Benvenuti

Ciao,

and welcome to our blog!  This is our first blog post and we hope that it is the first of many.  We'll let you in on what we have been up to since the wedding.  We left Hawaii on 29 March and made the flight all the way to Richmond, Virginia - we got very little transition time in between our connections (a theme that will repeat itself) almost missing our connection in Denver.  We made it though, as did our baggage, and we spent the night at Fort Lee only to depart 18 hours later for Italy.  Our travels to Italy took us from Richmond Airport to DC to Frankfurt to Venice.  Like our last trip, our connections were tight and we had to do a sprint through Frankfurt to make our connection - literally getting on the plane as they were shutting the door.  All in all though, we made it with little issues.  For the time being we are staying on Caserma Ederle (the name of our Army Base) in Vicenza, Italy.  We will stay at the hotel on post for about 30 days until we are able to find a house or an apartment that we like and are able to move into it.  The hotel is nice - it has a kitchenette and is close to all the amenities of post.  It's a nice transition from America to Italy as we are surrounded by American culture and close to everything that we need.  The time change is really hitting us hard - our first night here we went out to a nice Italian restaurant, Il Fauina, and had some great food, but we were both extremely exhausted and barely made it through the first course before we were passing out at the table.  We've only explored the market of Vicenza a little, but the little that we saw of it we liked.  We're having to fight the urge to do everything at once as this still feels like a vacation and not a permanent move.  This weekend we will be heading to Verona to check out Lake Garda and the city where Romeo and Juliet takes place.  We'll let you know if we have any troubles with the Montagues or the Capulets.  Also this weekend we will be looking at our first place where we could be living... we'll let you know how it goes.  Oh, we almost forgot - the wine!!!  there is a wine place one kilometer from our hotel that sells two bottles for five euro... a steal because it is amazing wine.  You just bring in any empty bottle and they fill it up for you.  Also, the coffee here is amazing.

Take care,
Nate & Leslie