July 21st, 1998
| We woke up at about 9:00am. It was a nice day for sleeping. We met up with the Ytreeides and had breakfast at a restaurant. The hotel didn't have complimentary breakfasts. Next we checked out the basilica. According to the sign in front, they didn't allow people wearing shorts or sleeveless shirts to enter the basilica. We did notice some people with shorts in there, though. So we had to stand near the front of the line and observe what the acceptable dress was. Long shorts were OK, but sleeveless were no good. The 3 Js and I (Jenny, Jonathon, Jessica, and I), stood in line while Arnie and Elsie went back to the hotel so Elsie could change into more basilica like clothing. We stood in line for about 30 minutes before they finally came back. We were close to the front of the line and had wondered what took them so long since our hotel was really close to the area. |
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| It turns out that when they got to their room they had noticed that their curling iron and clothes iron were missing. It appeared that they had been stolen. They looked for other things that were more valuable that were in the room and they were not taken. They went to the hotel manager to tell them about their things that had been stolen and the manager thought it was strange that they would have thought their things were stolen. What had in fact happened, is that the manager had taken these things from their room because we are not allowed to use our plug-ins for these things. They claim that it might start a fire. It was all very strange. In all the hotels in Europe, except for London, you are required to leave your key at the front desk whenever you leave the hotel. We thought it strange that when they picked up their key for their room that the manager didn't just happen to mention that she had taken their things out of their room. We are not sure why she went in their room in the first place. The room hadn't been made up, so we know that it would not have been the maid that noticed these appliances. |
 | We were nearing the entrance of the building still talking about this incident when a couple cut right in front of us in line. Jenny was none to happy. She told them to get to the back of the line and that we had been waiting 30 minutes. They just ignored her, so she motioned for us to follow her to get in front of them. They didn't say a word, but they didn't get out of line either. I thought there was going to be an international event. The basilica was very pretty. The floor was primarily made up of mosaics. We did some more looking around and purchased our gondola tickets. |
| Then we went up the Campanile tower. The view was very nice. Not a super high view. But still very nice. |
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 | We went back to the room to get ready for the evening. We then had a small dinner/snack at McDonalds, which was right next door to our hotel. It was then time to take a ride on the gondolas. |
| We had purchased the serenading gondolas. How it worked, is that we had groups of people that fit into 6 gondolas and on one of the gondolas was a group of 3 people that were the designated seranaders. They had an accordion and a couple of guitar players. They also had a speaker so that all the gondolas could hear. That was a lot of fun. The gondoliers were constantly chatting back and forth with each other. At first, I was annoyed because they were interrupting the music that was playing. But then I found that it was more interesting to hear their chatter back and forth than the music. You couldn't understand a word they said, because they were speaking Italian. |
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To go down some of the smaller canals, we
had to line up more of a single file. While we were doing that, Elsie
struck up a conversation with our gondolier. It was very fascinating
talking to him. Can you imagine having that job? |
| Arnie had asked us earlier if we could watch their kids while he and Elsie had an evening alone in Venice. So they decided that their evening would begin after the gondola ride. We still hadn't eaten our main dinner meal, so we took the 2 Js out to eat at a restaurant close to the shore. We had a real good time. We enjoyed their company very much. By the time dinner was over, it was getting late, so we headed back to our hotel and called it a night. |
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