Entry # 22, Europe Journal

10:09 PM Hotel, Venice Tuesday, 2 August 2011
I shall do a brief summary of yesterday/ today. Hopefully it will meet page count.

yesterday:
(picking up where I left off)
- lunch
- woodcarver
- bought earrings + cow + pins + cross
- returned
- early dinner
- closing
- Swiss National day
- dancing
- bagpipes (surprise before dinner; they came up and played at the Chalet)
- we were in parade
- sang Chalet song
- returned
- finished packing
- had to sit on suitcase to zip it up properly
- then the month happened...
- all the stuff to deal with it = in the most inconvenient place possible
- dealt with it anyway

TODAY:
- woke up at six AM
- found last-minute stuff
- finished last-minute packing
- departure
- caught bus
- Allison = pessimistic about our likelihood of catching the train
- had three minutes between the bus stopping and the train leaving
- her fears proved false
- actually wound up with five minutes
- got train
- we had reserved seats
- turned out we boarded the wrong car
- had to move
- hard to navigate with suitcase and backpack on
- made it to car
- at first stop, got off, sprinted to end, got back on
- made it before train left again
- barely
- Allison declared it to be the worst train ride ever
- I pointed out that it wasn't because the car hadn't exploded yet
- read most of the way
- made it to Venice
- travelled by boat a lot
- discovered that the canals are similar to the streets at home
- there are SUV-type boats and sedan-type boats
- occasionally a limo/ gondola
- occasional vintage/ sports-vehicle/ convertible
- lots of traffic
- very hectic
- some trash that people are too lazy to put into cans, so they pitch it out during travel time
- lots of cool architecture
- mask stores EVERYWHERE
- hotel = awesome
- went to the top of the bell tower
- view = WHOA!
- you could see all of Venice
- ate dinner
- super good
- I had ravioli
- walked around
- looked at all the super-cool masks
- lots of masks with bits painted like sheet music
- lots of long-nosed ones
- some cool Phantom of the Opera masks/ sort-of-Phantom masks
- for example, half the face + the other eye would be covered
- returned
- wrote journal
- read more
- bed