Venice... the city of magic

Venice has been everything we imagined it would be. The first thing that struck me when we arrived was how absolutely peaceful and quiet it is here. It is amazing the kind of calm even a city of this size can have when there are no cars. Just a tangle of alleyways, bridges and canals. The city is beautiful... a stunning blend of decay and extravagent eras gone by. Every corner you turn there is another photogenic canal, with flower adorned windowsills and a peaceful gondola cruising along. It has been difficult not to want and stop to take a picture practically every two seconds. I am literally having to control myself otherwise we would never make it anywhere.

We got in late last night. Found our fantastic little B&B through a mess of random alleyways and dead ends. Then we strolled around the neighbourhood near our place... finding the most charming little osteria where we dined outside, next to a church on a platter of salumi and cheese, caprese salad and lasagna. All while an accordion player serenaded us... and no I am not kidding. It was your picture perfect Venician evening. We woke up early this morning to a breakfast of cappucino and freshly baked croissants on the rooftop terrace of our B&B. Then we were off to explore the Doge's palace, St Mark's square and the basilica, more random alleyways and neighbourhoods, to eat some pizza, gelato and 'Bomba Mix' fruit salads, to relax in a piazza over a glass of white wine, to get lost in a true Venecian neighbourhood, to partake in the locals passagiata (evening pre-dinner stroll) and finally to dine under the stars, while our feet absolutely ached and we chattered about the magical day in Venice we had just spent.

Tomorrow we're up early to go visit one of the little islands nearby called Burano, then we leave for Rome on the train at noon.

Venice has been the perfect, most charming and peaceful start to our adventure. Now I must hit the hay and rest my poor poor feet which are killing me so that we can get up early and do it all again.

Ciao!

p.s. I tried to load some pictures from today, but my card can't be read by this computer. Sad :(
p.p.s. Oh and mom... I know I have many mistakes in this post :) I'm running on very... very little sleep.

We're off!

Well folks... we're all packed up and ready to go... our backpacks are stuffed, our camera batteries are charged and we are completely and utterly over the moon because today we're getting on a plane to start our 17 day trip through Italy and France!

Yes that's right!! 17 days!!!!!

We'll try and update the blog (with pictures hopefully too) while we're gone so keep checking it and we'll be saying hi from Europe :)

Ciao!

Playing with 'curves' in photoshop

Some of these are a bit out there... and some of them I didn't quite get the effect I was going for, but I'm learning!

Glam Baby Glam

Glam is reflections of palm trees on Rodeo Drive

Glam is Chanel

Glam is palm trees and wide boulevards

Glam is the Oscars and its knock-offs

Glam is Beverly Hills

Sunrises

I love sunrises. I love how peaceful and quiet they are. I love the colours and the anticipation of the sun just poking above the horizon. I love the lighting. I love how everything else pops when you have a really magnificent sunrise. And that is why I made it a point to drag myself out of bed every morning for the sunrise on the cruise. I just couldn't miss it.

Our new camera and it's first pictures

Well, my first post. This blog has been a long time in coming and I've been holding off on jumping on the "blog bandwagon" but, alas, I can't anymore! Keith and I bought a fancy digital SLR camera, a Canon Rebel Xsi to be exact and we are IN LOVE and now we must show our pictures to the world (well maybe just family and friends)... we'll see, maybe one day we'll become famous photographers and you can all reminisce about when you read their "first post". But I digress, oh yes... we love our new camera. We seem to be slightly overwhelmed by all the features and the official photography terminology... f-stop, over-exposed, under-exposed, shutter speed, aperture etc... but we're getting the hang of it. I guess it helped taking it on our family cruise to the Mexican Riviera and taking about a gajillion pictures, but hey, practice makes perfect. I'm sure everyone on that trip with me would agree, they didn't mind posing for pictures as often as I'd make them or stopping every two minutes to try something out. So without further adieu, our Rebel's first pictures...