Italy: Day 8, Part 3 (and Day 9)

This is it. The last post about Italy. I'm a little bit relieved. Are you?

After getting back from our island hopping, we searched for a restaurant called Poste Vecie. It is, reportedly, the oldest restaurant in Venice with a beginning around 1500. Before it served food, it served up the mail. Indeed, it was once a post office. It took some walking and asking, but we finally found it - about two steps from the fish market that we explored earlier in the day.  The didn't open until seven so we made a reservation and walked around a bit. We found a sidewalk cafe and ordered a couple of spritzes and headed out to a dock over the canal. We boat watched and people watched all while the sun was setting over Venice. Doesn't that sound romantic? It was. A little bit. Except for the smell of fish and people all around us.

 When our reservation time came, we headed to Poste Vecie. The restaurant has two main dining rooms. We were in the Sala della missive. It is decorated with postal memorabilia which was both odd and neat. The other room (I forget the name) was decorated with paintings depicting the seven deadly sins. I wonder how the other diners felt as they ate a very expensive dinner while looking at a painting of gluttony.

Super old mail.

I don't remember the names of what we ordered, but I can give you a brief recap. For starters, we got a seafood sampler. There's a picture of it right below these words. It's okay, you can say it. It doesn't look good. I agree, it doesn't. It wasn't my ideal appetizer. It all tasted very fishy. Fresh, but fishy. I don't care for octopus.

    
Up next, we split gnocci with lobster. Now that was delicious. Matt wasn't feeling well so I ate most of it. What can I say? You snooze, you lose.  I'm having some weird spacing issues right here. I apologize.

For the next part of the meal, we split some type of white fish that was topped with tomatoes, capers, and olive oil. It was really good. They brought the whole fish out and showed it to us, then took the fish off the bones and out of its scaly wrapper.

We skipped dessert and headed out to slowly make our way back to the train station. We got on the waterbus one last time and savored the jostling of the other passengers while having our tickets checked by the waterbus ticket Nazi. Apparently, if you get on the bus without a ticket, they fine you like 50 bucks. A one-time ticket is about seven. If you remember, we bought the 12-hour pass so we were good. For funsies, we shifted positions to get away from the ticket checker before he could get to us. Acting shady while only speaking English may not have been the wisest move, but it was fun.

Once we got back to the train station, we checked our departing time and gate, then sat down to wait. Well, actually, I spent the last euro coin we had to use the facilities. Very clean. For $1.37 they had better have been.  Then we sat down to wait. After awhile, our train came just as the rest of our group got to the station. I sat across from a girl in our group who is from California. We had a nice chat, though I'm not sure most of what I said made sense as I was exhausted and it was after midnight.

Once we got back to the hotel, we packed our bags and went to sleep. We woke up the next morning, ate another American breakfast and headed to the airport (after negotiating with a pre-arranged driver who tried to charge us more than we could pay or were told we would have to pay). If it wasn't for a girl from Oklahoma, we would have had to go back to the ATM. Traveling in Italy is very expensive.

Anyway, we got to the very nice Venetian airport (way nicer than Rome, btw) and waited for our plane. Customs was fairly easy. We decided to check all of our luggage except Matt's backpack and my purse. Matt tried to sneak a waterbottle on board and got in trouble. I'm kidding. It was an accident, but he did get in trouble.  Our flight was at 11 a.m. We got in Philly about 5 p.m. and had a nice philly cheesesteak for dinner before our next flight around seven. Then we flew to the ATL where we rushed to our flight (after making a brief stop for starbucks) and made it to BR about 9. That doesn't sound like a long day, but it was the longest day of our lives - about 30 hours.

Drew picked us up from the airport and since it was Cinco de Mayo, we celebrated with chips and queso while I did Drew's dishes and then promptly fell asleep. In a queen-sized bed in a room with air conditioning. And our puppy. She missed us horribly.

That reminds me.  Next post is going to be a video of her welcoming us back home.