Thursday, June 3, 2010

In fair Verona where we lay our scene...

Yes we did see Juliet's house...
So after fighting with the internet in Verona for forever, I have finally managed to break through the gaunlet and attempt to get a blog up. I'll bet Brendan has plenty of great pictures for us but I am letting him nap away his exhaustion for a little bit. We will get some up tonight for sure. Our last two days in Venice were a lot of fun and informative (I had one of the best meals of my life!). We learned about the infamous Calatrava Bridge (a very modern and not very sound structure) and how the City of Venice is teaming up with the Italian government and international scientists and engineers to put measures in place to prevent the city from sinking and to restore some of the rare environments found there. The project is a feat of modern engineering and something that we all could learn from. Anyway, we left Venice on June 1st and took a bus up to the Dolomite mountains (more commonly known as the Italian Alps) for a little vacation from the technical side of things. We did some hiking and saw snow for the first time since March in Minnesota. The next day we made the drive down to Verona. It was a national holiday where the country was celebrating its 64th year as a republic so we got the unique opportunity to see the celebrations in town. Today we got a guided tour of the city including its amphitheater and the Roman theater from a PhD student whose thesis is about the restorations. Tonight there is a friendly soccer match between Italy and Mexico that we are planning on watching and tomorrow we will be on to Milan. It's our last city and I am tearing up a little. Stay tuned for Brendan's pictures!
Ciao,
Vidya
Oh Wait Brendan's pictures came early!
Alps.JPG
Group Mountain Picture.JPG
Verona.JPG