Basilica di San Marco in Venice, Italy (St. Mark's)
Although Mark has called each evening from Italy, the photos are going to have to wait until he returns as he has not figured out how to download them, or upload them, or whatever it is that you do to get them from there to here. Matthew is usually in charge of all that, and since they return to the hotel so late in the evenings, he has no time to do that before he needs to be in his room with lights out. The ones posted on the site are from one of the other chaperones, and therefore, usually only the singers in that little group...a few glimpses of Matt, but you need to know where to look to figure it out...so, although I am getting a lot of emails requesting photos...can't do anything about that just yet. Probably next week when they return and we will post some on my flickr site.
They are finished with singing performances as of this evening after the Mass at the Basilica di San Marco in Venice. They arrived in Venice this morning via a boat ride and were thrilled to be able to see it all coming in that way. They toured, shopped, visited a glass blowing factory, and then had a gondola ride before the big performance at San Marco. Tonight was the formal send off banquet as the tour splits into two groups tomorrow morning, one going back to Rome for more sightseeing and the other going to Milan for shopping before heading back separately to the USA. Matt had purchased a couple of new neckties and wore one for this evening's banquet as it was all "dress up" for the kids, which they really enjoy doing each year at the conclusion of the tours.
Since it was almost 1:00 a.m. when Mark was calling, we didn't talk long as he sounded very tired (but happy) and I knew he still had office email to go through before retiring. They leave at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow for the final leg back to Rome. They are both having a wonderful time and can't believe it all is going so quickly...always the way with vacations, right? They have certainly squeezed about as much into this time period as I think was humanly possible!