Communications Update

Here is an update on our communications links:
Cell phone: 818-486-4436 (any time any place, remember the time difference from the US East Coast is 5 hours and West Coast is 8 hours, but the cost to us is about $2/minute).
Our outgoing calls: We will make calls using a telephone card in a pay phone since it is much cheaper than the cell phone.
Lance's e-mail: lriley_2002@yahoo.com
Dahlia's e-mail: dahliariley@hotmail.com
Note: Dahlia's cell phone, 626-437-4347, has been lost and will not work.

Venice - 28 April

We are leaving Venice tomorrow and we can't believe we have been here nine days and it has been three weeks since we left California! Venice is such a magical place and we love it here. We spent three days visiting the islands around Venice and many days visiting museums, but the things we enjoyed the most were wandering through the tiny streets, looking in little shops and sitting in cafes watching Venitian life. We will attach some pictures when we find an Internet cafe that will allow us to load the needed software.
After a wonderful nine days we are ready to move on and will pick up a rental car tomorrow morning and drive east to Slovenia and Croatia. We plan to stay tomorrow night (Friday, 29 April) at Krast, Slovenia at the Tourist Farm Hudicevec (http://www.hudicevec.com/) . From there we plan to drive south to Split, Croatia and stay there Saturday, 30 April and from there go further south to Dubrovnick for a couple of days.

Venice -April 23

Our 3rd day in Venice and it is real magic. We visited the colorful island of Burano and Murano with it's beautiful glass shops. The weather has been good so far, although in the evenings we had some rain. Last night we had a wonderful dinner with our hosts in Venice right at the foot of the Rialto bridge. The food, wine, view and company were delightful.
After dinner we strolled through the Piazza San Marco which seemed much nicer at night, with the lights on and the crowds gone. We are beginning to get the sense of the town and are doing a lot of walking. You can really go everywhere by foot, through quaint alleys and cute bridges.
More later..
Love
Lance and Dahlia

Venice - Friday 22 April 2005

We flew from Tel Aviv to Zurich on Tuesday and traveled by train from Zurich to Venice Wednesday. The views of the snowy Alps, little villages and lakes and streams along the way were spectacular.

We had our first full day in Venice yesterday and it has been wonderful! The apartment where we are staying is small but very quaint and comfortable. It is an ancient building that overlooks a lovely, courtyard and we hear the chimes of the churches around us every hour. We bought three-day passes on the vaporetto (waterbus) and we plan to use it to explore the islands surrounding Venice. After it expires we plan to focus on the sites in Venice. Yesterday we took a boat to the island of Burano and it is a painter's paradise with each house painted a different bright color. Today we plan to explore the glass making island of Murano and the Lido of Venice (the barrier island on the sea side of the Venice Lagoon).

We are updating this at an Internet café and it is our first Internet visit since Israel. (There are too many things to see in the real world). We will probably update the blog about once a week.

- Ciao, Lance

Dahlia & Lance in Eilat, Israel 

16 April 2005 - Eilat, Israel

This is just a brief note because we are preparing to catch a plane from Eilat back to Tel Aviv. We had a wonderful weekend last week visiting family in Maryland for three days, including seeing our wonderful children and grand-children. We got a great send off from everybody. We arrived in London early Monday (11 Apr) morning and briefly met Dahlia's cousins Sandy and Janet at the hotel before rushing off to get a 10:30 pm flight to Tel Aviv. We arrived early Tuesday morning and stayed at a hotel near the Mediterranean Sea. Dahlia spent time visiting her friends and Lance was trying to overcome jet lag. On Thursday (14 Apr) we flew to Eilat with Dahlia's brother, Igal, and his family were we had a wonderful time visiting with them taking a desert safari tour and a Red Sea underwater observatory with huge schools of tropical fish. Our touring so far has been somewhat hectic, but we expect things to slow down when we get to Italy and will have more time for the blog.
- Cheers, Lance and Dahlia

Our European Itinery - Update 10 April

Our trip to Europe will be for about four months and will take us to Washington, DC; Israel, Venice, Italy; Menaggio (Lake Como), Italy; Eastern Europe (details to be determined); and Paris, France. Here is the detailed itinerary as of April 4:

• 7 Apr, Thursday, UA192, depart LAX 6:00 AM, arrive Washington, DC (IAD) 1:55 PM
• 11 Apr, Sunday, UA 918, depart IAD 6:10 PM, arrive London (LHR) 6:20 AM (12 Apr)
• 12 Apr, Monday, BA163, depart LHR 10:30 PM, arrive Tel Aviv (TLV) 5:25 AM (13 Apr)
• 19 Apr, Tuesday, SW255, depart TLV 4:00 PM, arrive Zurich (ZUR) 7:15 PM
• 20 Apr, Wednesday, EC171, Zurich HB 9:09 AM, Venezia S. Lucia 5:08 PM
• 20 Apr - 30 Apr, home of Elisabeth de la Mothe, Campo Santa Margherita, Venice, Italy
• 30 Apr - 9 May, travel in Croatia, itinerary to be determined
• 9 May - 3 June, home of Andrew Blelloch, Balcone di Castate, Via Monsignor Poletti 72, Menaggio, Italy (on Lake Como)
• 3 June - 28 Jun, train to Salzburg, Vienna, Prague and Krakow, fly to London, details to be determined
• 30 Jun - 29 Jul, home of Fabrice Levi, 21 Rue Lantiez, 75017 Paris, France
• Eurostar train, Paris to London
• Aug 1, Monday, UA 923 depart LHR 8:00 AM, arrive Washington, DC (IAD) 11:20 AM
• Aug 8, Monday, UA 197 depart IAD 2:45 PM, arrive LAX 5:05 PM

We will post a detailed itinerary for the portion of the trip to Eastern Europe in May.

Our cell phones have been activated for international roaming and we can be reached at:

Dahlia: 624-793-4649 and Lance: 818-486-4436. PLEASE NOTE: Some time after 21 April we will change our cell phone to Italian numbers. Please check back to this blog to get our most recent number. We will also update our voice mail at 805-985-6548 with our up to date cell phone numbers,