Happy Birthday to Me!

26, September

Sheila pops out of bed in the morning and rushes into the bathroom to decorate the mirror with a birthday message. Pam and Sheila then enjoy a leisurely morning getting ready - unaware the rest of the group has surprises planned for breakfast. Finally, Debi hurries them along and Pam arrives to find the breakfast table decorated with a t-shirt emblazoned "Birthday Girl", cards, blue candies, and an apple with a sparkler stuck in it. Jim eyes the apple as the sparkler looks suspiciously like HIS sparkler from Nemi!



We enjoy our breakfast, finish packing our suitcases, and bid Giacomo good-bye, and head out to the train station. The rain has held off, we're out of the hotel on time, and we retrace our steps to the train station, where our smooth journey hits a bump - our train is in "retardo". Since we have reserved seats for the connecting train in Parma, this is a problem. Jim finds another train heading to Parma which is leaving soon, so we rush to the track and get really good seats on a really nice train, so all turns out well after all. Our train to Venice arrives on time and other than having a hard time finding room for our luggage, the ride goes well and we arrive to nice weather in Venice. We decide to walk to the hotel as we're not sure about all of the luggage on the vaporetto. We walk and walk and walk, winding through Venice, over bridges, and through crowds. An hour later we arrive at our hotel and are so glad to check in and have someone else haul our luggage up the very steep stairs to our rooms. Our rooms are beautiful and Sheila and Pam even have a small balcony. Cell phone reception is great and Pam's phone is buzzing with birthday texts from family and friends! Bill and Jan settle in to rest up from the hike and the rest of us head out to look for a restaurant that Bill/Jan/Pam remember from last time. We finally find it, just to discover that Debi and Jim ate there on their previous visits but they always entered from the front and ate inside and Bill/Jan/Pam always entered from the back and ate outside! We make reservations for dinner and head back to find the Hard Rock - Venice store that we'd seen earlier. Later that evening we take a vaporetto ride along the Grand Canal and finish the evening off with a birthday Skype session with Al and the kids.