Skip to main content

Venice during Carnival!

We got some cheap tickets to Venice to reset our visas and see Daniel's cousin Dustin who is stationed nearby. It was a fabulous trip, and so warm compared to Kiev! We just happened to go during Carnival, the famous celebration that starts 58 days before Easter and ends the day before Ash Wednesday. The earliest recorded Carnival was in 1268! Although Carnival is celebrated in many countries, Venice is most famous for its Venetian masks. It is estimated that 3 million people are in Venice each day to celebrate Carnival, and yes, we were there! It was nuts! We did enjoy walking around and seeing all the costumes. Most were in the Venetian tradition, but of course there were a few Jack Sparrows and Darth Vaders running around. Here are a few of the  costumes. Guess which one is Daniel!
Venice is truly a beautiful city; in fact, it's one of the most amazing cities I have ever seen. We loved exploring and taking pictures! We also went to 3 museums: The Doge's Palace (pictured below), the Archeology museum, and the glass museum (where we saw some glass jugs that were 2000 years old-amazing)!
Just another pic for the collection!
Italy is just full of leaning towers.
Classic photo of Venice, and I took it!
Whaaaaaaaaaaat? What are squid chips doing in Venice?
Oh yeah, I made Dustin a gift bag of goodies from Ukraine! Quick clarification: he's smiling because he's happy about the squid chips, not because I told him to!
It's been 8 years since Daniel and Dustin have seen each other, and they had a great time "catching up!" This was my first time to meet him and all three of us enjoyed our weekend together. Plus, Dustin told me lots of military secrets; for example the whereabouts of 8 secret Tang factories.
I got a new hat!
I think we unwittingly started a new tradition. Remember Poland?
Yeah, you'd jump for joy if you were in Venice, too! Unless you're allergic to gondolas, I guess. Then you would be sneezing for joy.
The sunsets were simply spectacular!
We also went to a drama called the Story of Venice, and went to a theater and saw a group perform several opera pieces. As Dustin says, "When you're in Italy, you just got to do that kind of stuff."  All in all it was a great trip and we were glad to have a weekend "away from it all." We enjoyed seeing Dustin and our visas are good for another three months. Hooray! We are glad to be back home, however, and pay normal prices for food and get back to work and give each other hugs again. Oh wait, we did that in Venice, too. But Venice hugs don't compare to Ukraine hugs and Daniel hugs are better than Venice hugs and Ukraine hugs combined. I would know.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Haverly familyFebruary 23, 2012 at 7:16 AM

    The kids are guessing Daniel's behind the peacock mask? Who knew Janna could do such great handstands? Fun pictures! Have you read Olivia Goes to Venice? Love you guys!

    The Haverly's

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The power of a hug

Three weeks ago at church, Masha sat next to me.   Masha is ten, has Downs Syndrome and is a fantastic hugger.  She just loves hugging.  So I try to always stop and hug her back.  During the service, she came in and sat between me and her dad, for a while she loved on her dad and then she leaned her head on my shoulder, so I leaned my head over onto hers, and she looked up at me with this big smile.  She reached around and gave me a shoulder hug, and then patted my head, and then rubbed my back for a few minutes.  I didn’t move the entire time because it just felt so good.  It was just simple, innocent affection, and it sent tingles up my spine.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about you need more hugs and back scratches. Human contact is so important.  That’s why I try and hug the kids when we go up to the orphanage.  These are just a few stories of some of the hugs I’ve given and gotten this past month, and why hugs are so important in our ministry. My friend Viktor and some o
4 comments
Read more

Christmas in Ukraine Part VI: Nat and Tiffy come to Ukraine

A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of hosting two sisters here in Kiev, Tiffany and Natalie. When they came to Ukraine from America, they brought 280 blankets to give out to children in need! The blankets were awesome! Natalie and Tiffany go to Liberty College, and they had decided to do something for kids in Ukraine. They chose to make blankets. With the help of many prayer groups at Liberty, they came up with 280 beautiful, colorful, warm and fuzzy blankets, and each one had cards inside with Bible verses and notes from the people who made them. What a wonderful idea! We spent three days going around to different places to hand out the blankets, and it was precious! First we went to our orphanage, Komarivka. The majority of the kids had gone home for the holidays, but about 30 kids remained. You should have seen their faces! Such big smiles all around! One of my favorite pictures ever of two giggling girls, Luda and Vita! Some of the older girls, Larissa, Natasha, Janna (the Russ
4 comments
Read more

Anya’s operation “The whole story”

Brace yourselves:  This blog is 3309 words long.  Honestly, I cut a lot of information out and simplified it so much to keep it short.  But the story of Anya’s operation is a monster and I wanted to tell it start to finish so that you have one place to come learn about Anya and what she’s been through these past months, as well as what it has taught us about the lives of orphans here. The core problem:  Our helplessness to help Anya A few weeks ago a friend from the states wrote me a few emails asking about Anya’s situation.  At that point Anya had been in the hospital for almost four weeks … waiting.  Her operation was first scheduled for the day after she was checked in, but it kept getting pushed back again and again.  It was incredibly frustrating, mainly because no one in Kiev had the authority to check her out of the hospital, and so she had to stay there for four weeks..four very boring weeks.  I would have gone crazy. Normally, the parents would have taken a child in that s
2 comments
Read more