Calderon Salmon Travels

We got up Wednesday morning and headed to the airport which was about fifteen minutes from our hotel. Our fairy tale of living in a foreign land has come to an end. We now shift our focus on the realities that have become our own lives. Since Yvonne was flying back separate from us, on a different airline, we went our separate ways at the Leonardo Da Vinci Airport in Rome. Our flight was scheduled for 11:00 am, Bertha, RJ and Robert headed to Chicago, a ten hour flight, then on to LAX where cousin Ron was there to pick us up. Thanks again Ron! This time, there were no delays and we arrived safely at LAX about 7:30 pm (for us it was 4:30 am). I got a call from Yvonne, at what seemed like ... read more

I don't think I have ever walked up and down so many stairwells, through so many halls, through so many corridors, as we did to get to the glorious Sistine Chapel, Michangelo's masterpiece! Each hall and walkway had just thousands of pieces from ancient Rome. Art work, marble furniture, statues, carvings, mosiacs, tapestries, coins and what seemed like an unending number of interesting artifacts. (Keep in mind, there is no AC). Some of the marble "bath tubs", I am sure the Romans referred to them as something else, (but that is what they were) had to be probably 10 feet long and 5 feet wide, with a height of 4 feet. RJ said, "they were the first to invent the jacuzzi!" showed how lavishly they lived. But, although the words were never truly spoken by either ... read more

Rome...we dont have our rental car so we can now be dependent on public transportation without headache on these crazy streets. NOT! We made it on one of the few trains to Rome...why...there is a strike! We booked our trip from Venice to Rome days before in anticipation of the rumors we heard. Lucky us cause all other trains were canceled. Well, not so lucky. Not only were the trains on strike, so were the buses. We hurried to our hotel in a taxi so that we could catch up on our Rome site seeing. Since we had such bad luck the week before in Rome, we were behind. We dashed off to the colloseum (I am hurrying and cant think of the correct spelling) and it had closed already. We paid big money in taxi ... read more

Just after we blogged you the other day, Bob and I arrived back to our hotel to find out that Bertha fell in the bathtub. She fell against a fixture in the tub shower. Her ribs hurt and she has a bad bruise on her back about the size of a fist. Her neck hurt her a lot the next day but all in all she is ok. It could have been worse and we are thankful that it wasnt. Ice was sent up from the front desk to put on her bruise but Bertha was concerned to not get anyone fired for not putting in the bath mat. Bob and RJs room had one but not ours. It was the finest hotel we had stayed in on our entire trip. Oh well...we could have had ... read more

Tuesday July 7th 2008: We got up early in Florence (Firenze) and caught our train to Rome. It took us about five hours to get to our destination. Our train cabin reminded me of the old movies where you have six seats in a cabin, facing each other, with a sliding door that opened and closed. We met a young couple ( in their early 30's) that were traveling to Rome for a couple of days. They were newlyweds. They spoke a little English and we had a nice visit with them. Bertha always seems to initiate the conversations. It always seems that we ask all the questions but never get any questions asked of us. I think what I have learned most from our travels and from this couple is that Italians are very content. ... read more

We left Perugia one day early so we can stay the night in Florence. We made reservations to see the Gallery of Academia which houses the statue of David amongst other works of art from Michaelangelo. It really helped to have reservations because sometimes the wait is very long. It is hard to believe that some of these works of art date back to the time of Columbus. We were visiting the gallery when we turned the corner and far away down the corridor, there stood David. Like before, it is truly amazing to see this in person. They were very strict about not taking pictures. I made it a point to be the last one that laid eyes on David. So the challenge would be which Calderon, Gonzalez or Salmon would be the next to ... read more

I cant be related to these people no way. They dont drink water, they wait to eat at 4pm and make me suffer from hunger. Theyre like camels. ITs weird how everything closes from 1 to 4 in the afternoon but im starting to adjust so i have to plan out my snacks for myself because no one else seems to be hungary. I bought a guitar yea so wat. Im tired of everybody influencing me to not do what i want to do. I have come to conclusion that i am the only logical person left on this trip. Sleep has been hard for me and my mom because of the snoring from my dad and aunt yvonne. When its not the snorring my dad is on my half of the bed huggin me like ... read more