Happy Birthday! 

 

Okay, so it wasn't my birthday - but we did go to Italy to celebrate two that end in 'zero'.  I'm not going to tell you the numbers in front of them, but I will tell you that they're higher than a 2 and less than a 6.   So, now that you know why we were in Italy, let me tell you how we came to be on the Rick Steves "Best of Venice, Florence, and Rome in 10 Days Tour". 

 

First - some introductions.  My name is Lisa.  My sister is Mary (one of the birthday people), and she is married to Darrell.  John (the other birthday person) is a friend who went to college with Mary and Darrell.  Several years ago, we started a tradition of vacationing on the "zero" birthdays.  As you can imagine, we've been to some wonderful places; some were short trips, others were much longer.  Despite John's continued suggestion that we travel to Italy, all of our vacations have been in the U.S.  To be truthful, it was not because we didn't want to visit Italy; we loved the idea.  The problem was that we always let life, and sometimes the fear of the unknown, get in the way. 

 

That is, until this year ...