KTMusings

I’m writing this from my own bed at 6:30am - we made it home safely and everyone seems to have slept through the night - yay and yay! We were awake almost 24 hours yesterday, made even longer for me … that dinner Thursday night that I said wasn’t good? Well, even worse, it gave me food poisoning. We discovered Thursday that the girls beds had trundles, so Lauren slept there and Abby slept in the twin above her and I slept in their room for the last night - got me out of the bed I disliked - ha! I woke up at 12, 1, 2 and thought I was just nervous about missing my 4am alarm, but then at 3 I woke up with terrible diarrhea. GI issues are never fun, but on a travel day?! Thank goodness Jeff travels with Imodium ever since his GI issues when we were in Costa Rica years ago, so I took some and got ready. I will spare any more details because I think I have coworkers reading this blog - hahaha - but it was a harrowing travel day for me.  So, Jeff is usually our Sherpa - he had a big backp...

Yesterday we enjoyed our slow start, girls watched tablets, I made coffee and read. When we left the apt we saw water bubbling up through some of the drains - turns out it was high tide and the water was already high, so it was coming UP through the vents it usually drains down into. We were mostly able to get around and avoid the puddles.  We wandered for a bit and then decided to do a gondola ride - they are pricey, but we figured we’re maybe only here once. Had we thought about it / asked about the  water we would have waited, but we didn’t know. We actually had to wade though a puddle to board (my leather shoes kept me dry, but Jeff got wet - we carried the girls over the puddle). We got started and soon realized what high tide meant for the gondolas - they barely fit under the bridges! In fact, the gondolier had to ask Jeff to go sit in the front of the boat to weigh that side down because of the high point in front - ha! And then he still had to practically dump us sidew...

We met Lucia at 9am and walked around Venice a bit more before getting on a private boat to head to Murano. It was a beautiful boat and we all sat in the small cabin. It took all of 3 min for Abby to get sea sick. We scrambled to find a bag (our ziplock full of PBJs - ha!) - she didn’t end up needing it, but I felt bad for her. We arrived at a private dock and sat outside for a few min to let her recover. Then a nice man took us into their glass blowing studio … it was HOT. We got to watch them blow glass for a bit - he explained they had two masters with them that day - one who was 83 and making gazelles and one who was 78 and making vases. It was fascinating to watch! He apologized for not having an apprentice there that day, apparently they generally do a short demo of making a little fish or something easy. He said the masters work from 8a-noon, though the one that makes colorful glasses works 8a-4p. The gazelle is actually made in pieces - first the head, then they keep that warm ...