Vivacious Venice

We arrived in Venice almost an hour early...we must have had a tail wind. Arrigo‘s cousin, Fanny met us at the airport, armed with train and water bus schedules. She reminds me of Caterina...she looks just like her. We took the bus to one of the public water buses...the Vaporetto...that would get us to our hotel. In fact, we bought a 3 day pass to use the water buses. The Gondolas are waaay too expensive. We might still take a ride on one for the romanticism aspect, but we would rather spend our money on other things, like shoes and purses, and stuff like that ha ha. We arrived at our hotel and Walter just happened to be outside to greet us. We were pleasantly surprised with the helpfullness Walter showed us. Upon checking in, Walter made us an espresso and then took us to our room. The rooms are not very big, but very clean. Bidets are something we are not used to, so we have not taken advantage of that part of the bathroom yet. We went out to explore Venice and got lost several times, but that is the charm of Venice. It is not very big, so it is easy to get back on track again. You just have to look for bridges...there are hundreds of them. We found a jester mask that we really like, and we decided to buy it because it is not made in China, but rather made in Italy. We think it will go nicely somewhere in our new house. I bought a purse too, and then we went to St. Mark‘s Square to people watch and walk around abit...who am I kidding, we walked around alot. Later in the evening, we went back to St. Marks Square to see what its like after dark. There were still a lot of people in the square and three groups of musicians playing classical music. To sit down and watch them and order a coffee or food was expensive. We paid six euros just to sit and watch them play and paid for our food on top of that. Go ahead, guess how much we paid for 2 cappuccinos and a few cookies...33 euros, which is the equivalent of $45. No, we would not usually pay that much money for a couple of non alcoholic (or alcoholic for that matter) drinks, but we are in Venice after all. Writing this blog is frustrating because my keyboard is not reacting to my commands the way it should be. Wireless keyboards, they are more hassle than they are worth. I will figure it out hopefully before my next entry. I am not able to figure out how to attach pictures either. I figured it out yesterday in the Edmonton airport, but for some reason today, it is beyond me. I will attach them when I figure out how to do it. Tomorrow, we are going to see the many churches they have here in Venice, as well as the Murano Glass Factory. In the meantime, enjoy reading. Ciao