Son and Mom Excursion

Bucharest - Bran - Sighisoara - Bucharest Wednesday and Thursday, 6/20 and 6/21/07 Wednesday morning Doug took us to Bran, Romania, home of Bran Castle and the city setting of Bram Stokers “Dracula.” The small city is beautiful and the castle is amazing, in the Transylvania area of Romania. Interesting read: Bran Castle. The castle was built to guard the path through the Carpathian Mountains to the north. Later it was home of Queen Marie. The legal heir of the castle is Dominic von Habsburg and in 2006 the Romanian government returned it to him. (Habsburg is an architect in New York City). In 2007, von Habsburg put the castle up for sale for a price of $78,000,000 USD. It was an awesome experience to see the history before us. Doug is a great tour ... read more

June 19 and The Team is back in the comfort of Doug's apartment in Bucharest--and the comfort of having a big brother to rescue you from crooked Romanian cab drivers at 12:30 a.m. The flight from Venice to Milan was sweet--spending time playing Sudoku. The Son is rather good at the puzzle and has to constantly tell Mom "That won't work." Bonding. From Milan, we were blessed to see the pink sunset over the Swiss Alps. Seeing the Alps protruding through the clouds was unbelievable. We looked around our immediate area on the airplane to see people reading the newspapers or trying to sleep, and we wanted to get up and yell, "Don't you people see the beautiful sunset?" We had to remind ourselves they weren't from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, so the pink sunset over the ... read more

Verona - Lake Garda Pictures Europe » Italy By Son and Mom Excursion June 19th 2007Beautiful section of Italy.... read more

Venice - Verona - Lake Garda - VeniceJune 16 & 17, 2007 This morning the 3 Amerigos got up much earlier than the 2 younger Amerigos would have liked but Mom said sleep could be done in God Bless the USA. This began the driving through Italy experience—in our Renault Clio. In preparation for the trip, web reading, podcast listening, and traffic sign memorizing was done to learn how to drive with the Italians…nothing can prepare one for that. Emersion is the best way to become just as crazy of a driver as they are! “Survival of the fittest” originated with the Romanian and Italian drivers. So we jump on the Autostrada (toll freeway where there are people who drive normally and people who fly—we just stayed out of their way) and head to Verona, ... read more

We began our day with meeting our 3rd Amerigo friend at the bus/train station on the island of Venice and then taking the water shuttle to the island of Murano, famous for making glass specifically for the Mom member of The Son & Mom Bonding Excursion Team. Murano is much like Venice but on a less grand scale and definitely much quieter. We arrived on the island at the common Italian “siesta” time—between noon and 2:00 so it was difficult to find any of the glass furnaces in operation. We did find several who were making smaller pieces so we did enjoy that amazement. A special treat was visiting with a younger glass blower as he was making little animals out of glass. The Son of the team found a very unique, beautiful piece in ... read more

Off to Vencie Wednesday morning and we were off to Venice! Because we had heard checking in at the Bucharest airport could take as long as 2 hours, we arrived in plenty of time only to find there were some “clitches” in the tickets we had purchased 9 months ago. After much prayer and patience (and 2 additional ticket purchases!), we were off to Italy. Because we were routed through Rome, our arrival in Venice was very, very late. We made it and wanted to kiss the ground when we arrived. Our hotel (Venice Resort) is a restored farmhouse on the mainland and is great. Don’t let “Resort” fool you. It is very comfortable with all the amenities one would need—just very European. The Team began with not being able to turn the lights on ... read more

Hey, Everyone -------------------------------------- That represents NO WORDS! There are no words to explain what we experienced today. Our bodies are exhaused and we are going to take an "extended" nap before hitting the streets of Venice again tomorrow. We met up with a 3rd American (Mom, your baby girl is fine) and laughed our way through Venice. The Team Photographer took over 1,000 pictures and friends--get ready. They will absolutely blow you away. The Team Mom may just have a heart attack. She is on glass overload. Tomorrow, the island of Murano where The Son & Mom Team will find that special piece to commemorate the trip of a lifetime. Be back tomorrow with pictures---if we live through the glass blowing factories! The Son & Mom Bonding Glass-Loving Italy Loving God Bless the USA Excursion Team ... read more

Matt and I were on our own in Bucharest again on Tuesday. We have gotten to be relatively comfortable exploring on our own--as long as our taxi driver speaks some English AND we have our map. Our taxi driver today was cool--his #1 CD was Soul: the Supremes, Barry White, etc. His favorite song, "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor--the essence of the Romanian people. Our mission today was to tour the People's Palace, technically called the Palace of the Parliament. Words can't explain nor can pictures depict what we saw today. During the tour, we were stunned by the massiveness of everything; but never did we hear "but the people were starving." Our guide was a Romanian girl about 25 years old; her English was relatively good but she seemed to be guarded in ... read more