Gelato.. yes please.

Day 2 in Venice. View photos

Well I actually slept in. I cant remember sleeping for 9 hours at home let alone on vacation. It was good considering I was up close to 2 days. Crazy right. Swelling in my legs and ankles went down but by end of day back to swollen. Not sure if its weather or what. Seems to happen in heat but not at home. I also have these strange blood spots on my lower legs. Doesn’t hurt so not concerned.

Finally got up and out of the room after 12ish. Missed breakfast and not late enough for lunch so we ordered a ham cheese wrap which was amazing. So far the food here is so clean and pure of preservatives and all the crap. Then they had asiago cheese slices. OMG. It was absolutely delicious. I must order that again.

So we’re off again. Learning a better route to the bus stop we headed that way. Ended up meeting a couple on the way. Claire and Chris from England. They are on their first anniversary. And stayed with us the whole day. It was quite wonderful having a larger group. We seem to have that happen which is quite fantastic actually. More the merrier as you know I always say.
We jump on the water taxi and head over to see the Guggenheim. Get off and ended up getting lost and not making a right turn. So we wondered around. Ended up back at San Marco square and went to take a gondola. Claire is deathly afraid of water because of a bad run in with a baskin shark as a kid. I know a baskin shark. Well it didn’t eat her or attack her…well not on purpose but it hit her with its tail and landed her in the hospital for a few days. Craziness. So while I was excited to think about seeing one the end result was quite sad that it will hinder her from experiencing what the ocean can offer. Me being a water baby and loving the ocean. We are very convincing and assured her no sharks or catastrophic events will occur. It was actually quite fun. They are such a hilarious couple. Always joking. The gondolier was super hot. His name was Luca and is 3rd generation of a gondolier. He has a son which will soon take over the family biz. We were a roudy bunch for sure. I wanted to go under the bridge of sighs. The whole trip though was quite relaxing and we even ran into a few gondola traffic jams. I swear I thought we were either going to hit the wall or another gondola we never did. Very close though. I thought, wow this guy is perfect to go on a kayak tour. Hehe. Plus he was hot! It was also great to go through the narrow waterways. I felt like I was at home sort of.

After that excitement we headed over to Murano. It was about a 30 minute ride. Not to bad. Just a bit warm even with the overcast. Not as bad though. I would have preferred the sun. With some clouds. We head over there and get a bite to eat. I finally had a pizza. It was pretty good. Unfortunately after finishing, everything was closed. Apparentely everything closes at 6pm. Though a boat runs till 9pm. Such a bummer, I really wanted to see glass blowing. Oh well. Next time we’ll know. So we headed back to the piazza. Walked around a bit, ate more. Got some souveniers and headed back home. This time it was after 9pm. It was neat to see everything lit up. The lights shimmering off of the water. It just made things a bit more surreal. Its still hard to believe we are here in Italy.

I have had about 8 scoops of gelato throughout the day. Maybe more. It really is quite delicious. I have tried a different flavor each time. So far the one with nuetella is the best. Though strattichella is quite delicious and pistachio and bacio, chocolate and bianco. OK so I haven’t had a bad one yet. Hehe.

As we returned to the hotel, we decided to sit at the bar and have a drink. Claire is unable to drink so her and mom had a coffee and hot cocoa. I got dad an Italian beer which was quite tasty and me and Chris split a bottle of Cabernet Savignon. It was quite delicious. I had a ½ a bottle of chianti. It was alright. It was a bit like a rose but seemed to have a bit of a bubbly to it. Its all been quite interesting. I’m glad I was able to share a wine with someone though. Once I get to Tuscany my aunt and uncle with drink with me.

So tomorrow we have to be up at the butt crack of dawn. 7am. Its not 1:52a and I am wired as usual. That 9hrs of sleep will keep me going for days. I was watching American movies in Italian and quite interesting. Now I’m watch a british film. They have it in English on one channel and Italian on another. Its fun just watching it and listening to it. No idea what it’s called.

Well off to bed for another long day. We are headed off to Florence for a few days. I really wish I was able to spend another day here but mom got tickets so we are on a schedule. I truly hate schedule for this reason. It would have been nice to head to murano for half the day then go over to Florence. Oh well. One day again, I’ll be able to check it out.