Ciao!

Coming back from vacation is sad, but also kind of a relief. It's nice to be back sleeping in my own bed, not having to listen to the snoring of my roomie, getting water for free in restaurants (and automatically getting ice- Erica I totally understand what you're talking about!), not having to pay to use the bathroom, there always being a toilet seat and toilet paper, and of course having Diet Coke that tastes right since the US is ok with cancer-causing sugar substitutes.
The down side of coming back from vacation is that I don't have all of my meals cooked for me (and have it available pretty much 24 hours a day), I don't wake up in a new exciting locale every day, and I have to go back to work in a few days. Ugh.
Back to the glorious vacation... we started in Rome for two days before taking the train to Venice to get on our cruise ship. We took the hop on/off bus to see as much as possible in the two days. We booked a Vatican tour which was amazing. That place is so huge, there's so much to see, so it's nice to have someone with a lot of knowledge about it giving you a tour. The Sistine Chapel was amazing and I was taken aback by how huge St. Peter's Basilica is. This is one of my fave pics I took of a blocked off stairwell just outside the Sistine Chapel..
We ate lots of gelato and pizza, trying not to think of the horrible Euro-Dollar conversion rate. It was super hot the entire trip and we discovered there is no such thing as clouds during the summer in the Mediterranean. Good thing we were prepared with sunscreen!
Arrived in Venice, but after getting off the train at the wrong stop we had to walk the "short 15 minute walk" to the cruise ship since we were past the area where there are cars. Little did we know there was a huge bridge in our path that had no ramp. Five of us trying to haul 75-100 pounds of luggage each up that bridge was quite a sight. People walking by were laughing at us, and a guy even took our video camera to get footage of our ridiculousness. Even after we got off the bridge, we still had what seemed like miles to walk mostly uphill to our ship. Our embarkation photo is pretty classic since we all look like crap from our memorable adventure. Luckily at that point, we were in the clear and ready to be taken care of on the ship. Turkey sandwiches for lunch and endless chocolate chip cookies made me a very happy girl. The ship was ok, not the best I've been on, but served its purpose. It was definitely mostly filled with old people, but we seem to make friends with the elderly easily so that worked for us. (We are much better off on a ship like that than some crazy Carnival nonstop party ship.)
Our first night we took a gondola ride, which was fantastic! It lasted almost 45 minutes and took us through the main canal and lots of little side canals. We had an accordion player on our gondola and there was a singer in the gondola right next to us, so we had lots of entertainment and singalongs. I kinda felt like I was at The Olive Garden with all the songs I heard. : ) I loved the gondola ride, and was hooked on Venice. I had heard mixed reviews of the city before my trip, but it's definitely one of my favorite places we went. Here's a pic I took from the gondola and Lauren and I in St. Mark's Square...
Gotta run...I will continue my trip review at a later date! : )