Venice!!!

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
This will just be a quick blog to fill you in on Venice!! It was FABULOUS!! Imagine a whole city on top of water; instead of sidewalks you have little waterways to navigate a canoe thru!! Our train left at 9:05 and everyone hated Char for turning on the light and making them get up. Seriously people! This is not Greece! We only have one day to see Venice and do not want to miss this train!!! So after some free vending machine type muffins and powdered coffee to go from the Hotel (hey at least it was free, which is becoming more and more important!!) We snored our way to Venice. Once there, we got to take a waterbus to St. Mark's Square where our Hotel was!! AHHHHHH this is sooooooooo cool!!!! Imagine taking a waterbus everywhere????!!! The Italian man who had the prestigious job of tying and untying the rope to the pier at every stop was quite taken with LeAnne who smiled and nodded at everything he said. Poor guy, he was pretty sad we weren't staying longer. St. Mark's Square is famous for all the pigeons it attracts (and also all the pigeon waste they bring with them) so after we clawed our way thru the birds and asked for directions several times, we found our cute little hotel up a bunch of stairs with no elevator. Poor Nat with the suitcase. So we deposited our stuff and took a vote to get food since we were all hungry and grumpy. On the way, LeAnne tried to buy an Italian sweatshirt at a little stand and asked if they took credit cards since she hadn't had a chance to get more cash out. She also tried to wrangle a deal out of him (5 EUR less) and was informed that he knew of another store that would give her a discount, but NOT him!! After asking where she was from, he gave her this pearl of wisdom, '' Venice is not like Canada. In Venice, if you do not have money you do not buy. In Canada, if you do not have money, you buy anyway. Not good.'' He clearly did not want her business so we moved on. His loss!! We had asked the hotel owner if he could recommend a good spot and he had given us a brochure that advertised every kind of food you could want plus 10% off if you showed them the brochure. As soon as we entered, we could tell we didn't want to be there. Tacky paper party decor covered the ceilings and the menu looked expensive. We sat down anyway and each ordered one of the cheaper things on the menu, a pizza. Nat decided she wanted some more gnocchi like we'd had the last night so she asked for that. When we got the bill, it was more than our hotel bill!!! It included a ''cover charge'' (what in the world is that???!!), a big tip that we were required to pay and a 5 EUR charge for each coke. Everyone was pretty disgruntled, especially since we had passed by so many cute little cafes. Yet ANOTHER rip off to the poor little American and Canadian girls!! We shopped for quite awhile; almost every shop is a glass shop. Their hand made Murano glass is very well known and popular so if any of you receive it as gifts, just a hint: be sure to ooh and ahh alot. :) We finished off the night with gelato and coffee by the water before heading back to the hotel. We are truly in love with Venice.