Venice was a great city....definitely a unique experience navigating around all of the little canals to get where we needed to go. Apparently Venice is well known for its glass products, so naturally we shopped for glass jewelry on all the little side streets. We visited San Marco--I have never seen so many pidgeons in one place in my life! We saw some great shops, ate gelato, and hit our 3 scheduled museums. On the second day our group stayed in Padua for the morning to visit the Scrovegni Chapel. A group of us decided it would be a good idea to stay in Padua for the rest of the day and do laundry...let's just say it was much more of a tiring and expensive ordeal than it should have been...That night we ate dinner at The Beergarden--I got a hamburger and a little glass of beer, delicious! The boys all got 2L glasses...and I got pictures.

The next city stop was Zurich, Switzerland. The drive up there from Padua was long but so beautiful through the Alps. Zurich itself was gorgeous as well, set in a valley around a pristine river/lake. We visited the Kunsthaus Museum, shopped (a lot), spent a good bit of time at the river, bought Swiss Army knives, and found a great bar for the last night!

So, now we're in Paris. That was a long bus ride as well from Zurich, but it was a good chance to sleep. Yesterday we saw the Musee d'Orsay and the Louvre. Katie Rogovin and I shopped down the Rue de Rivoli and walked by the Seine. We also went with the boys to a couple of good bars last night, but weren't able to get back to the hotel until 5 am! We were wandering the busy streets near Notre Dame and 4 am trying to flag down a free taxi. That was definitely an awful experience-cold, windy, tired, and no taxi. Naturally we finally got one, and as we were driving back we passed the Eiffel Tower--and the sun was rising....what a night.

Today we went to Versailles for the day. We toured the palace (beautiful) and then the gardens outside it. Katie R. and I spent the majority of our time at the palace walking through by the fountains and wound up just sitting next to the lake watching people--after we grabbed food of course. Tonight a group is going to dinner, then climbing the Eiffel Tower after sunset--should be a great photo op!