Crystal Ball 2: A Little Clearer

Subject to everything falling into place the way we expect, this is what we're looking at:

We would leave Ithaca July 20 and fly to Salt Lake. Oh, family in Utah! We're coming to visit. We'll drop off some stuff with some lucky family to watch for us.

We spend some time in UT, Vegas, and Santa Barbara. We bless Lavinia probably the 31st, possibly the 24th. The 24th would be kinda cool (Pioneer day and all that) but might be more problematic travel-wise. We'll see.

Some time while we're out and about we need a pediatrician to give Lavinia a Tdap shot (Tetanus/Diphtheria). If you can are in SB or UT and can help us get in touch with a pediatrician you like, please let us know!

We would then leave from Salt Lake to our New Home around August 3.

If you are family or dear friends in UT, Vegas, Santa Barbara, or along the way and would really like to see us and our new bambina, please let us know! We would love to see you!

Things Hyrum Remembers: Disney World

Hyrum's intention going into Disney World was to find characters. He wanted to see, in this order: Mickey, Buzz, WALL-E, and Pop and Boo (Grandpa and Grandma). WALL-E apparently lives at Tokyo. Between character breakfasts each day and finding Buzz and Woody together the first day, his character needs were met. He was excited to see anyone else along the way, but felt no need to visit any of them, unlike last trip. Joy interjects, "Except for Mary Poppins, who we saw and couldn't meet, but he wanted to. Hyrum really wanted to stop but we had to go on to a lunch reservation." He hadn't paid her much attention last time at Disneyland.

His regular refrain was "Let's go on more rides" - particularly after anything we went to that didn't impress as much... and after we got off the plane at home... and today again at the CT Mystic Aquarium.

His first ride was his clear favorite: Toy Story Midway Mania. He went on it 3 times and asked for it several more times in later days at the other parks. The other ride he asked for several times was Spaceship Earth (the Epcot ball). When he saw it, he stopped in his tracks, pointed, and said, "Daddy! It's Epcot!" He took a nap in it the first time we went through.

He also got used to eating at restaurants. "I want to go to restaurant and eat." Not that he ate anything they offered - he only barely sipped the milk - but he quickly learned that was where he got fed. (Actually, today he asked to go to a restaurant too.*) As we were waiting Friday evening for our last restaurant, he announced "I want to go to the dark restaurant with the cartoons." The Sci-Fi Diner that shows old scary B-movie trailers and a few outer space cartoons was memorable enough to make him want to go back. It was Joy's favorite restaurant when she was there last time, but she sees it with new eyes having brought a toddler there. "I still like it for me," she says, "I really like the atmosphere. Then I realized it really focuses on horror films...."

Hyrum is now big enough to go on water rides and we took him on the Animal Kingdom raft ride. We told him he was going to get wet. We gave him a special rain slicker. He still got wetter than anyone, which made his lower lip quiver. I asked at the end if the ride was fun. "Yes." Do you want to ride it again? "No." He reminded us of the ride today, talking about the kids in another raft who were screaming and that he didn't want to go on it again.

He randomly talked to us today about a hedge maze that Grandma Boo and Mommy showed him in Epcot.

He remembers watching the 30 minute musical play version of Finding Nemo. Joy sang a parody version of one of the songs and Hyrum sang the real words in response.

He hasn't talked about these yet, but we know he particularly enjoyed the Country Bear Jamboree (he clapped along regularly and in pretty good rhythm), the Tea Cups (asked for them by name before we got to the park and loved how dizzy I made him - boy, that was a blissful boy in the cup with me!), the line for Winnie the Pooh, and the trains around Germany. He did not enjoy Prince Caspian (dark and scary) or the Hall of Presidents (nap time!).

Hyrum demonstrated the ability to tell the difference between Disneyland and Disney World on t-shirts. "Pop, your shirt says Disneyland, not Disney World!"

* - Joy tells me that even before Disney, he asked to go to a restaurant. We go to one so rarely I'm not sure how that happened. It's probably because we went to one in March when Pop was in town for a night and took us to Applebee's. Joy told him that we couldn't because Pop wasn't there. He said, "No. Go to restaurant without Pop." Joy couldn't figure out where he was coming from either.

Disney Magic

We got a surprise invitation last month to join my parents at DisneyWorld for a few days. AWESOME! We flew out Tuesday, spent Wed-Fri at the parks, and returned yesterday. Hyrum's first visit was a wonderful time, and well in keeping with the traditions of the Magic Grandma.

Grandma Boo got a lot of quality time with him, riding in her scooter around the parks. She would pause regularly along the way to point out something interesting to him and explain it all, from topiaries to Liberty Bell replicas to carvings and flowers. When a bit of puffy flower-seed floated by on the wind, she caught it and showed Hyrum the "Disney Magic" that had brought such a wondrous thing to them. To Grandma at Disney, the world is full of Disney Magic. It made the trip all the more enchanting for Hyrum.

Then I started getting into the act:

Friday night at dinner, Hyrum was playing with his crayons while we finished our meal. I asked Hyrum to count his crayons. There were 9. I asked him to count them again, just to be sure. While he was distracted, I added a crayon. He returned his attention to his crayons and discovered the new one. He pointed out to everyone that it looked different from the other crayons! Grandma told him it was Disney Magic. Disney Magic produced three more crayons over the next while as he counted and recounted and never came up with the same number twice. Those four crayons became "the magic crayons." He asked to color with the magic crayons on the flight home and was disappointed today at church that the crayons I offered to let him color on his church program weren't magical.

Friday night as we got ready to sleep at Disney for the last time, Hyrum mourned that there would be "no more Disney magic." Oh, Hyrum, you'll take a little Disney magic with you. You are full of Disney magic.

We've reaped at least two interesting bits of Disney magic already. Up until the trip, Hy has complained most bitterly about needing to "practice potty." He dislikes it more and more, making it less and less fruitful. He hasn't earned a potty sticker or prize in a long time. During one pit stop when he was putting up yet another fight, I got fed up and called him a baby. Big boys say "I need to pee" and go to the bathroom by themselves. Babies just pee and need their diapers changed all the time. I said something to the effect of "And we'll have to keep on doing this until you can learn to say 'I need to pee.'" Something about it clicked. He doesn't want to be a baby. He wants to be a big boy. All of a sudden, from one pit stop to the next, he is happy to go to the bathroom. "Yes, I need to pee!" he announces whenever we ask, even if he doesn't actually pee. Then after he pees, he tells us he's a big boy, NOT a baby. It's such a blessing. The hard part is that from the way he asks Mommy why she chooses to pee, it sounds like he thought I meant once he can say "I need to pee" he won't need to anymore.... Joy says, "For some reason, it seems like he wants it to be something he can choose. 'I don't want to poo.' I keep trying to explain it, but we haven't made any headway yet."

We're also still trying to teach Hyrum to walk. He never learned, really. He learned how to run. Running and walking are different skills, you see. The first day at Disney he ran around like his usual rambunctious self. The second day he kept up with us pretty well. I noticed on Friday that he was a) actually willing to hold my hand and b) walking a little bit behind me so that I was carrying him forward noticeably. When I slowed down, he slowed down to match. I asked if his feet hurt and he said no. Then on Saturday, he hobbled through the airport, slow as could be. I turned to Joy and said, "It's Disney Magic! He walks!" Alas, the Disney Magic has worn off and he was his usual cannonball self at church.

Hyrum quotes on vacation

Daddy said he wants me to be happy.

[Pop and Boo have an ornament of Prince Philip and Princess Aurora, aka Sleeping Beauty, dancing. Her dress changes colors. Hy loves it.]
Dear Father Heaven. Thank Thee for Hy and the Princess.

[When I got him up from his nap today with a Grover doll on the other side of the bed]
I was finger painting with Grover. He's in time out.
D: Why is Grover in time out?
He hit me.
D: That's a good reason to be in time out. How long will he be in time out?
[Hyrum thought about that question, then rolled over and gave Grover a big hug]

[Hyrum wandered into Pop's office while he was on a headset phone call. Hyrum somehow figured out that Pop was working and waited patiently for 5 solid minutes without saying anything until Pop was done. Then he spoke up. This is much more patient and polite than he is when he wants to talk to someone who is speaking to someone else in the room.]

More Disney memories

BFF - Best Friends Forever
(or until we get home anyway)

Hyrum's pose when he says

"To infinity and beyond!"

We knew the train would be big hit. What we didn't know was how tired he was.














Hy is just learning how to smile for the camera. This is his pasted-on smile.






"Let's see, I know Narnia is through this picture somewhere...."

Some great Disney Videos

Well, if I can upload videos using the old settings on blogspot, I will! Here are the videos I alluded to earlier.

Hyrum walks like Mickey, then discovers him in the car (you may want to turn up the brightness on your computer -the parking garage was DARK):


Hyrum pantomimes with Chip:


Hyrum goes to infinity and beyond:


Hyrum watches popcorn popping:

Hyrum's Many Friends

If you ask Hyrum what he enjoyed most about Disneyland, his answer will probably be...

"Mickey and Minnie"  We saw a lot of Minnie and she was the first character he liked. Actually, the first day Hyrum was not very interested in characters. Chip, Dale, Tigger, Pooh, Eeyore, a well-versed Fairy Godmother, and Captain Hook - all at Minnie's breakfast - none could entice Hy out from his corner in the booth. But Minnie? Oh yes, please.



I did take a moment to ask Eeyore what he felt about Disney's marketing board painting him blue instead of gray in most of their promotional stuff these days. He gave a character-istic shrug: "What are you gonna do? At least they noticed me."

Tigger did a very good job, popping up behind Hyrum in the window. He was more interested in the Tigger in the window than in person, but I did manage to convince him to give a high 5. After breakfast, we went up to Toontown to meet the mayor.

Mickey of course was a hit. Hy turned around to show us how excited he was, then grabbed his toy Mickey to give live Mickey. Hyrum is telling me right now about a dream he had with Mickey on a train. This is the first dream Hyrum has reported. Hugs and pictures (and a little prying with a crowbar) later, Toontown revealed its other treasures:

Pluto balancing an autograph book on his nose and getting an eskimo kiss in return.

And Goofy doing a standard Goofy imitation. Hy was eager to get to Goofy but oddly eager to get away too. And that was Toontown.

I developed a hypothesis at Toontown that, given the propensities of Mormons to have a lot of kids, latter-day saints are probably more likely to have little ones and hence more likely to be at Toontown and Fantasyland than other areas of the park. Add to that a higher probability of having children too young to go to school and I guessed that there would probably be more Mormons-per-capita at Disneyland and Toontown while we were there than usual.... I just noticed some of the families looked a little different in Toontown - fewer tattoos, more modest outfits, less cussing, more parents speaking kindly to their children, more parents kissing and holding hands.... Then later at Crush Turtle Talk, both families he interviewed were from Utah and both answered his challenge to have 65 kids by saying "We're working on it." Yeah, I smell a Mormon. [I'm going to try to get that phrase trademarked.]

I have to say, the Woody characters were very direct. We saw him several times at different parks, and whenever he was walking to his location and someone wanted a picture, he'd just point at the picture spot and direct traffic as he continued moseying. I already talked about meeting Buzz.

Hyrum couldn't have been more thrilled.

Despite Chip's tepid reception at breakfast on Tuesday, Hy was well versed in character interactions by Wednesday afternoon and greeted Chip happily. He had a long, pantomimed discussion with Chip that I got on video. They looked pretty good together. In these next couple pictures you also see my hat moving from person to person as Hyrum got more and more excited with it. I'm thankful Mommy saved it. She always looks good in my hats anyway.

I gotta toot my own horn just a little. We knew the characters Hy was most interested in, so I enquired at City Hall on Main Str. when and where to find Buzz, Woody, and Donald. We missed Donald the first time he showed up, but spoke to his handlers (it's always political!) to figure out when he'd show up next and we were WAITING for him.

Hy was oddly wary of Mary Poppins and Bert. Then I got her to say her magic word backwards for us and he brightened up.

We spent a lot of time on Main Street and listened to their ~5 song playlist many times. Apparently, they have decided that Oklahoma, Iowa (Music Man), and Philadelphia (Happiest Millionaire) are the defining areas for Main Street, USA. If it weren't for Fortuosity and Let's Have a Drink On It, Main Street would be entirely a midwestern phenomenon. Among the songs I noted one that I have officially named the March of the Departing Grandparents because "They' Gone About As Fer As They Kin Go."

But two days of characters weren't enough. Hyrum missed Daisy. Daisy really does get the short end of the stick as far as Disney's main cast is concerned. So we hiked around town to get to a place with a character breakfast and is the one place in all of Disneyland and CA Adventure that regularly features Daisy. He also got an extra Mickey, Pluto, Minnie, and Stitch thrown in (not to mention peanut butter, chocolate, and banana french toast). (No, he didn't take a bite. Yes, I did.)

Hyrum's patience and perseverence were richly rewarded with character kisses.

Surprisingly, he liked Stitch. Joy does Not. This Stitch didn't follow instructions well even when he was leading the kids in surfing or hula hooping. Pretty entertaining for the parents when the MC told the kids to follow Stitch and Stitch left the room. So the MC had to lead the kids. I'm trying to imagine the conversation in the locker room afterward: "Dude, when did your head get too big for your costume?" "Chill, man. That peanut butter chocolate banana french toast was coming out. Do you know how hard it is to clean polymascotfoamalate?"

So anyway, Hyrum had a magical time with characters. Characters we saw, but Hyrum did not want to: Dale, Tigger, Pooh, Eeyore, a well-versed Fairy Godmother, Captain Hook (scary), Snow White, Gepetto [despite Pinnochio being a new favorite movie, ride, and artwork], Mr. Incredible, the green army man from Toy Story, Lightning McQueen, and Mater.

Hyrum and the Magical Grandparents

My parents (Pop and Boo) are really nice. They flew us out to California this month to spend a week and a half with them and to take their grandson to Disneyland. He went last year as an infant, but this time we spent a month or more prepping him for rides and characters, and he has an actual memory now to enjoy it with.

My mother is magical. She has a lot of childlike love and excitement in her. So she had a lot of great ideas about how to make this trip particularly magical for Hyrum. It is no coincidence that almost every ride (or walk between rides) if I asked Hy who he wanted to be with, the answer was Grandma "Boo."

We drove to Disneyland on Labor Day Monday and made a short pit stop at an outlet store along the way. A little later we parked so Pop could bring his mother some medicine and we were joined by a visitor....

A 2 and a half foot tall Mickey Mouse! Hyrum fell in love and showered him with kisses. He thanked Grandma Boo as a fast friendship was forged. (I would love to post the video, but it's too long and blogspot is complaining.) He held Mickey on his lap the remaining hour to Disneyland, slept with Mickey, and carried Mickey over much of Disney [more than Daddy expected but less than Mommy promised] the next several days. Mickey cheered him when he was sad. Mickey played with him. Mickey spoke and sang with him. All was Mickey.

Mickey was a major attraction for the park's other guests too! A lot of parents wanted to know where we got him and how much (grandparents are wonderful things). Kids' eyes widened and jaws dropped. Several asked their parents if that was the Real Mickey. Some families took pictures of us! We were a genuine attraction. When Hyrum met Mickey in person, he gave live Mickey the doll Mickey. He kept coming back to Mickey later, interrupting other people's turns with Mickey if we didn't hold him back.

The magic only increased with the next gifts from Pop and Boo: Buzz and Woody pajamas. He knew what it meant the moment he put them on: "I'm Buzz!" Once again, other children stopped to look and point at Buzz walking amongst them. The best part of being in his Buzz outfit was that he got to meet Woody, Jessie, and Buzz while wearing it. Buzz wrote an extra long dedication in Hy's autograph book. Hyrum was pretty much in awe and wanted to stare at Buzz and Woody as long as they were in sight. Looking at this picture, Hyrum got very excited and told how he and Buzz "match." They have a walking garbage can at Disneyland (named "Push") who talks to guests, and it talked to Hyrum too, asking him if he were Buzz Lightyear and "I thought you were taller." Hyrum asks to wear his Buzz or Woody outfit every day ... or everyday he isn't asking to be Bob the Builder. The Mouse ears I got him have become Buzz's helmet. Technically, the Buzz pajamas are from Pop while Woody is from Boo.

Hyrum also scored a pair of "Smurf-colored glasses" from them. When he puts them on with the shaded Mickey side on, he looks around and declares that everything is "dark" and hurriedly opens them again. His favorite way to wear them is with one dark Mickey on and one off. Combined with the Mickey ears and a couple other Mickey paraphernalia he got, he's quite the walking advertisement.

Pop has always been one of Hyrum's favorite people. Pop is the Promethean Bringer of Technology after all. He also takes Hyrum to character breakfasts. Pop fought with Captain Hook to defend Hyrum and Joy. Pop is the Buzz Lightyear ride champion.

Magical Grandma also has a magical popcorn popper at her house. We warned Hyrum the day before we returned home that we were leaving. He said, "Stay with Pop and Boo. Make popcorn."





Is there anything you would like to say to Grandma Boo and Pop, Hyrum?
"Pop and Boo make popcorn. Then it's time to go to sleep. Thank you for Disneyland."

May Pictures 3-1

I'll give you fair warning: I'm in a very economist mood tonight as I write.

Finland



Scenes that caught my eye in Helsinki.















New York City
There are a bunch of vendors in the park line that winds its way to the boats that take you to the Lady. They all sell the exact same pictures. I confess I spent some time during this anniversary pondering their business model. Are they atomistically independent sellers all crowding into the same area or are they all part of the same franchise? What keeps them from differentiating their products even slightly? I didn't see them in other parts of New York where we went. While I'm familiar with Hotelling's theories about why similar businesses cluster, there are other clusters, other "beaches" in New York City. Whether they are multiple businesses or one, I'd have to think one of them could earn higher profits moving to Chinatown

My brother and I also enjoyed discussing the photoshopping in the pics. The Twin Towers are in the first picture, disappear by magic in the second picture, and return in the third; oversized boats appear and disappear; the island to Miss Liberty's right (our left) disappears and reappears at random... all the same angle, variations on coloring to let you know the sunset is Totally fake.... Strange business model.

Okay, enough economics.

We spent a good deal of time in Chinatown after visiting the Lady.


Our ladies were fascinated by the street vendors and the restaurants that wanted to display their meats. We tried to identify them, but with little enough success (another strange business model?). I bought a pound of grapes for a dollar that were delicious, shared them around our party and gave a bunch to a fellow who was hungry.

We wandered the stores, bought very little, and grabbed some dinner from a sit-down restaurant that only took cash. Another strange business model?



One of the billboards in Times Square featured the leader of Iran. I was mildly interested, so took a picture. Those billboard spaces have got to be EXPENSIVE. Does the UANI really believe this is the most cost-effective way and place to advertise? It certainly has the potential to be seen by millions every day - not bad - but it's one of hundreds of flashing, changing signs in a teeming mass.

The real reason this got posted is that when Hyrum saw it, he pointed and said, "Daddy!" I decided that the best way to respond to that would be to revise upward my opinion of his looks and take it as a compliment.



The New Amsterdam Theater where we saw Mary Poppins has some amazing well decorations. No one complained as I filmed them before the show started. Here is Progress.



Corning Glass Museum


Blocks upon blocks of glass, all of them with interesting shapes, bubbles, trees, designs, and patterns.

Salzburg 1 - Austria's Most Famous Exports

Austria has a bit of an image problem with English speakers. We heard the same story several times in our two days there and saw its effects emblazoned on t-shirts in every gift shop. When they tell a Yank, for instance, that they are from Austria, the Yank is liable to say things like, "Oh, g'day mate," or "Can you sing a didgeridoo?" or some such. The patient Austrian then explains (unless it's on the t-shirt), "There are no kangaroos in Austria."

The Yank is liable to be puzzled at this statement. Of course there are kangeroos in Australia! That's when the Austrian will say, "The Sound of Music" and comprehension dawns. The Alps! Do-Re-Mi! Salzburg and Vienna! Mozart! Yes! That Austria.

We awoke in our van Wednesday morning, had a wonderful, provincial breakfast of Broetchen and Nutella and hopped on the bus into the Salzburg Altstadt (old city). We spent two days in Salzburg and surroundings, so we're going to break the part down thematically and focus on the Sound of Music and Mozart today.


The bus dropped us off in front of the Mirabelle Gardens. Lots of decorative flowers, lots of statues of two or more people - some fighting, some helping their pedestal buddy, some doing other things. The fountains are impressive.






The Gardens are next door to a palace and the Baroque Museum, which oddly enough was preparing to do a Classical music concert. It's like going to the BeeGee's museum to hear MC Hammer.





Sound of Music fans may recognize the Mirabelle Gardens as the scene for Do-Re-Mi.










In the Salzburg Castle (Thursday) they had a puppet museum, complete with this cut out from the Sound of Marionettes.






Also in Salzburg is a wonderful trick fountain garden we'll describe later. At the trick fountains is the gazebo where they performed 16 Going on 17.


Our big ticket item in Salzburg was Wednesday night: a dinner theater entitled The Sound of Salzburg. Four singers performed most of the Sound of Music repertoire, Austrian folk favorites, a couple Mozart pieces, and had some fun. Joy LOVES dinner theater, so this was on a per with the gondola ride for romantic moments. Dinner was very good - I loved my 'typisch Deutsch' pork roast with sauerkraut. I was one of the lucky people called up from the audience to dance and sing. Joy got video of much of it, but I spent the dancing bit paying attention to getting the steps right while hidden behind another 'couple' and wasn't paying attention to the audience, so you won't see those videos. The song after that, though, was one I recognized (Once an Austrian went yodeling...), so I sang along with gusto ... much to the shock of the singers. In the next verse, they grabbed the hat off my head to swing around.



Mozart's Birthplace, the building declares.
Much ado about nothing, the online reviews of it declare. It's all 'period' furniture, but none if it was the Mozarts' and you can't touch anything.

So we toured Mozart's Residence across the street from the Mirabelle Gardens instead. Photography was not allowed (I learned after taking a small handful of shots). We learned a lot about the Wunderkind, including how he married an ex-girlfriend's sister.


An organ in the residence. The great thing about the audio tour was that in addition to the spoken word, they played various lesser-known but beautiful Mozart selections. My favorite were the passionate, almost Romance period, religious pieces he composed at his mother's death.

Mozart has never been a favorite musician for me. For my taste, his great works are overplayed and his lesser works are finger exercises. After saying that, though, I was shocked this week in listening to some Baby Mozart to realize the he wrote the music for Twinkle Twinkle (aka The Alphabet Song; aka Baa Baa Black Sheep; aka....). We've all been singing Mozart to our kids for a long time!

Between the puppet museum, the Sound of Salzburg, Mozart Residence, and other random televisions around, we saw no fewer than 4 different renditions of Papageno's introduction and marriage from The Magic Flute (for my money, Mozart's best work).

That week they were also honoring Mozart's good friend, mentor, and colleague: Joseph Haydn. This is (a copy of) Haydn's death mask. The two of them, despite being 30 years apart in age, apparently had very high regard for each other. Haydn's head has quite a story behind it: separated from his corpse by phrenologist grave robbers and only reunited in the tomb 145 years later.






Oh, one more Salzburg export: another Austrian hat for Derrill. My other two came by way of Disney World's Epcot center and Austrian tourism boards. It's nice to have one I can say really really came from Austria. It has a very different feel from the other two - much firmer and less peaked.

Joy's Favorite Memories

I really loved being with family. It was so nice to chat with Mari and sing with the children before bed, and play games with Mari and DeWayne. It was really special to me that Anna [left] called me her girl friend and it was fun to see how much friends she was with Derrill after he helped her with a hotair balloon and basket (minus the hot air) art project. We really felt special that DeWayne took time off work to play with us and to show us around, what a wonderful trip.

Mari [right, with baby Sarah] gave me a great gift. She suggested that I get my nails done to being a journey of not biting them. Well, happily enough I have not bitten my nails now for three weeks and I bought some nail polish and some files this last week.

A special moment for me was seeing Venezia from the Gondola. They are mighty expensive, but just as we took off in ours I realized that this was the way I wanted to see Venice and I was just thrilled with the whole ride. I was also especially happy when he took us through some quiet streets, most of Venice was really crowded, so the quiet canals were very nice. I also bought white hat in Venics :), so Derrill wasnt' the only one to come home with a hat this time.



Before we went into Venice proper we took a boat bus to Morano where they make glass and wandered through their canals. It is just like Venice only quieter and I really liked Morano for that.... sweet memories. [A restaurant in Murano]




The games we played with DeWayne and Mari were Carcazone, Settlers of Catan, Alahambra, and Turn and Taxis. The new one to me was Turn and Taxis. That was fun to learn and to play! I am thinking about owning it. :) I really enjoyed all the fun and laughs that we had, from Derrill banging his head on a table (you had to be there) to be quoting movies at strange times and turning the tables on Mari, trading a grain for a grain (her favorite joke). [DW - I really like this shot of DeWayne. This is the general planning his attack. There was a tomato caught in an eddy of the waterfalls and he was trying to decide how to get it out.]






Then there is Sacatini, yes from Italy it must be the name of a .....PASTA. This pasta looks like it is a paper bag tided at the top with a string. Inside it has pear and ricatta. So you mix it with oil, cinnammon and a healthy dose of parmesian and it is divine!!!!!!!!!!! The pumkin pasta with bacon was superb as well.





We went to a safari zoo where you drive through with you own car and the animals come up to your car. You are supposed to have you windows shut, but as you see we did not and that giraffe was really determined to get a bit of my carrot.... but I was determined as well.




The baby Hippo was really cute too. We were lucky to be passing by (for the second time) and saw the mom and the baby get out of the pool.





The castle that we saw in Trieste was way awsome. Inside it looked like you think a castle should look, not just like a museum like some of them. [Below is the dock by Castle Miramare.]

We really enjoyed the Gelato, that everyone said we should enjoy. We tried to get it whenever we could, we even got it twice one

day. That day was the over the fence gelatto. We had parked behind it and had passed alot of gelattorias that were closed, we were really hoping this one would be open because their lights were on, but when we walked up they had just turned them off. He still served us and that gelatto was fudgey and divine. All the chocolates were different (I always got chocolate).








Finally the waterfalls (featured in a preceding post) were really neat at Valley of the Miste in the Dolomites. I love water and bridges and that was a sweet spot!