Celebrating Gerry's Birthday In Venice

We arrived in Venice the same day we left the Swiss Alps, so we were quite tired out from a long drive. We went to an Italian restaurant near our hotel, where I ordered fish with shrimp. I was quite shocked for a minute when they brought out the food, with a whole fish on a plate – head, eyeballs, and all. I was relieved when the waitress chopped off the head and tail, and deboned the inside. At least now I know how to eat a fish if I’m ever served a whole one :P

Instead of staying directly on the island of Venice, we booked a hotel on the mainland, about a 15-minute drive from the boat dock, which has “vaporettos” to take you to Venice. The main boat stop, St. Mark’s Square, was a big tourist zone, with the most people we’ve seen so far on this trip. The streets were cluttered with souvenir stands, and there were tons of guys with fake designer purses trying to sell them to tourists. We saw quite a few of them running from the Venice cops all afternoon.

We celebrated Gerry’s birthday on our first day in the city on May 12th, since we were driving the day of his actual birthday. We had dinner at a seaside restaurant, which was nice until the birds started landing on the tables and helping themselves to our bread. Luckily I had already taken my piece ;P This was also the place with outrageous prices for soft drinks. Two small bottles of Fanta totaled €14... maybe we should have gone with the wine! :P