Back from Venice and Maranello, engaged | FerrariChat

Back from Venice and Maranello, engaged

Discussion in 'Other Off Topic Forum' started by MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003.

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

  1. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #1 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    I got back from Venice last week, and it was probably the most memorable trip of my life. Just figured I'd share some of it with the board, since a bunch of you helped me out in various ways. (Thanks Jean-Louis, DES, Patrick, and everyone who responded to my original Venice thread on the old board!)

    Here's the story of my trip to Venice and Maranello...

    I had been dating Kelly for almost 3 years, and I knew I was ready to get engaged. Over the summer, I decided that I'd take her to Venice for her birthday and propose while we were there. She was really excited to go to Italy and had no idea what was ahead of her.

    Fast forward to Thanksgiving, the day we were to depart. I had the ring in my carry-on, praying I wouldn't get searched. Thankfully, I cleared security with no problems and we were on our way. The flight seemed to last for days. When we finally got to Venice, San Marco was somewhat flooded, so there were planks set up so that people could walk without getting wet. As we treked our luggage on these planks, I scouted out where I was going to propose - right in the middle of the square. After finally settling in, we walked around San Marco for a while (I had strategically transferred the ring into my jacket by then). She was looking at all the jewelery in the stores around San Marco, joking about how someday we'd get married. By that point I decided it was now or never. I said I wanted to feed the pigeons, so we walked out into the center, I bought some pigeon food, proceded to get attacked by the birds, and finally shooed them away.

    I walked over to Kelly and leaned in to kiss her. Kelly, in typical fashion, killed the moment by saying, "what are you doing, we're in public!" I asked if she liked the jewelry in the stores, and upon her saying yes, I got down on one knee and asked if she would marry me. She was in complete shock but gave me a resounding yes. (I was so nervous I put the ring on the wrong hand at first!) It was the perfect start to the perfect trip. We had a nice dinner that night right on the Grand Canal and slept in late the next morning.

    For the rest of the trip, we did mostly tourist-y stuff, with the exception of Sunday. Sunday was the day we were to visit Maranello and make the pilgrimage to the Ferrari center of the world. It was an adventure getting there, as I speak very little Italian and we had no car since we were in a city with no roads. We took a train from Venice to Modena via Bologna. Once we got to Modena, we had no idea where to go. We finally managed to find the bus to Maranello after trying to communicate with people that spoke as little English as I did Italian.

    Maranello was a lot different than I thought. It was a lot more spread out than I pictured. I envisioned everything pretty much right next to each other, but we ended up doing a lot of walking. Since I made the bonehead move of going on Sunday, we were also somewhat disappointed because a lot was closed. We first walked up to the factory entrance, where the gates to the factory, the Ristorante Cavallino, and the Ferrari Store all meet. We checked out the Ferrari Store for a bit. I ended up getting Kelly's newborn nephew a Ferrari shirt for Christmas. After that we headed to the Galleria Ferrari. That was incredible. I'm not much of an F1 buff, so a lot of it was lost on me, but there was an Enzo downstairs (the first one I had ever seen in person), and a bunch of cars upstairs. There were racing engines all over the place. It was all I expected and then some.

    Directly across the street from the museum was the greatest store on the face of the earth, Warm-up. There was a huge selection of, well, everything Ferrari. I spent at least a half hour in that store alone, checking out all the memorabilia. When we came out of the store, what should pull up into the parking lot but an F40. It was the only Ferrari I saw on the trip (besides the museum ones), and it was beautiful.

    We lingered a little more, and then hung out in the Maranello cafe across from the Enzo Auditorium while we waited for our bus to get there.

    Epilogue.
    Two extremely unfortunate things happened at the end of our trip/when we got home. The first occurred the last night we were there; my dad called us at the hotel to let us know that my grandmother (unexpectedly) passed away. I was very close to her, as her oldest grandson and having lived with her the past couple of years. Thankfully, she got to see me engaged, and it made her so happy.
    The second, not nearly so severe, mishap was that basically my pictures are s#1t. I don't know whether it was bad film or HORRIBLE developing (probably a combination of both), but they came out very grainy (almost like a mosaic) when they came out at all. I have a pretty nice camera and have taken gorgeous pictures with it in the past, but these just didn't come out well. I'm only posting some good ones I have that I fixed up in Photoshop a bit.

    Sorry if the story's a bit long and long-winded; I don't fancy myself a professional writer. There's probably a zillion spelling and gramatical errors as well. Hope you all enjoy the story and pictures I'll now post. Thanks again everyone.

    -Mike

    (Attached pic of Kelly and Mike in Venice)
    Image Unavailable, Please Login
     
  2. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #2 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  3. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #3 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  4. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #4 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  5. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #5 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  6. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #6 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  7. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #7 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  8. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #8 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  9. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #9 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  10. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #10 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  11. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #11 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  12. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #12 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  13. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #13 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  14. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #14 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  15. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #15 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  16. stokpro

    stokpro F1 Rookie
    Lifetime Rossa Owner

    Jun 25, 2003
    4,383
    Himalayas
    Great story! One you'll be sure to share with the grandchildren. Congrats on the engagement!
     
  17. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #17 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  18. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #18 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  19. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    #19 MikeZ_NJ, Dec 8, 2003
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  20. JSinNOLA

    JSinNOLA F1 World Champ
    Sponsor Lifetime Rossa

    Mar 18, 2002
    18,776
    Denver, CO
    WOW! What a great trip. I would like to second the congrats on your upcoming marriage:)
     
  21. jordan747_400

    jordan747_400 F1 Veteran
    Lifetime Rossa

    Dec 9, 2002
    6,928
    Houston, TX
    Full Name:
    Jordan
    Great photos and congratulations on the engagement!
     
  22. bkaird1

    bkaird1 Karting

    Nov 7, 2003
    138
    Atlanta, Georgia
    Full Name:
    Brad
    Congrats on the engagement. I'm getting married in a few weeks. Have fun with all the wedding preparations :)

    Brad
     
  23. F40

    F40 F1 Rookie

    Apr 16, 2003
    3,230
    AZ
    I see my name listed, what did I do? Congrats on the engagement!-Patrick.
     
  24. MikeZ_NJ

    MikeZ_NJ Formula 3

    Dec 10, 2002
    1,533
    Southern NJ
    Full Name:
    Mike Z.
    Different Patrick (the one who's getting engaged in NYC), my bad. :)
     
  25. Greg G

    Greg G F1 Rookie

    Congrats on the engagement, and sorry to hear abt your loss Mike.... your pix are pretty decent - thanks for sharing them. You sure the worst part of the trip wasnt returning to Jersey? J/K.
     

Share This Page