Venice, Italy

The next morning, instead of going to see Florence, we decide to fuck it and take a train straight to Venice instead. So we cab it there and then buy our tickets. This train was not as nice as in we didn't get to lay down and sleep during the trip. We did have assigned seats though. When we get to Venice, we get off on the wrong station and have to get back on and get off at the right station.

Venice was by far the highlight of my trip. People say it is over rated, that it seems like sewer and terrible things, but I found the place beautiful, awesome and different from anywhere I had ever been. We stop at a pizza place and I have some great pizza. We then try to figure out the boat system so that we can get to our hotel. I purchase a map and as we walk to buy tickets, an older couple gives me two free all day passes for boat rides. The girls were finally seeing what I meant about being blessed on that trip. We split the cost of one more and we were set for the next two days of boat rides. We take the boat over to our part of the city and with a bit of maze walking, we arrive at our hotel. The guy working there was a great help in telling us what we could do.

We didn't agree on what we wanted to do that day, but Sarah Beth really wanted to go to the beach. It meant a lot to her, so we finally gave in and off to Venice beach we went. Well not really, we took the wrong boat the wrong way and 45 mins later, off to Venice beach, from where we had started. When we get to the beach, I find the place horrific. It was dirty and littered and the sand wasn't fine like I am used to. Even the water looked dirty. Well Bianca and Sarah Beth start walking in to test and water and low and behold, they end up swimming. I leave and go have a few beers at the nearby bar place. Once they were done with their fun in the no sun, we work our way back to the area of our hotel and eat a nice restaurant. Here I have pizza again, and I have to say it was even better. After our meal, we are so beat that we just go home to sleep.

It is now Monday (6/20/05) and I am dead tired as we walk up. I was snoring which didn't help either. I go down and get some breakfast alone and then come back and shower. The tub had a handle shower head so that made it hard to shower. I had to rush so we could make it in time for the glass tour, which ended up being half an hour late. So this guy comes and walks us to this boat and the boat takes us out to Murano and we visit a glass factory. It was nice and we got to see how glass was made. Murano is famous for its glass. It is its own island and after seeing the glass place, we took a boat back to Venice. Well two of our 24 hour passes has expired and only one was left. The trip was very long so a crew member went around asking everyone for their tickets. We had our 3 tickets which I was holding, but 2 had expired about 3 hours before. So I put the unexpired ticket on top and handed all 3 to the lady. She inspected the top one with much scrutiny and after it passed the test, she assumed, like I was hoping she would, that they other two were similar. So took a breath of relief and saved 10 bucks that two new tickets would cost.

We arrive in San Marco square which is the main tourist spot here. There was a tower and a church and it was packed with tourists. It was a pretty amazing square. I went shopping for some gifts and ended up buying a tapestry of San Marco square that cost me a lot of money. I also purchased some glass items for friends from home. The girls went to the Cartier store, but didn't buy anything. After all the shopping, and taking a break to check email, I buy some more gelato. That is some good ice cream. We walk back to our hotel and pick up our stuff and work our way back to the boat station. We take our final boat over to the train station and before we get on the train, have a final dinner at yet another pizza shop. After eating, I took our last half hour to shop even more and buy a lot of my gifts and postcards.

The train to Rome was long, I mean long, probably like 7 hours or so. When we just got on, I ran out to get some water and snacks and literally made it back less than a minute before the train left. Talk about cutting it close. The trip went by slowly and not having much to talk about anymore, we just sat there trying to listen to music. We wanted to watch Sex and City, but we figured the sound would be rude to the other people on the train. At one point, we ventured out on the train to try and find the food car. When we got there, most of the stuff was sold out, but we were able to get some snacks to hold us over. Later, we tried to practice speaking spanish so that Sarah Beth could learn, but we really didn't get anywhere except looking like a bunch of idiots to the people sitting next to us who spoke spanish. Once we got to the train station, they were cleaning the floors and there was this loud sound that was very annoying We took a cab to our first hotel we stayed at and this time our room was not as nice. It was late so we quickly fell asleep.