Venice doesn't smell!

hey
i have 8 minutes and 41 seconds to do this post. vite!!

Lisa and I are in Venice today. we got here 2 days ago, on tuesday, after 2 nights in milan. the train ride from nice to milan was so ghetto. we were in this non-ac box with 4 other people, one of whom gave lisa consistent stink-eye, and it was so hot and 5 hours long. we finally got to milan and although the train station itself is beautiful, the surrounding area could have been scarborough. weird, after all of these beautiful european cities. our hotel was very nice and the people in it were great, pointing us in the right direction.
unfortunately, our lone day in milan was on a monday in august, so almost everything was closed, and you need to wear pants and cover your shoulders to see churches, and you need to book tickets to see leonardo's the last supper. oops, oops and oops.
instead off all that stuff, we walked around, went to mcdonalds, ate gelato and went shopping! yay!
at night we went to a delicious indian restaurant, and left the next morning for a 2.5 hour train to venice that was a lot nicer than our last train.

getting to venice is so cool. there is a causeway that connects the main island to the mainland and its skinny and long and there are boats going to and fro all around. we walked out of the train station and right ahead of us was the grand canal! we got on the vaporetto (vaporizer, according to lisa (and me now)) and got off at the stop closest to where we thought our hotel was. our hotel was not in the spot where mother google said it would be so we were kind of in trouble, because venice is a maze if nothing else, with lots of dead ends that are unbridged water. we looked around for a long time, asked people where our street was (theyd never heard of it) and finally zeroed in on it. we had to go through a tunnel into a little courtyard and our hotel was there. anyways, once we found the place it is pretty great (except the internet is perma-down, i am at an internet cafe). we spent the first day wandering aroudn the streets, which seems like by far the best thing to do in venice! its so cool! and it doesn't smell at all! and its not even that hot!
yesterday we went to piazza san marco in the morning and saw the spectacular Byzantine church there, and in the afternoon we went to a modern art gallery and then the rialto markets (awesome - the market anyways). we went out for a nice many-course italian dinner too!
today we went to the old art gallery and this afternoon we are going to ride the vaporizers and get off wherever we feel like it! woo!

40 seconds left, gotta go!

simon