A Hop, Skip, Jump, A Quick Run With Too Much Luggage, A Couple Swear Words and 3 Train Rides.

So, here's the crap we've been carting around Italy... We've worn approximately 20% of it... and instead of wearing the other 80% of it, we had our dirty laundry washed by a little old Italian woman down the street from our last hotel for $20. So stupid. Never again.

Our last leg of the vacation was particularly stressful. We had three train transfers and between two of them, only ten minutes to get off the train we were on, onto the other one. To calm Ryan's nerves, we were at the train station 45 minutes before our first train. It was a good thing... it wasn't fun carting around our heavy luggage. We were there, we were ready. We were waiting where our ticket was telling us to wait. Track three. Ahhh... Cool, calm, collected. As the train is pulling into the station, we realized that the lady yakking in Italian for the last 10 minutes was informing those who were waiting at Track three that we were being transferred to Track two. Awesome... Track two was down a flight of stairs, down a hallway, and up a flight of stairs, not to mention that we had to find our car and our seats. Good thing Ryan doesn't get completely wound up, and I don't get completely bitchy in situations like that or it might have been unpleasant. Anyway, we got here.


As soon as we arrived, we got into a water taxi. It was pouring rain but was it ever cool. Venice is like no other city. No roads, no cars... just boats, and water. Totally amazing.


Speaking of totally amazing, here is our hotel. It was built in the 1800's but has been totally renovated. We are staying in the Oriental Room for the first two nights, and then being moved to the room that we requested. It's the Black Room... we'll send pictures once we get in tomorrow. The service here is amazing... everything is included, including the mini-bar... which Ryan was over the moon about (I don't drink...) until he found out there was no booze in it. When our boat got up to the hotel, they told us to drop everything and sit in the lounge with some champagne while they got everything ready. This is probably the best hotel we've ever been in.


Here is a look at where we are. The picture on the right is the gondolas, which we are supposed to go for a ride on, according to all of the travel guides. I think Ryan wants to go... and I suppose we should... but it's almost the same experience watching it from the thousands of bridges as far as I'm concerned... and the thought of being stuck beside the guy singing opera at the top of his lungs while playing on his accordion the whole way is not my idea of a good time. We'll see.


We went to St. Mark's square. It was neat but a little bit freaky. There are literally thousands of pigeons there. They have stands that sell bird seed for 1 Euro. It is totally disgusting... people buy a bag and let these sky-rats crawl all over them, all for the sake of a picture. Barf. We ended up staying away from the actual square because we kept getting dive-bombed by the things and were running around, screaming like school girls. Not for us... but I guess if you're into mangy, diseased creatures, you'll totally love it. We're going to go to the church tomorrow. Apparently it's amazing on the inside. There is a lot of Middle Eastern influence in the architecture everywhere... its beautiful. We're loving it.


We also went to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum while we were here. It was great. Not a single picture of Jesus or Mary (I'm sitting in the marble chair in her courtyard). It was really interesting learning about the woman... crazy, but good crazy. There is a gazebo and garden where she has been buried with the remains of her 13 Lhasa Apsos, if that tells you anything about her.


And... here is a picture we took about an hour ago... sitting up on the roof top patio. I guess it's O.k. I mean, it's no patio at the White Spot on Georgia Street in Vancouver but it will do for now.