Chiao Italy

Tonight is our last in Italy. We have been here long enough that this morning, I successfully carried out an order for two espressos, paying and everything, entirely in Italian. I am very proud. Especially since on Tuesday I made an arse out of myself ordering pizza.

Here's the story. We were exhausted after touring the Roman ruins and had collapsed into the nearest pizza joint. I was trying to order, in Italian of course, pizza with prosciutto. I pronounced it like bruschetta on accident, and when the waited said it correctly, I actually said "no, pro-chett-o" He looked at me like, you're an idiot lady, and then I realized my mistake. I guess all those hours watching Giada De Laurentes cook on the food network did nothing for me when it came to actually ordering for myself.

The last night in Rome was great. We found this little pizza place tucked away in a corner and had really good pizza. Then we followed the tradition of tossing coins into the Trevi fountain to guarantee our return to Rome. We boarded to train to Venice without incident and enjoyed quite a nice ride. There was a ton of room, way more than a plane, and you got to watch the Italian countryside roll by.

Since being in Venice, we've done the typical Venice things. I was disappointed that because it is Saturday there were no glass blowing demonstrations on the island of Murano. Not even at the Glass Museum. We definitely wasted that €11. How can they consider charging that much to show you some old glass, and not even have the consideration of having a demonstration of how it's made. It turned out okay, since we got a lot of our souvenir shopping done on that island. The only person I haven't gotten anything for is my mom. I have no idea what to get her. She said she wanted some holy water from the Vatican, but they don't sell that. I considered buying one of the decorative bottles and filling it up with water from the fountains in St. Peter's square. That would be kind of like holy water. I'm sure there's a general blessing on the fountains in the Vatican. So mom, if you can think of anything you want, let me know.

One thing that I've noticed this time to Venice that I don't remember from my last trip is the difficulty of the transportation. It seems to be impossible to buy tickets for the water taxis and such. Not all the stops have them. They only take credit card on the automatic "24 hour" machines, but those are never working. We were able to purchase a 36 hour pass, but that leaves us about 8 hours short of getting ourselves to the airport. Oh well, I'm sure you don't want to hear about the frustrations of water taxis.

Today is the Festival of the Redeemer in Venice. This is basically an annual festival to celebrate when the island was finally free of the plague. A joyous occasion! The perk for us is they set off fireworks. So our plan for the evening is to get dinner by the Grand Canal, go for a gondola ride as long as it's not too much of a rip off and then head down to the part of the island where you can see the fireworks. Then tomorrow we're up early to catch our flight to Nice. If you want me to place any bets for you at the casino, let me know!