Venezia as seen by Elisabeth

          March 30, 2019 dawned bright and clear, which was a good thing, because we did not want to go to Venice in the rain. The previous night, we had all gone to a pasta-making ward activity which ran a little late, so we did not head out at the original 6:30 A.M. and instead hit the road at about 9:30. We had all the features of a great drive: beautiful weather, beautiful views, fabulous company, and kindles and books and notebooks to keep ourselves entertained. 
          The drive would have been great, had it not been for a certain member of our family who shall remain unnamed voluntarily taking it upon his/her self after the first hour to generously treat us to his/her very best, loudest, and most deadly shrieks of terror interminably for the rest of the drive to the point that we had to stop at every other gas station to rearrange the seating arrangement in desperate hopes of subduing this family member's serenades. I'll give you a hint: it was not Gwyndelin. 
          I was a little relieved and really excited when we got to the big road leading across the water to Venice. When we got to Mestre and parked, I joyfully exited the car and we started walking, stopping after a few minutes to look (unsuccessfully) for junky strollers at a children's store (they were all super nice and the cheapest one was €90, of course) and, like we always do, receiving looks from the locals. I think they thought we were a little tour group with our matching sweatshirts; all we needed was a little pole with a flag on it. We also stopped at a grocery store to get lunch, and then we boarded the water bus. 
          Katharine and I both thought that the bus stop was the bus, so we were longingly looking at the actual bus making comments about how we wished we could ride it. So we were elated when we not only got to ride that bus but we got the best seats on it, all together at the front. The 30-minute boatride was fabulous: the water was beautiful if you didn't look too hard at it, the gardens were glorious, and each building we passed tried to outdo its neighbor with a more vibrant pink, red, or yellow. 
          We enjoyed seeing the gondolas too, especially the boatmen with their black and white striped shirts and hats trimmed with red or black ribbon. Mommy, now a professional rower herself, observed that the rowing tactic of the boatmen seemed rather strange; she didn't think sticking the oar in practically straight up and making little circles with your hands would get the boat very far. Later Julia informed us that the boatmen get paid in 30-minute intervals, so rowing that way ensures that they don't get very exhausted and their passengers are lucky to get farther than a couple blocks. Tricky boatmen. 
          Luckily my parents are very good at gauging what's worth their money and what isn't, so we didn't ride the gondolas, but since we all tossed a coin in the Trevi fountain, we might as well visit Venice and ride the gondola when fate, destiny, or a horse drags us back to Italy. We got off the waterbus not completely against our will since the wind chill had all of us except Mommy shivering and went to visit the Basilica di San Marco. 
          We ate a lunch of sandwiches and apples, and Abdiel learned of the dangers of "Gli ladri d'Italia" the hard way. We were all afraid of the swarms of seagulls there, so most of us downed our sandwiches as quickly as we could. Abdiel, however, can't eat very quickly, so rather than eat his sandwich he clutched it to him and cried. The seagulls noticed this vulnerable behavior and pounced. They rammed into him, shoved him, pushed him, snatched his sandwich, and devoured it before his eyes. Abdiel was scarred. He cried even louder and demanded that we leave Venice immediately. We did not, but we escaped the beastly birds for the quiet of the basilica. It was dark, but not too dark, cold, but not too cold, and overall the atmosphere was better than that of some cathedrals we've visited. The walls were very cool on account of all the gold plated mosaics, unlike any of the other cathedral art we'd ever seen. I kind of like renaissance art better. We tried to go to the second floor, but since people are LAME and make you PAY, we went to the piazza to eat lunch.