Venice, Italy
Yesterday we found something worse than Irish college students and cranky babies: Extended American Families on Vacation. Our flight from Prague to Venice was only an hour long but felt like 10 due to the fact that we were surrounded by this horrible American family, including a loud grandmother, a cranky grandfather, two adult children, their spouses and three toddlers. They were so loud and inconsiderate. All three kids yelled and cried the whole trip. The parents kept switching seats and passing around babies. And all three of the babies had their smelly diapers changed on the plane. Now, we know why people hate American tourists.
The good news is Venice is WONDERFUL. It is by far my favorite place we’ve been. I love the Italians. They’re loud and crazy and full of life. Josh preferred the Czech people – they were a little more low key and nose to the ground sort of folks.
It is beautiful here. The canals and alleyways are way better than I even imagined. It was a little too cold to ride a gondola, but we’ve taken the public transportation boats to get everywhere.
We had a bumpy start at the airport. Since we were flying on a budget airline, our backpacks were too big to carry-on and we had to check them. When they arrived on the baggage claim belt everything in our outside pockets and Josh’s coats that were strapped to the back were gone. I waited around to see if they showed up – eventually everything came around – while Josh went to get cash.
Unfortunately, Wells Fargo didn’t approve Josh’s card for use in Italy (even though he double checked that they had before we left) and we couldn’t get any money out. Luckily, my card did work and I was able to withdraw enough to buy our water bus tickets and get us to the hotel where we could call the bank. They approved his card, but we’ve still only found a couple ATMs that will accept it.
Other than that, things have been great here. We’re staying in Lido, which is an island next to Venice. Out hotel is one of the nicest ones in Lido (we booked here very late, so it was the only one that still had rooms). All the furniture in our room is the original 1920s handmade furniture from Milan that was here when the hotel first opened. We had originally planned to go to the hotel’s NYE dinner and event, but after all the debit card stuff happened, we couldn’t get there in time.
Instead, we had prosecco and pasta at a nearby restaurant and rode the boat over to San Marco Square – which is like the Time Square of Europe. We got there just in time and it was awesome ringing in the new year with so many people from so many places. Everyone here wore these beautiful masks rather than the silly 2013 hats and glasses we see at home. When the bell tower rang midnight, everyone cheered, popped champagne bottles and set off sparklers.
It was AWFUL trying to get out of there after it was over, though. We left at like 12:03 and it took us until 1 am to get back to the boat dock – which is about a 3 minute walk, normally. The crowd was horrible. We were packed in and there was no way to get out except to keep pushing through. I was really worried Josh and I were going to get separated. We just grabbed hands and did our best not to get trampled. It was actually pretty scary and one of the worse experiences either of us has ever had.
We made it out, though, and have had a pretty good day just walking around the city today. We had pizza and Bellini (prosecco and peach juice – a Venetian speciality) for dinner. Here you get an entire pizza for yourself. It isn’t cut in slices and you just eat the whole thing with a knife and fork like a steak or chicken. Josh liked the pizza, but I wasn’t much of a fan. The crust was very thin and there wasn’t any tomato sauce on the kind I got. Oh well, there will be plenty more chances to eat pizza in Rome. Plus, the homemade tiramisu we had for dessert made up for it!
Since dinner, we’ve just been hanging out in the room watching European satellite TV. We get communist news channels and Italian Sponge Bob – so we’re pretty good. Tomorrow we’ll be taking the train to Rome around noon.
If anyone sees this today, we’ll be signed into Skype until we go to bed. Send us a call, if you want to talk!
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