Amazing Venice

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Geo: 45.4958, 12.2441

What a long day today! It was a bit overwhelming! It is currently after 10:30pm as I start to type this and Kamie is snoring next to me. I'm trying really hard to not fall asleep because I keep going to sleep "early" (around 9:30/10:00) and then waking-up at 3 or 4 in the morning. I have huge bags under my eyes and frankly, I could probably sleep at any moment if given the chance. I've been going-going-going on about 4 or 5 hours of sleep per 24 hours for a couple of days now, if that.

To back up.... I was awake at 3/4 am last night and could not go back to sleep. I finally got in the shower and started getting ready. Kamie was awake by 6 am. We had breakfast at the hotel at 7am (along with the other jet lagged Americans) and we took the train to Venice before 9am. A white sheet of fog was the only view from the train in this morning. The fog finally broke and we spent the day walking miles upon miles, taking boats to various islands and parts of Venezia, enjoying the bells ring in the crowded St Mark's square and getting lost in the backstreets and canals of quaint Venice. We took nearly 300 pictures today. Sometime in the afternoon we just got too tired and too overwhelmed to take pictures ~ we simply walked for several more hours and enjoyed the scenery and tried to take it all in. Venice is difficult to describe appropriately ~ beautiful, peaceful, quirky, crowded, loud, old, etc etc I wish Kamie was awake to give his usual commentary to this blog. In a nutshell, Venice is a lot more than one would think and it is sad to think it will not be around 100 years from now.

Anyway, we saw EVERYTHING on my list of things to see... and then some.. and our favorite part, not to be too much of a cliché, but our second time to walk through St Mark's Square was from a back/side alley entrance.. and as we walk into what seemed to be thousands of people surrounded by beautiful art, history, architecture, etc... the bells started ringing... and they rang, and rang, and rang ~ it was beautiful!! Definitely an experience I will not forget anytime soon. It surely ranks as one of my top five travel experiences of all time. It was uh-maze-ing!!!!!!!!!

And on that note, I'm amazed out. I desperately need sleep and cannot function properly at this point. I will probably be awake at 4am and write more later and post pictures then. We are possibly losing Internet tomorrow and do not know if we will share the rest of the trip or not. We'll see.

Update: I was too tired to post this blog or upload pictures earlier. It's nearly 2:30 am now and Kamie & I are both awake. We are torturing ourselves and should go back to sleep but do not. It's storming outside and we have our giant hotel windows wide open - no screens, no security - just a little mist coming in the window and an occasional flash of lightening outside. It feels good.

We were overjoyed and surprised to see our ship coming into Venice this morning ~ maybe sometime around 11:30/12:00. The sides of the ship and the balconies were packed with the current cruisers getting the first glimpse of Venice for the season. The ship's horn blew and the crowds on both sides of the water cheered. It was pretty fantastic! The current cruisers start disembarking at 5:30 am tomorrow and we plan to be there around 10 am for embarkation. Other plans for tomorrow include an evening gondola ride and picking-up some small murano glass trinkets. Our cruise does not leave Venice until Sunday evening.

So, today was a long day of walking to the point that both our legs ache and Kamie is highly questioning his previous demands that we walk the 294 steps up to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in a few days. I was so enthralled with my eyes today that I didn't eat but two gelato all day! The mint was good and the hazelnut so~so. Tonight, I skipped dinner and Kamie picked-up a small sandwich (prosciutto and funghi) at the local grocery store. We are both awake, hungry, and wishing we were on the ship so we could order room service but the ship does not offer free Wi-Fi so a trade-off is about to come. I may not be able to make blog entries but I will try. Not much else to say about today besides you almost have to be here to understand Venice though I did try to bring home the memories with my picture count being over 300 today! I have attached a few favorites.

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