviting, and hospitable.  Even when we didn't speak the same language!  But things went really well.  We had dinner each night with people from the church.  It was great!  Real Italian meals.  That means a LOT of food.  They serve it in courses.  And it was all DELICIOUS!  I loved it!!!  I probably gained 5 pounds, but it was worth it :)  Here are some pictures from Udine.

Lorenzo, our personal tour guide!

Biggest potted plant EVER!

 Monday we caught a train from Udine to Venice.  It was about a 2 hour train ride.  We did not have the best weather for our trip.  It was raining.  And it had been raining.  So... Venice was flooded.  And when I say flooded, I mean, they had platforms for people to walk on all throughout the city.  It was quite comical.  The funniest thing was these "rain boots" they were selling everywhere.  And I say "rain boots" because they were just a step up from wrapping trash bags around your legs and shoes with duct tape.  They were different colored plastic that came up to your knees with plastic to wrap around your feet...  And people paid 10 euro for them...  Wow...  But we still enjoyed it.  I even saw a pink boat :)

All of the stairs are NOT usually submerged. 

Pink boat!!!

Tuesday we drove back to Germany from Italy (about 8-9 hours).  And boy had it snowed more!  It was crazy how much snow was on the ground.

It made us want to go skiing!  We stopped at this cute Autobahn restaurant in Austria for lunch.  It had a great view!

Wednesday morning we took Jessica to the airport :(  We really enjoyed her visit!  The puppies were very glad to see us home.  They were staying with our friends Amanda and Kevin.  I think they thought we left them again.  They have some separation anxiety now...

Next post, Halloween party!!!