Displaced Beachbums

Logan and I moved to Germany in late May 2001. John had already been there a month, the car we shipped had arrived and John was itching to start exploring Europe. First long weekend trip: Venice, Italy. We drove from Germany to Venice on Father’s Day weekend. It took a little longer than expected due to a Friday afternoon stau. Stau is the German word for “I don’t know why but traffic has come to a complete stop on the autobahn.”

It was a whirlwind visit but I’m glad we started traveling soon after I arrived because, even after living in Germany for 5 years, there is still so much left to see and do in Germany, let alone the rest of Europe.

At the time, Italy was still on the lire (it was about $1.00 to 2, 189.84 Lire) and, since I am math-shy in public, John did all the calculations for us. Ah, back when the dollar was doing well and traveling Europe was ‘cheap’.

Nothing I can say here about Venice that hasn’t already been said a million times. Yes, it is lovely, crowded, has an interesting history and a sinking future but I do hope everyone has the chance to see it once in their lifetime as it is a place like no other.

We were too cheap to take the Gondola, or as Logan called them Banana Boats, so we took the water taxi which had a much more local feel to it:

It’s easy to get turned around among the canals and I was so worried Logan would fall into the water. Good thing I could still carry her ~ barely.

I only went to Venice once but John somehow managed to visit two or three times ~ something about it being work-related. Interesting how that worked out.