Our first out-of-country trip since coming to Albania almost 1 year ago (we arrived 3/26/06). Since Criss had never seen any of Italy, he put together a two week tour of the more important places – Venice, Florence and Rome and just because he was interested, we stopped in Bologna and Cinque Terre.

Probably, the most stressful part of the trip was getting out of Albania. We had not traveled out of country and did not know what to expect. The other stressor was budget – we are so used to trying to live on the Peace Corp allowance, we find it hard to turn loose of the money, but in Italy you get over that very quickly. We had a friend drive us to the airport and in true Albanian form, he would not let us pay for gas, just buy him a coffee. So here we are at the airport cafe. (Ibrahim, Carol and Ibrahim’s driver)

The flight to Venice was uneventful, as flights should be. We had to fly to Milan and then back to Venice. Criss tried to take a picture Venice as we flew over it – maybe you can see the backwards ‘s’ of the grand canal in the picture. Venice is the blob of lights between the mainland and string of coastal barrier island lights.

By the way, flying over here is so much easier than flying in the States. Security is tight, but not quite as intrusive and abrasive or is it we just don’t understand?