Day 1 & 2: The Adventure Begins

Day 1 & 2: The Adventure Begins

• 4.08.2013

 A few years ago when I was traveling in business school, itappeared wireless was free everywhere. Now, it’s a different story. Verizon ischarging me by the megabyte – which is insane considering a picture on my iPhonecan be 5 megabytes alone.

So, sharing this amazing Italian journey is a little bitmore challenging than previous amazing adventures. However I’m going to do mybest to write at the end of each day because … when I’m seeing some reallygreat stuff. Plus, I feel like I’ve never been more popular on Instagram. Iwon’t let all those likes go to my head.

While it feels as though I’ve been gone for several days, itis really only like 1 ½ and fees like more because of time changes and becausewe barely slept flying in coach. Since time has been speeding by, I’m going totell you what’s happening.

In the past 2 days:

• ·     we’ve left the North End via a terrible cabdriver
• ·     flew to Amsterdam in Coach … and it was a lessonin people watching and lack of sleep
• ·     had a 5 hour layover in Amsterdam where we attemptedto get on an earlier flight but were denied
• ·     flew over the Alps as we landed in Venice
• ·     rode a water taxi bus from the Venice airport toour hotel
• ·     strolled around Venice for hours (or severalmiles)
• ·     had our first glass of wine in Italy
• ·     ate the best gnocchi of my life
• ·     ate the best mozzarella of my life
• ·     watched “Under the Tuscan Sun” in bed while wedrank prosecco … which by the way is cheaper than water

I hope you can tell how great the last two days have been.We quite nearly fell apart in exhaustion leaving Amsterdam but that quicklittle 2 hour flight helped give us the energy to stroll around Venice.

 

Thoughts on Venice?

• -      You can’t even estimate how breath taking Veniceis. There are canals everywhere. There are little boats everywhere.
• -      Dogs run around without collars or leashes… butalways come back to their owner.
• -      It doesn’t appear that you can get lost. This isamazing.
• -      The one tour book that I’ve elected to take withme in hard copy (I scanned other book sections) made a comment that any womanwho falls in love with a gondolier “has ham over her eyes”. This has made meconstantly laugh especially whenever I see one of these guys trying to push agondola ride. I will most certainly be bringing this phrase back with me. 

Thoughts on food?

•        The gnocchi we ate literally can’t be described.Can I describe it as melting in my mouth? Would that make sense?
•        I’ve been eating mozzarella for years and I’vebeen living in the North End for more than a year as well. I have never hadsuch delicious mozzarella. When I go to Monica’s Mercato, I am usually pickingbetween cow and buffalo mozzarella. I usually go with cow but when I’ve had thebuff, it’s great. There is a clear difference. BUT MAN ALIVE, this was likebacon after lent good.

In general I would say we are doing our best to not getscammed and have a great time. If you know me at all, you know I am not a fanof “the clubs” and hate “paying covers”… well somehow the restaurants in Venicehave managed to charge a 2 Euro cover for the privilege of eating there.Granted, I did have the best gnocchi and mozzarella of my life but….  Really….. 4 EUROS. This wasn’t even a greatplace for Venice, it was just an amazing place for me. (That sentence madesense in my head, hope it made sense to you).

 

On deck for tomorrow? Much more of the touristy sites likeSt. Mark’s Square and trying to get our hands on cicchetti. Cicchetti isessentially tapas but in Spain.

I’ll do my best to keep ham off our faces.