LAST DAY OF SWITZERLAND

We woke up this morning to see that the 40 degree rain is gone and the beautiful sunshine is out. Switzerland is honestly one of the most beautiful place I have ever seen. As I mentioned before Brody lives on a hill looking into downtown and two lakes. We are packing up, cleaning and heading downtown to do some last minute shopping. We are meeting up with his teammates for lunch and then just hanging out.

Love you and see you tomorrow night babe... and fam :0)

-D

Venice

Venezia, my favorite Italian city caught me by surprise as we arrived at 730 or 8 pm. It was dark outside, chilly, and right on the canal that leads to the Adriatic Sea. We walked around and asked about places to stay. We eventually ran into an internet cafe which i booked a hostel somewhere in the city limits, jotted down the address and directions, and had just enough time to write a quick email to Nicci and throw a 3 sentence blog on here for you guys. Venice has a unlimited amount of beauty and charm, at night we walked along the streets that were a little wider than Rome and Florence, but there are obviously no cars or motor vehicles of any kind. We walked for about 15-20 minutes until we found the famous Rialto bridge.

San Marcos square, which is completely flooded at night was amazing at night, the weather became pretty cold at night, but after we ate dinner we walked through the town once more before going to bed. I purposely did NOT go on a Gondola, because I want to do it with Nicci some day. :0)It was a great trip... we caught an early train back to Lugano on Thursday afternoon... We've been hanging out in Lugano ever since. Great Adventures and memories!

Love you all very much.

-Dust

DAY 3 Italian tour

We were planning on sleeping in on Wednesday with plans to catch a train to Florence "whenevs" as Brody put it. We also thought that our hostel checkout was @ 11 at the earliest most likely 12. We had a early wakeup call as the owner came in at 930 and told us that check out was at 10! Yikes! So we ended up bargaining for a 10:30 checkout, although I don't think we moved until around 1015.

We ended up heading to the train station at 1030 just in time to barely miss the 1050 to florence... and I mean barely, we ran to the train just in time to have the doors close in our faces. So we caught the 1130 and were on our way to Florence. Florence is where I stayed with my buddy Dan from high school for 9 or 10 days in October of 2005. We saw the main sites, which included the Florence Duomo (see below) which is an enormous church with beautiful interior art work on the walls and basilica.

THE DUOMO OF FLORENCE

We walked through the city and through its world famous market places offering Italian Leather (supposedly the best in the world) cashmere, and many other local delacies. We walked to the brige of Florence that has the world's largest Gold market (most expensive, fine jewelry, etc.) which we scurried right on past (sorry babe). Lol. We got some good pictures of us on the bridge next to the markets and after grabbing a kebab decided we were reading to head to the next city... Venice.

we hopped on the next train to Venezia (Venice) which took 3 hours and got there at dark... to find a beautiful city, but we didn't have a place to STAY!

Love

-Dust

DAY 2 Roma

Ok so day two started pretty early as we walked about 5 minutes to the train station, which doubles as a metro station underground. We caught the metro going the wrong direction for one stop exited, and then bought another ticket going the right direction.. haha italiano can be difficult. We got off the metro at the Vatican stop walked a few blocks and walked into St. Peters square (obviously a very famous site) we purchased an audio tour for St. Peters Basilica and it was honestly breath taking the murals, paintings, archistructure, etc. This was absolutely amazing!

we walked throught the church for over and hour and then bought tickets to go on top of the church and it was completely worth the winding staircase and twisted path (sort of reminded me of Willy wonka and the odd rooms). It was a great experience, but once we got to the path, all of Rome was in our view.

we walked to the sistine chapel, which you are not allowed to take pictures of and walked through rome and to the spanish steps...

more pics to come.

The next day we headed to Florence for 1/2 a day and continued on to Venice, where we spent a day and a half.

Today is Saturday and we are contemplating going to zurich 2 hr drive but all three of us have bad sore throats.

Love you all

-Dust

TRIP TO ITALY Day 1 Lugano, Switzerland to Rome, Italy

The trip was an adventure in everyway, we (Brody, his american teammate Chris and I) left Lugano at 730 am on Monday local time and jumped on the train to Milan, we had about a 25 minute wait until we boarding the Eurostar (high speed train) to Rome. The train took about an hour from Lugano to Milano and about 3 1/2 to Roma termini. The eurostar train stopped in Bologna and Firenze (Florence which we would visit two days later). The train system is very efficient, and is linked all throughout Europe, our 5 hour journeyvia train is a 8-10 hr drive and gas prices in Europe are 1.40 or higher per liter.
We arrived in Rome, at the famous Roma termini train station (just about any train in Europe has a train ending up in Rome) we had no hotel reservations or plans of any kind (other than seeing as much as possible of rome in 2 days). We walked through the station to find a chinese asking us if we needed a place to stay, we responded yes we were looking for the cheapest available. Her and her husband owned a 5th story apartment about 5 minutes from the train station and for 25 euro a piece (about $40 U.S. ) we got our own private room with three beds. We booked it for two nights and set out on our adventures.

Our trek to the Colleseo began, we walked through the Roman districts one by one, with its narrow streets and multicolored buildings. I thought of what it would be like to live in Ancient Rome and how horrific of a place it would be as a Christian. We arived at the Colliseum after grabbing a bruscetta and salad lunch and a 15 minute walk. The Colliseum was unbelieveable, we paid for a tour of the entire historic landmark. The history of this site, the gladiator games (which the tour guide asked brody and i to act out) persecution of the Christians, etc. This would be a continuing theme throughout our trip, rich in history, amazing stories, etc.
We continued our tour through europe by walking to the ruins, the Roman forum, Capitoline Hill, Piazza Navona, The Palatine hill, Baths of Diocletian, Trajan's market.a few enormous churches, and one of my personal favorites the Pantheon.
The Ruins of Rome

Capitoline Hill

Trevi Fountain

inside the Pantheon

outside the Pantheon

MORE PICS TO FOLLOW ALONG WITH DAY 2 OF ROME

LOVE U ALL

-Dust

RECAP of Italian trip

Bonacera famili,

Just got back into Switzerland from a long journey from Venice... we had a great time and Venice was my favorite city. I am going to bed now... it's 12 15 am now and tomorrow i plan on loading up my favorite pics and a blog from each day that i wrote down on my trip.

Love u all and thanks for following.

-Dust

ciau guys,

at an internet cafe in venice overlookin the water... went to florence and now here... will add more later time at cafe running out.

love and ciau

Dusty

Roma

Hey guys,

Sorry i did not get a blog out yesterday, we left early this morning for Rome on the euro star speed train, from Milan to Rome tit took us about 4 1/2 hrs travel where it usually takes 8-10 hrs driving.

We are staying a hostel near the Romà termini for 25 euro each in a room for 3. Brody, Chris (his american teammate) and I. We walked to the colleseo and all over the place, the Patheon, the ruins. Tomorrow we plan on going to the Vatican city early for a tour @ 9 30. It is across town but it should be a lot of fun. I have never been anywhere in Rome other than the colleseo.

I will post more tomorrow.

I love and miss you all

xoxo babe.

Dust

GAME DAY

ciau famili,

I realize now that i speak very little Italiano and understand very little as well. ha ha. It is a lot of fun being here and chillin with Brody. Today is his last game here in the Swiss league for this year at least. We are watching a movie now and are going to take off to the arena in about an hour. Bud decided against the French league right now because it was a C league... two leagues below where he's at now. So we'll be off to Rome on Monday it sounds like. I'll post more tonight after the game.

Well Brody's Mssagno Owls won! Bud played great 15 pts. 11 assists 2 boards, and 2 steals. Hey played amazing, we're going to a team dinner right now and hanging out with the team. Nobody took me up on a skype appt. or date (NICCI!) :0) just kiddin. We had a great time tonight hangin out with the team we had a pasta feed and played cards and just hung out with the other two Americans on the team Chris (Marquette) and Noah (Princeton).

I'll put up the pics tomorrow.

If anybody wants me to be on skype at a certain time i'll make sure i am tomorrow... (fortenberry@apu.edu) or SMS skype message me if you know what that is.

We're leavin Monday morning and I want to talk to all of you, but especially you babe... that's nicci and only Nicci for some of you smart allics.

Missin you

-Dust

Day 2 of Swiss land

Another beautiful day here in Massagno... The time change is really throwing me for a loop, I went to bed @ 2:30 or 3:00 and slept til 1:00 in the afternoon. Brody came back from his shoot around to find me still sleeping ha ha. We went to lunch at the ristorante where the team eats and we had Seafood pasta and rissuto. I tried the seafood pasta and it was delicious (calimari aside). After lunch Bud and I went to a near by town about 25 km away and went to three castles all at different heights through town. The first one we went to was at the top and we hiked up some very old stone stairs. As we stood at the top of the towers, inside the various fortress' I thought of how different of a time we live in and how fortunate we are to live not only in the country, state, and cities we live in but the era as well. I kind of let my imagination run wild as to the wars, battles, and riots that happened in castles similar to these. I also realized something after hiking up the hills a simplistic reasoning for having the king's living area at the highest castle... it's difficult for entruders to harrass or even visit. Brody got back from practice, we went to dinner and came back... It was a great day that ended with somewhat of a surprise, he has been offered a contract to play in France... on Monday. So we might be headed to France... But i'll keep you posted. I'm going to bed now and tomorrow is his game... which sounds like it will be the last for him in Switzerland at least for this year. Good night and I love u all.

love

-Dust

TREK TO SWITZERLAND

The day started off very early @ 5 a.m. PST. James, my roommate gave me a ride to LAX. I checked in and got to my gate two hours early. I knew going into the day that i had a tight connection from New York to Milan(o). My light ended up being 52 minutes late and luckily the connecting flight was running an hour and a half late. I was the last to board the flight! I watched the movie "The express" and played a little poker with the on board video game system. I slept about 3 1/2 hrs or so of the 8 hr flight. When i woke up the sun was up and we were an hour away from Milano. I peaked out my window to see on of the most beautiful sites I have ever seen... The snow-capped Swiss Alps!!!
My goal is to learn a few Italian phrases a day... I seem to be able to read and comprehend a lot more than i can speak.

Bud and I went all over the place in Lugano/Massagno today... I went to his practice, we hiked up the top of the Mt. Bre that over looks the two lakes here in Lugano... The city sits at the base of the swiss alps and on water front city... ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! We watched a few of the NCAA tournament games on Brody's computer... The time change is 8 hrs ahead of California so we watched the 9 a.m. games at 5 p.m. We ate lunch and dinner at the same place... AMAZING FOOD! It's truly great to visit with Brody and catch up. He is a great friend and someone whos relationship I am very thankful for, He is still as modest, genuine, and as good a man as ever.

I haven't slept yet but am going to bed now @ 1:40 am locally in hopes that I will catch up to Swiss time faster.