Well after a long and

some times torturous... well torturous if you are Chris and its me finally in the drivers seat... the steering wheel on the left hand side of the car with the gear stick in the wrong place and driving on the wrong side of the road and continually checking left to see if traffic was coming only to find out that I should be checking the right hand side.... mmmm lets just say it was an experience that the truck driver concerned will not forget quickly... thankfully the little turbo diesel got its act together and moved its tushy...

another thing that is just plain wrong is trying to type in English on an Italian keyboard... but thats another story that can wait...

after a long and winding trip (avoiding toll roads and at some stages motorways) we finally made it to Venice... but not till we repacked one bag with stuff we will need... negotiated the actv system (not easy) trying to sort out how you activate a ticket when the only language used is Italian and your Italian quite frankly sucks... yeah well you get the idea...

We are both totally buggered again... which I guess is to be expected... we have had a long few days... and hot... 34 degrees here today again and now thunder, lightning and rain... hopefully it will cool things down some... sure needs it... after coming from highs of 10 degrees to this with high humidity to boot well its kicking our butts big time... thankfully we have been able to negotiate supermercatis and have found a great stash of bottled water!

Never again will I complain about our water... trust me our water is quite simply stunning in comparison...

Our hotel room here is what Chris calls quaint and if you know Chris at all you will know just how sarcastic he is being... you could say its just a little overdone... oh well its a bed and it has a shower thats all i really care about at the moment... and talking of both thats what I am off to do now... cause seriously I need both!!!!!

The week that was...

pretty dang good actually... brilliant weather! and all those things that needed sorting before we leave kinda mostly got sorted without too much hassle...

Anya had a great birthday and enjoyed her "party" (think a couple of friends, a trip to Maccas, lots of squeals, lots of giggles) thank you so much to everyone who sent her gorgeous cards or gifties... and naturally there was a visit round to Nana's to help her celebrate her birthday also...

and then yesterday Nana and Grandad Bus finally arrived... the girls and I hadn't seen them for a year... it had been longer than that for Chris though... Mum (chris') and Bryan joined us all for a barbeque... yes you read right and yes it is winter... we did end up eating inside but we had a bbq none the less!

And now today... the day has finally arrived that Chris and I leave for Italy... so exciting... we are all packed and ready to go now, its only a matter of hours now before we head off via Sydney, Bangkok (transit stops only no getting off the plane before reaching Dubai where we have a few hours at the airport there before heading onwards to Milan...

I am hoping to be able to post updates here so keep checking back...