VENICE - DAY 1

Upon our arrival in Venice, we were bussed to our hotel (Hotel Carlton) on the Grand Canal. Even through the fog of exhaustion, I was energized and excited to see if what I remembered of Venice from over 20 years ago felt at all familiar. I was an entirely different person last time I was in Venice, and it was an entirely different and more simple world in the late 1990's. But as I would repeatedly be reminded on this trip, time is relative and the centuries that have washed over this region have both punished and polished it to become one of the finest gems of Italy. I absolutely loved this part of this trip and was very glad we started here.

Photo credit: MARC DE TOLLENAERE 

Once we all got our room keys, Christie and I frantically unpacked and organized a little bit. It actually just looked a lot like setting off bombs in our suitcases. But we all packed very small travel bags so dumping everything out every couple days wasn't a huge mess.

Despite the fact that we had a few hours before we had to be at our orientation meeting for the group, Christie suggested we get out and get our bearings. I wanted to rest, but the excitement made it impossible, so we grabbed the boys and wandered out onto the Grand Canal.

We were almost immediately accosted, in the friendliest way, by some of the local African merchants. They played on my inability to refuse conversation and after about 15 seconds of making a new best friend and possibly brother, I was immediately "given" a bracelet which was a common tactic for fleecing tourists. My travel chops were not sharp and the boys and Christie laughed at what a dad I was. The reality is that I was delirious and quite thirsty.

We wandered aimlessly through the beautiful alleys and marveled at the architecture. Venice is everything you want it to be. At least in and around the Grand Canal, which is admittedly an extremely tourist focused area.

Christie and I dropped the boys back at the hotel after feeding them their first tiramisu, and we went for our first of many perpetual happy hours!

Back at the hotel, slightly buzzed from our happy hour and running on fumes from the countless hours without sleep, we were treated to a tortuously comprehensive introduction to the impending journey. Our guide, Ursula was awesome and her accent was perfectly befitting of her personality. But we, as a roughly 40 person group of Americans were tired, hungry and chronically short on attention. It was tough. We were given LOTS of information, and I kept nodding off. The average intelligence of a "tour group" must be frighteningly low because the kinds of things she was explaining made me wonder if this was in fact a special needs tour. But we got through it and onto one of many adequate meals (more on the food later)...

Once the meeting finally ended, we walked across the small marble lobby to the dining room where we were paired with a single traveler (Aphrodite) who we adopted as our our 10th family member throughout the trip. She fit right in and reminded me of a mix between Aunt Celeste and Andrea. We had her crying and laughing on the first night. She was something of a conundrum, but was a fixture of our journey and someone who kind of "got us" as a family. We are... A lot to handle.

This was actually from our LAST dinner... Nobody looked this energized the first night ;)

The night finally concluded, and the details are foggy but I'm pretty sure we just finally gave in to our bodies and went to bed. The next morning (and every morning after that) would start EARLY!!!! But tomorrow is another long adventure. Stay tuned for more!

Hotel Carlton at dusk on Day 1... This one I took.