Venice Day 2

We awoke and it hit me. This was our last destination. Our last full day out of the country. It was November 11th. I grabbed a napkin off the end table (presumably from gelato the night before) and began to draw on it. I drew, sketched, and shaded in various colors (even though I only had one cheap hotel pen) and mapped out our journey. Here is what I drew:

I gently got out of bed, not to disturb the snoring-Laura creature, and got dressed. While nodding off last night she had mentioned she wanted to see "one of those cool old ones...". Later, I found out she meant churches. I arranged for us to go sightseeing at St. Mark's Basilica.


Apparently, it is technically called the Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark, or Basilica Cattedrale Patriachale di San Marco in Italian. It's a cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice. Basically it's a big, old, fancy Catholic church. 


We toured the church and surrounding grounds. The tour guide, who once again looked eerily similar to the dude from Rio, Cairo, and Antarctica, told us that Byzantine architecture was used throughout the grounds. It lies in Piazza San Marco, or the St. Mark district. 

The Front 

I;m not the most interested in art or architecture, but I really enjoyed the tour. I didn't quite understand it all, but it was fun. 

By the time we were done, it was nearing sunset. Laura had an idea. We grabbed a "picnic" dinner, and rented a gondola. The man driving it looked exactly like the guy we'd seen everywhere else. Although it could be seen as a date, Laura and I saw the gondola ride as fulfilled dream. Ever since we sang "That's Amore" on a karaoke game at our friend's house, it because a mission. Suddenly, we burst into song.

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeen theee moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, thats amore. 

When the world seems to shine like you've had TOO MUCH WINE, that's amore!" we sang, our voices fluctuating between loud, and louder. 

All of a sudden, our gondola man went overboard. Being the screamer that I am, I screamed. It was close enough to a bridge that we managed to leap to shore.

 Laura said, "Hurry, we don't want to get caught in another international scandal."  

"Another?!..." I replied. We were already halfway to our hotel. 

"Uh. I'll tell you later." 

Little did we know, we spent several hours on the gondola and by the time we got back to our hotel we had to pack our bags and rush to the airport for our early-morning flight.

We were late.

Our family and friends welcomed us home, and we immediately went to sleep.