Sunday Day One Italy

As I'm starting to write this, it is almost midnight on Monday, November 3rd. There is a seven hour difference between this time and our home time in San Antonio. The time on this post is Central Standard Time. I'll be publishing this post on the blog after we get back home, though, so that no one will know we are not at home until we are back home.

Our flight to Paris left Houston on Saturday afternoon at 4:35pm. Cynthia very graciously drove us to Melissa's house were we parked our van, and then drop us to the airport. We were on that Air France plane for 9 hours, which means that we got into Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, France at 8:50am Paris time. Alex slept a little, but I didn't sleep at all and neither did Patrick. I was surprisingly awake, though.

We had to go through two long lines to get our connecting flight to Venice. The first line was security, and that was expected, but the second of those lines was very frustrating because it was a line to merely stamp our passport and it took 45 minutes. We would've been in that line longer, but it was already 10am when they let us go to a shorter line because our flight was scheduled to leave at 10:15am! We had asked earlier, but they kept saying, "You have time." Ugh. We were practically the last ones to board that plane, but we made it. We got into Venice at about 11:50am on Sunday (Venice time, which is the same as Paris time).

Our trip was a Costco Travel package deal, so at the Venice airport, we were met by a man with a "Costco Travel" sign. I've never been met by a person with a sign at an airport before. I had imagined that he would have our last names, like they do in the movies/TV, but no, he only had a "Costco Travel" sign. He drove us in a Mercedes van to a location on near the water where we got into a water taxi to take us somewhat close to our hotel. This first photo was the view we had during our ride in the water taxi--which was basically a boat hired just for us. We walked the rest of the way. It was quite a walk, actually, but he knew exactly where to go, and I was thankful he was guiding us, because the route was not straight and the streets were not clearly marked.

We were impressed with our room. This was the bed that Patrick and I slept in. We had reservations for three--two adults and one "child", so we weren't sure what to expect. We thought maybe that Alex might have to sleep on the sofa. He did, in a way, because he slept on the sofa bed. It seemed comfortable, and he was quite happy with it. As you can see from the photo below, he was right in front of the fireplace, which had some blue lighting and candlesticks decorating it.

We also had some cookies on the table for us to snack on, and an elegant ice bucket with sparkling wine on ice in it that Patrick and Alex had later in the evening. The bathroom was small, but there was both a regular toilet and a bidet. Alex said that he had never seen an actual bidet before. The shower head was one of those nice wide ones, and we were worried that Alex would hit his head on it, but we should not have worried. There was also a nice desk that I did some of my blog writing on. We unpacked and awaited Anthony's arrival. He was able to spend the rest of the day with us, since it was Sunday and his project team only meets on weekdays, just like regular "class".

Anthony's friend John, who also lives in his apartment with him, was in Murano, the glass-blowing island across from Venice. Since Anthony had not been there yet, he wanted to go, so we went on a rather brisk walk to the water (not sure what it was called, maybe the "Grand Canal"). My little legs are not as long as Anthony's, and he was used to walking in a brisk pace after having been in Venice for a month already. We took a vaporetto to the island, which is a sort of bus except that it takes passengers across water.

When we got to Murano, we suddenly got a little worried because it was Sunday, and apparently there are a lot of businesses that close on Sunday in Venice. We walked around to various glass shops until we found one that said they had glass-blowing demonstrations.

I haven't seen a glass-blowing demonstration in a long time. Patrick wasn't impressed, saying that he and Alex had seen better demos. It was still fascinating the way they start with a molten mass, blow it out, and push and pull it into cool shapes. The first item he made was a vase/pitcher. To make the wrap-around piece, a second guy applies some molten glass as the first guy turned the vase. Interestingly, they use hard metal tools like one that looks like pliers to push and pull at the molten glass, when usually such a tool would scratch or break glass. The glass is molten at the time, of course, and hot enough that when they were done with each piece, they would let a piece of paper touch it. The paper would ignite to show that the glass was indeed still very hot.

Alex took this next picture, so that's why it is tilted. The owner of the glass shop where we had watched the demo took us to the second floor to show us his more expensive pieces. There were many rooms filled with different types of glass artwork. Each room contained the work of a specific family or artisan, who specialized in one type or another. One had a lot of mosaic type pieces, with many colors put together. Another room had what looked like paintings on the glass. I didn't take any pictures because we weren't supposed to. They are very protective of their original designs and worried that competitors will steal their ideas. That's why I relied on the pictures that Alex took because he did not see those "no photos" signs.

I did take a photo of this horse head with my big camera because Alex's phone camera wasn't showing the rainbow of colors in the glass. We were in a room far away from where the owner was, so I thought it was safe to take a picture for my personal use. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that I had also taken a picture of Alex. He did not like me taking pictures of him, but this accidental one was okay.

The owner was very kind and even gave Anthony a small glass penguin that Anthony had chosen for a friend before we went upstairs to the second floor. Anthony then picked out something else for himself, which he bought with his own money. We took the vaporetto back to Venice and walked back to the hotel.

Every day at 4pm is tea time, complete with complimentary snacks as well as tea at our hotel. We got back shortly before the end, which was at 5pm. The boys were hungry and devoured the treats immediately. A short time later, we went out to dinner at a nearby restaurant. Pretty much every restaurant we've seen so far is an "Italian" restaurant, so we chose one that we liked based on atmosphere and price. We actually had a small lunch at about 2pm at another restaurant, where we shared two small size pizzas. We had anticipated tea time and then dinner after that, so we purposely ate a small meal. By the time dinner rolled around, we were famished.

At both restaurants they set out these wrapped packages on the table. At the first restaurant, they were foil-wrapped and so we couldn't see what was in them. I took the above photo at the second restaurant so I would remember to tell this story. Anthony said that the packages contained "little swords" that you can "fight each other with". Of course, they only contained crunchy breadsticks and not actual swords, so his description was humorous, but it made sense. I do miss Anthony and his jokes, even the ones that make me groan, especially when Anthony himself is laughing so hard that he can barely finish his joke!

We went to get gelato after eating dinner. There are almost as many gelato places are there are Italian restaurants. Yum! I'm going to have to have my daily ice cream fix with gelato during this trip. On our way back to our hotel, we noticed that the streets were all very empty, and most of the stores were closed. It was only around 7pm! Anthony said that Venetians don't seem to stay out very late, on weekends and on weekdays. I guess that means that we'll have to get back to our hotel early every night. That will give me time to post on this blog. I'm staying up to finish this one, so I hope I can get faster tomorrow.