Venice!

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Sunday, Mar 29 - Nancy & I travel by train from Rome to Venice.

Now, we were very confused when we arrived in Rome - all our internet sleuthing told us that Italy is 9 hours ahead of Vancouver. But when we arrived in Rome, we were only 8 hours ahead. We couldn't figure it out, and none of the desk clerks we asked were able to suggest a reason...until we realized Italy hadn't begun daylight savings time yet. It began at 3am on Sunday March 29. We were both so worried about sleeping in and missing our train that neither of us slept well. We kept waking up, checking the clock on the tv, we wanted to be at the breakfast room right at 6:30 so we would have lots of time to finish packing & catch our 8:50am train to Venice.

We had requested a wake up call for 6, but were both wide awake at 5:30 - I had set my watch the hour ahead the night before as we didn't know how to adjust the time on the tv - so we took the phone off the hook so as not to disturb our neighbours (not that THEY had been that polite at 1:30am the night before...). We were up & dressed & in the lobby by 6:35, feeling pretty smug...only to discover the breakfast room closed and no one on duty except a sleepy bellman who spoke no English.

Hmmmm....perhaps everyone slept it! I double checked my watch - yep, 6:30 - then we noticed the clock in the lobby said 5:30. Obviously no one had changed the time. Finally another bellman showed up...when we asked why the breakfast room was closed, he smiled and said it opened at 6:30. We told him, no, it was PAST 6:30 already...he looked as confused as I'm sure we did and said, No, it is 5:40....

We gave up and headed to our room to check the time on CNN. You guessed it: the clock on the tv had changed automatically to daylight savings time. And when we arrived in Rome, I had set my watch ahead by NINE hours and hadn't changed it back (shows how often I looked at my watch there), so when I set it ahead on Saturday night, I was setting it an hour AHEAD of DST.

I can see you shaking your head...yep, we felt pretty stupid. We stretched out on the beds and watched tv till 6:30 (and yes, the 6am wakeup call arrived right on time...the RIGHT time...), had breakfast and met our driver at 7:35. It was already a long day!

We had the same driver, the charming Maurizzio, who dropped us off at the terminal...it was raining and grey but we didn't care. We were going to VENICE!

To be continued....

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Comments

[Terri]

Time changes....
I'm tired for you!! The time change got me last year in Europe....although not nearly as bad as it got you. Can't wait to see your pics and hear about the Four Sisters do Italy movie.... xot

[Rochelle]

Thinking of you
Dear Nancy and sisters: I'm thinking of you as we hear of the victims of the earthquake. I see that Venice is far from L'Aquila and hope you have stayed safe. Enjoy your travels. Life is short but magnificent. Rochelle