Land of a Thousand Accordions

Ah, Venice! If you ever have the chance to read Anne
Rice's compelling story, "Cry To Heaven" - it
describes Venice in it's hey days and according to the
guides here, it hasn't changed much since the 1500s.

Well, here I am 7am at a 24-Hour 'Cybernetico Kaffe'
in what must be the most breathtaking city I have ever
been in... I have been walking around most of this
morning, got my shot of expresso - which, if Starbucks
made it the way they make it here, I'll never go back
to regular coffee. Ok, while I am on my caffine high,
let me pump this email out... ;-)

I feel like pinching myself every other minute!
Unfortunately, the rain that had plagued our tour in
Germany and in Austria has followed us last night.
But the massive lighting, thunder and rain the size of
dimes just adds Venice's dramatic beauty.

On a personal note, I am recovering from my *first*
accident just fine and have picked up about three more
cuts on my *second* accident during our Alpine slide
in Austria yesterday. All thanks to Dave, (better
known as 'Most likely tour member to be voted off the
group') who rammed his luge into mine, knocking me
sideways as I continued to slide on my leg on yet
*another* steel plank.

So, in addition to my left knee injury, I have burns
and skin peels on my lower left leg, and hands as I
tried to right myself. I believe I am now known as
group klutz or blood donor - take your pick.

Back to Venice. We walked to San Marco square during
sunset - Wow!! Listened to all these bands taking
turn playing one after the other througout the
square. I walked and listened to Mozart, the theme
from God Father, other beautiful songs being played...
(Sher - you would totally die!!)

I got seperated from some folks I was hanging around,
but Venice is an island, and getting lost in a
thunderstorm wasn't so bad. I just kept walking and
walking and somehow ended back to my hotel.

Although the shops were closed, they were brightly
lit. Oh my God, the shops here!! The clothes,
masks, blown glass, Gucci, Versace, Armani... (Eunice
- you would totally die!)

Today we have have a local who'll give us a guided
walking tour of Venice, a glass-blowing demo and
tonight we have our gondola rides through the canals.

My secret shame of accordion playing came out sometime
during the nightly pub & beer crawls in Germany and
now the group is trying to rustle up one for me - oh
God, what did I get myself into! ;-)

Talk to you guys soon, love ya, Ciao!!!

Jenn

p.s. This place has a scanner, so I am going to try
and scan an Amsterdam picture that I have and send
that to y'all.