HANNAH SHARES

Since our trip to Disneyland we have mostly stuck around the Vicenza area and have hosted a few more visitors since Christmas. The first week of February Michael’s mom, Nancy, his Aunt Lilly, and Grandma (“GG”) came to visit for the week. They arrived late Sunday night, and we took Monday to just walk around Vicenza and had a nice dinner at one of our favorite spots, Angolo Palladio. During the week we visited Monte Berico, drove to Nove to do some ceramic shopping, made some yummy dinners at home, and shopped the downtown market.

On Friday I went with Nancy and Lilly to Venice for the day while Michael worked from home with Lucy and GG. On our way to Piazza San Marco in Venice, intending to walk the whole way, I accidentally led us on a route that required us to take a gondola to cross the canal. A happy accident! We had thought about taking a gondola ride, but they can be pretty expensive and we weren’t sure we had time with everything else we wanted to do. It was a short ride on the gondola, but we still got to experience it, and only for a few euros! We arrived in Piazza San Marco and stopped at Caffe Florian for caffe and a delicious almond brioche before meeting with our tour group to visit Basilica San Marco. I have visited the Basilica once before over 10 years ago, so it was fun to go back inside and relearn the history. It’s a really incredible church from both the inside and outside, with a lot of interesting history. We even got to step outside on the rooftop balcony to overlook the Square. After our tour we walked along the waterfront area before heading to lunch at my favorite spot in Venice, Taverna Scalinetto. Highly recommend if you are looking for a good restaurant in Venice. We all enjoyed different seafood pastas, bellinis (which originated in Venice!) and spritz. We did a little more shopping before making our way back to the train station. The walk can be quite long from San Marco to the train. I usually do walk it, but on this trip we walked toward the canal (about half way) and took a vaporetto (a Venetian public waterbus) the rest of the way. After getting back to Vicenza we headed to our favorite pizza spot, Pizzeria Vesuvio, all together for dinner.

Michael signed up to run a half marathon that weekend in Verona, so on Saturday afternoon we took the train to Verona, walked around the Arena area a bit, and had dinner at La Griglia. Right before dinner Michael and I were actually on the phone in our hotel room for a while with our realtor in Ann Arbor putting in an offer on a house (more on that later!). A little hectic, but also memorable! We stayed the night at Relais Empire Verona, which I’ve actually stayed at once before, and recommend as a good central location that is also easy to get to from the train station.

Michael got up early Sunday to head to the start of the race, and the rest of us enjoyed a nice breakfast at the hotel. We walked out to a beautiful day in Verona and stood outside the hotel waiting for Michael to come by since we were toward the start point. We were able to see him run by and then we made our way to the Arena area to walk around a bit. It was fun to watch all of the runners and just enjoy the beautiful weather after a pretty chilly week. We caught Michael once more on his way to the finish, and made our way back toward the hotel for one last spritz and goodbyes! We headed back to Vicenza while Nancy, Lilly, and GG took the train from Verona to Milan where they stayed the night since they were flying out from there the next morning.

We hosted our last visitors the first weekend in March – my sister, Greta, and her boyfriend, Drew, ended their two-week Europe trip with a few days in Vicenza. They took the train in from Innsbruck on a Friday afternoon. We had a pretty low-key couple of days here and I spent the day on Sunday in Venice with them. They stayed overnight there before flying out early Monday morning. They came on a perfect weekend, as the weather really started warming up and we enjoyed lots of time outside. It almost felt like summer sitting on the promenade in Venice with a spritz in hand!

We spent the last month or so getting things in order for our upcoming move, which is bittersweet. Last fall Michael applied to several law schools and ended up enrolling at the University of Michigan Law School (his – and my, for location – top choice)! Lucy and I will be heading back to the States at the beginning of May, while Michael is here until the end of June. We started house hunting in the Ann Arbor area early, and weren’t planning on looking seriously until April or May, but a few things ended up working out perfectly, and we ended up closing on our first house at the end March, and we’ll move in this summer! It wasn’t easy doing so overseas, but we worked with an awesome team in Ann Arbor who went overboard for us with the time difference and doing things virtually, and internationally. We are excited to be back in the States close to family, but also for another new adventure! It will be hard to leave Vicenza, but we have made the most of our time here and are ready to go “home”. Our one-way flights are booked, we have move out dates set, and the movers have already packed our things and sent them on their way to the USA. We’re living on minimal Army-loaned furniture and out of a couple of suitcases for the next month!

We don’t have much planned before we leave, but our days are certainly numbered, and it’s going by fast! We have one more short trip to Tuscany planned. We are really just wanting to soak up the rest of our time in Vicenza, eat at all of our favorite places a few more times, and say goodbye to the locals who have become our family these past couple of years! The weather is warming up, so we’re hoping to enjoy a taste of our last Italian summer before saying arrivederci!