An Abnormally Easy Travel Day

And I'll never complain about one of those!  After some terrific lightning shows during last nights storms I was praying that all of that would be behind us before we had to depart this morning to the Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station) to catch the S8 train to the Munchen Flughafen (Airport).  Bet you didn't know I knew so much German, right???  Well that just about exhausts my entire German vocabulary!  We arrived in PLENTYYYY of time for our flight and had a chance to learn how to read airport signs and departure boards...which are a tad bit bigger than the tv size monitor board at the Knoxville Airport ;-)

Soon enough our Air Dolomiti plane arrived and boarding started.  But just look at the difference in boarding procedures:

Boarding from the front AND the back…what a novel idea!  And the best part?  In 3.5 minutes everyone was on the plane, luggage stowed, sitting in our seats and ready to go.  Is there something we could learn here???  Probably so!

Our flight was short, only about an hour.  In no time at all we were in Venice, dragging our luggage to our 2 reserved water taxis for a splendid speedboat ride across the Adriatic Lagoon to Venice Island.  The ride itself is almost as exciting as the Venetian Islands themselves!  

All the students were excited to arrive at our little Pensione Gueratto in 007 style.  Personally I was glad the Rialto Fish Market had closed down and cleaned up for the day because the boats drop us off right in the Fish Market – sometimes a smell not for the faint of heart.

That Mr. Margene - ALWAYS trying to jump into the pictures any time he can...we love Mr. Margene!

 Our little Pensione Gueratto was built in the 1200's, and as Kyle so handily pointed out, it has Air Conditioning, but no elevator.  Our rooms are all on the 4th floor (5th floor) when you start the counting  with Zero.  Kyle Sparkman says he'll never again complain about an elevator being small (like the one in Munich)!  I think that's a very important observation from Mr. Sparkman, don't you?

We quickly hauled all of our luggage up to our rooms, turned on our AC (whew) and washed our hands for our dinner reservation at Birraria La Corte which is an excellent restaurant and a good start to our Venetian Adventure.  We had all kinds of yummy Italian delights.  Just look and see for yourself:

But now the real learning of Venice begins.  Now we learn how to navigate!  No, we don't use maps - they're useless because the alleys (calle) are a jumbled spider web of paths and one really only needs to look up on the sides of the ancient buildings and read the signs "Per Rialto", "Per San Marco" and "Per Accademia".  The pointers show you the direction and at just the right time there'll be another pointer and another and another.  This is the 5th or 6th or maybe 7th (I've lost count) of CAK students to learn how to navigate in Venice.  It sounds like a daunting task...especially if you've only ever been here on a cruise ship excursion.  Your students began their studies this evening.  And they were all just a little distraught to learn we only had 2 nights here.  So learning they must do if they want that free time to shop and eat lunch in groups tomorrow.

Our travels this evening took us to several beautiful sites:

And of course we can't really go ANYWHERE in Venice without a gelato shop beaconing us in for a tasty treat like no other gelato in the world!

We're finally all back in our little Pensione, tucked into our rooms and texting and instagramming and blogging our fingers off.  An interesting observation from Caroline S. when asked about one thing they didn't expect in Venice.  Caroline said she never knew that you didn't have to "row" a gondola to make it move forward...you must STIR the water!  That was a cute observation as yes, indeed, a gondolier stirs the water from the back of the gondola with 1 giant rather crooked oar.  It's an ART! 

Good night from Venice, and we'll see you again tomorrow at the end of a LONG and eventful day, I'm sure.  Tomorrow we'll see St. Mark's Basilica, the Doge's Palace, whisk to the top of the Campanile with the giant bells poised to GONG over our heads and a beautiful view of the Adriatic and the Grand Canal.  Yes, I'm sure there'll be many stories tomorrow!

Good night - please know that your students are having the times of their lives.  They're such a great group to be with.