PAUL: Karen, you're not in the frame.
Come on over here.
Here.
KAREN: I'm coming over.
PAUL: Where are you?
Little more, little more, little more.
We've been married forever.
KAREN: Well, we were introduced by a friend of mine.
And he asked me out on a date, and I said yes.
And then he took me to a drum corps show.
[CHUCKLES]
PAUL: I love drum corps.
KAREN: We got married in August.
We picked for our honeymoon to do Europe
because we said, well, who knows if we'll
get back before we retire?
And the fact of the matter is we did not.
So I think we drove around the airport like five times
before we--
PAUL: We married young.
KAREN: [CHUCKLES]
PAUL: We were young.
KAREN: We were ready to retire by the time we
got to the airport.
PAUL: Yeah, got on the plane and flew directly to Rome.
KAREN: He practiced a little, like how to ask for something,
like how much it would cost.
[SPEAKING ITALIAN]
PAUL: Well--
KAREN: [SPEAKING ITALIAN]
PAUL: --truth be known, first thing I learned
was how to ask for a beer.
KAREN: [CHUCKLES]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Rome was breathtaking.
It was a bustling city, with all these little cars.
And it was just mesmerizing.
PAUL: I think I first noticed--
and I noticed again throughout the whole trip--
was how proud Italians were of their country.
No matter how you got from one place to another,
somebody was going to tell you a story about what you went by.
KAREN: That was fun.
PAUL: Yeah, it was great.
KAREN: Can you click on those to see them?
PAUL: You know what struck me, not just with the Colosseum,
the Colosseum being one of the older places still around,
they used no equipment.
You know, there was no heavy cranes.
These were built on the backs of people.
KAREN: Human power.
PAUL: Human power.
KAREN: It's huge.
PAUL: Yeah.
KAREN: And it was built in such a way to last this long.
PAUL: This picture that we're looking at right now,
the floor is missing.
The man that was showing us, he explained
that the floor is gone that was built over that.
Everything that supported what was going on on top
was all underground there.
KAREN: That evening, we went out on our own.
We had heard about the Piazza Navona.
And there was live music.
It was at night.
It was beautiful, warm.
It was just filled with life.
I felt like I was at a rock concert.
PAUL: A lot of my knowledge came from movies and books.
You don't get the same feel from a movie.
KAREN: Nearby is the Pantheon, again, a feat of architecture.
I think that's the largest dome that's
unsupported in the world.
PAUL: You know, I remember asking the guide
about the hole in the dome.
He said, well, it was for light.
Of course, light.
Those are the things that just amazed me.
If you take your time, and really
think about where you are, how many people have
walked those same steps 100 years ago, then 200 years ago,
and on and on and on.
You know, I love this country, but I don't get the age.
A lot of my attention was on the food.
I'm Irish.
And my background in food before I met Karen was lacking.
I want to make this a full screen, though.
Hold on one half a second.
So I was really tuned in to the food.
And Karen was just following me.
Did I mention the food was fabulous everywhere?
KAREN: So we were told that in Sorrento they
did a lot of inlaid wood.
We looked around and asked about different shops.
And we walked past one where the woodworker was actually
working in front of the window.
You could see him.
I had seen this beautiful triangle-shaped set
of tables that made a hexagon.
So I went in to inquire about buying them.
And when I came around and saw the man,
it just brought me to tears.
He looked so much like my grandpa, who I
had lost maybe 10 years before.
And he had big hands like my grandpa, and watery blue eyes,
like my grandpa.
And it did-- well, it even does now, brings me to tears,
thinking about, well, this-- my grandpa was
from the Naples and Sorrento area.
And so this was--
I felt like I have a connection here.
So we bought them.
We bought these six tables that matched,
and have used them ever since.
We had to cart them all around Italy.
Well, I say we, but it was really Paul.
PAUL: You always say we.
KAREN: It was a special treat.
To get to Venice, we ended up doing a bus ride again.
And then you take a water taxi.
PAUL: I knew that it was a water-based city.
There was the gondolas and so on.
Somehow I didn't put two and two together,
that there would be no cars there, period.
It was beautiful.
KAREN: We also went to the Murano Glass Works
and watched the hand-blown glass made, just like that.
It was in a foundry.
And there was a--
massive fires.
And people were actually making pieces right before your eyes.
We said, well, we hope we have a family someday.
So we decided to buy these dolphins.
Anyway, we gave them to our daughters.
PAUL: Do you know exactly why they're over on the fireplace?
KAREN: We have possession of the dolphins.
They're over on our fireplace.
But at anytime, they can have them.
PAUL: When you're there, it's not a replica.
It's not Disneyland.
It's not a movie.
It is Venice as it's been for hundreds and hundreds of years.
KAREN: Well, we were flying out of Rome.
So we sort of made a loop.
We were still carting our tables around.
And-- [CHUCKLES] and we were--
PAUL: Yeah, we were.
When we got back to New York City, it was raining.
It was nighttime.
KAREN: Yeah, it was like, take me back.
I want to go back to Venice or Florence or Rome.
PAUL: That was a grueling trip.
KAREN: Yeah.
PAUL: I matured.
I started to see a bigger picture.
You know, it might have been a different trip
if it wasn't for having Karen with me.
KAREN: We saw that there's more to the world
than your own country, and to see that people would
devote their lifetime to art.
When you're starting a family and a long-term relationship
like that, to be able to get out of yourself and to see others
bodes well for what you can then build together.
[KISS]
Thank you to Google Arts & Culture for this opportunity
to relive what was a great trip and rehash all these--
PAUL: Yeah, this has been fun.
KAREN: --wonderful memories.
It's been a lot of fun.
PAUL: Yes, thank you.
KAREN: Take care.
PAUL: Travel.
KAREN: Be safe.
PAUL: Travel.
KAREN: Travel.
[MUSIC PLAYING]