Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Catch up - Edinburgh

Hello all......yes, it's been a while since our last post. No internet in London without paying a small king's ransom so we have waited until Paris and it took a day for the landlord to hand over the code. So here we are and it's just gone 1 am so i will take the next few days to catch up if that's okay.....

When we last left you we were in Glasgow and were being dinned by Gerry and Joanna Ward. Another thank you to them for their time and laughs.

For those of you following the itinerary you would know that our next stop was Edinburgh. This was probably our first special stop as we caught up with family we had only ever e-mailed in the past. Elio, Margherita and Valerie Vivarini. (Por favor, perdóname si mi ortografía es incorrecto.)

They treated us like royality giving us theirs beds and run of the house while they went off to work. It is wonderful catching up with relatives that only hear about in discussions around the dinner table with nonna or zio. Elio was full of stories and facts about the Vivarini family in Italy and Venezuela. We even snuck in a video Skype call to Pierluigi in Italy to discuss the upcoming Roma football game....which incidently Elio is flying over to Italy to see. Travel in Europe and the UK is so cheap and simple you just fly off from Edinburgh to watch a game in Rome.....

Another great highlight was the video call to my sister Ada in Brisbane and seeing Nonna Malvina on the other end with my mum, Gilda and uncle Guiseppe (Joe). This is the first time Elio and family got to see Nonna, mum and Joe (not forgetting Frank's sister, Ada ;-) and it was a really great moment in our trip. All were blown away by the technology and the call went on for ages. The last photo shows us around the table carrying on like kids with lollypops. Thank you Ada for getting out of bed to make it all happen. Pity about your roman husband although we know he can use the beauty sleep......

I guess I should give you a view of Edinburgh and the sites we saw. I must let you all know that we walked for over 8 hours on that first day with Elio! After getting up in the morning, he asked if we liked to walk and all we said yes not realising that he took that as a go ahead to circumnavigate the whole city!! Thank god he went to work on the Tuesday. Seriously though, it was a LOT of walking but we really enjoyed the city and it was a great way to see it. Our tour through Edinburgh Castle was awesome and we could have stayed a lot longer but there is just too much to see in a city like this and 2 days just doesn't cut it.

Tuesday night, we went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant and it was Marghertia's turn to make us walk. Her first language is Spanish and I'm not sure what "around the corner and down the road" means in Venezuela, but in English in Edinburgh, it's a one and a half hour trip. Mind you, the restaurant was really good and Tessa got to exercise her eyes a bit while having dinner..... There's a photo of the Italian waiter in the slideshow. You will notice the protective mother keeping an eye on things!

By the way, good weather again for us in Edinburgh and not too cold for the ladies. I am still to unpack my thermals so all is still good for me. Got to be better than the temperatures I keep hearing about from some of you back home. Final words go to the Vivarini family in Edinburgh.

Gracias a todos por lo mucho para el cuidado de nosotros. Esperamos que usted nos visita en Australia.

Edinburgh


Frank Valenti
:-) :-) :-) :-)

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