Day 2 - Venice

(written by Craig)
Spent the day walking the maze that is Venice. Made up of 117 islands joined by over 400 bridges... Dressed in all our themals as it was bitterly cold - especially in the wind. This month is carnival, so elaborately costumed characters added colour to the streets, posing for photos and drawing crowds of cameras.

Highlights include:

• Our first cafe (Italian esperesso coffee)


• The multitude of art stores


• The accademia gallery - where we enjoyed the liberty of taking photos of the architecture, not the art itself


• The Leondardo di Vinci museum where we were given a crash course in the emotions of Italian women when the teller decided to have a screaming and wailing argument with a sorry boy we assume was/is her boyfrind. Her shreaks filled the museum - despite it all being in Italian, we were in no doubt of what was being said.


• The tour of San Marco Cathedral, where the free entry was but a lure to many opportunities to part with our money... where every room attracted a fee to view it - being kiwis, we just went for the balcony area so we could get good photos of the crowds outside. We felt a level of disgust at the terming of "come view our treasure" where the offerings of many struggling people feed the opulence of a greedy church.


• Multitudes of tiny cafes which could on sit 5-10 people


• Finding our first Internet cafe and uploaed some wedding photos to Facebook - not enough time to check messages or comments, as the cafe closed at 2pm!!


• Speaking Italian to a local and having him understand us and replying and us knowing what he said ... another triumph of the day!
  


• Nearly getting lost trying to get back to the hotel - the maze was so disorientating - a long was got us back to our room finally


• Lyn found her new favourite icecream flavour: Pistacio!!

After a long was, we treated ourselves to a long awaited bowl of fine Italian Pasta ... the first since arriving. For those who know Lyn well ... she is a pasta freak and one of the reasons for choosing Italy to visit. We couldn't read the menu, so took a stab in the dark, guessing that it would be authentic and edible... we were well offtrack on both counts - with Lyn's "razorshell fish pasta" looking like one eyed alien worms amongst the spagetti, that even the boys in Jack Ass wouldn't touch. They tasted like they were hauled up from the bottom of a moddy pont and the shells provided a sandy grit which finished off the revoltingness of the dish perfectly. On escaping our torture chamber, that was the restaurant, we fled to our room to consume a weightwatcher muesli bar and glass of bourben.

Jetlag still has it's hold on us both, with us nodding off before 8pm and waking well before light (1.30am to be precise!!)