today we got up bright and early for our day trip to venice! and nothing starts your day better than nutella for breakfast. yum

straight out of the train station and it was beautiful! the canal was teaming with with boats and taxis of the water variety...aaaaaaand then i remembered i get sea sick....this is NOT the city for that. we found what we thought was the right boat and got on, hoping we would eventually land on Murano, an island very close to venice famous for their handblown glass. we stopped somewhere that definitely was not the island and were waiting for them to keep going, when the driver motioned for us to get off the boat! umm...dang, didnt do this right. (did i mention our record of messing up transportation before, ok NOW we have messed up on every different kind). So we got off the boat and realized we had at least been on the right one, but definitely the wrong direction...so they left and we waited for the next one...and then the same boat with the same driver came right back! nowwwww we could get on...why we couldnt stay on while they looped back i dont know...

anyways, made it to the island and wanted to see a demonstration right away, but the first place we walked into was closing...moving on...then we found another one that was open and was offering a "demonstration" for only 2 euros! so we went inside and sat down and a few minutes later the artisan prepared for the masterpiece he was about to make. after taking a few drags on his cigarette, he mumbled something italian sounding and pulled a blob of molten glass out of the oven, swung it around a little, blew some air into it and it became a vase! neat! except that it was the dumbest looking little ikea vase ever, i think i probably could have made one more intricate. he took it off the pole, and i thought, ok, well maybe he's gonna add some decoration or something...no no, that was it...a clear vase. but then in an attempt to make it stand upright he knocked it over and it shattered and he mattered what im assuming were some bad words in italian. then he went back for the oven, pulled out another blob and got back to work. oh wait. smoking break first. then in about 45 seconds he managed to make a decent but malformed horse...that didnt even stand up cuz all its legs were crooked. then it was a muffled "bye bye" from the glass man and we were shuffled out...what??? officially ripped off in venice.

so we got back to the main part of the city and spent the rest of the day wandering and shopping...lots and lots and lots of shopping = ) we got to see the main square, which was FULL of pigeons (i fought the urge to put them upside down in juice pitchers and do experiments with them like in the old days)...and they would land all over people feeding them! gross...

at this point we had been in italy too long without having gelato, so we made that the next priority...then more shopping...this place was dangerous. once it started getting late and we had seen most of the main sites of the city, we found a little place with outdoor seating and planted ourselves. then after that it was back on the train to verona!

we knew we had to get back before 12 because we have to leave our keys at the front desk of the hotel, and the crazy man told us he would lock everything up at midnight...so we rolled up to the place at 11, the taxi drove away and then we realized the metal gate was down over the front door! allright...so we were locked out...in the middle of nowhere at 11. we rang the door bell a few thousand times and then remembered we had a phone, called the hotel, the crazy man answered and said he would be down in a minute. he emerged in his slippers and got us our keys...whew! apparently 12 doesnt mean the same thing here...

nina