Suitcase Stories of the Shea's: Travels to Italy with Kayla & David: Leg 1, Venice

Italy Adventure Leg 1: Venice

On May 4th we left London with Kayla and David for our Italy adventure. First stop was Venice! Once we landed in Italy we left the airport by water bus to take us out to the canal city on water. We could immediately see how beautiful, unique and different from other places Venice is. Here are our first few pics...

Having been to Venice on the high school Europe trip Brian and I remembered Venice being smelly and a bit dirty. So going back 12 years later were interested to see how we felt about it this time. We both agreed that this time it didn't smell (could be the time of year, water level, etc.) and we really enjoyed it.

Once we got dropped off from the water bus we walked through the narrow streets and over a few canal bridges to find our hotel.

After finding lunch we set out to explore... and find our first gelato cones! (Between the 4 of us over our 6 days in Italy we consumed over 20 cones, they were so delicious!)

St. Mark's Square...

The beautiful waterfront...

As we were walking along we saw a tour group of people standing around and Brian said, "Hey there is some people with MN Twins hats!" Then I was started reading one guys jacket and saw what I thought was a St. Cloud Technical College logo. At the same time David said, "Hey that's Mr. Larson!" He was the one wearing the jacket I had been looking at which was actually a St. Cloud Band jacket! Then we realized Mrs. Larson was there too! So we went up and said their names, when they turned around they couldn't believe it! What are the chances you could run into two teachers from your tiny little hometown of Annandale on the other side of the world?! It was so crazy, we got one quick picture and talked for about 5 mins before their tour guide felt bad breaking up the reunion. Turns out they were actually just about to leave Venice for their hotel and head back to the States the next morning.

After that crazy encounter and seeing lots of people drinking bright orange drinks we decided it was time to find a place to relax and try one out for ourselves. We learned they are called Aperol Spritz made with Aperol (orange liqueur) and prosecco and an olive. Turns out none of us were big fans of them... they looked like Dayquil and tasted like it too! The aftertaste was the worst, bitter almost like a grapefruit. We all got them down but decided we wouldn't need to order any more of these... We were still talking about how crazy it was to see the Larsons!

That night we enjoyed our first fresh Italian pasta meal, so yummy!

After dinner we found a place to have a couple more drinks.

Or should I say boots for the guys! Notice who's is smaller?

Later on Ted Schnack even found the Snack Bar!

Once we got back to our hotel room something unexpected and now that it is after the fact it's actually pretty hilarious... As kids when we were growing up at the cabin we came up with the term, "crawly check" before getting into bed. This was when we would peel the bedspread all the way back before getting in just to make sure there weren't any spiders or bugs that had gotten in during the weeks/weekends we hadn't been there. I'm not sure why we really started doing this since I don't remember finding anything in the beds. However, I will admit to this day I still do this at hotels and the thought of bugs in the bed is something that I always try not to think about but always is in my mind for some reason. Let me also set the stage for the room we were staying in... it had one twin bed, then one double bed in the middle then another twin bed all in a row. Interesting set up for sure and I wasn't all that excited about the 70's style looking bedspreads on the beds. I much prefer the white duvet covers that are washed regularly (at least one can hope!) It was only going to be one night so I tried to tell myself things would be just fine.

We decided that Brian and I would sleep in the double bed in the center and Kayla and David would each take a twin. When I went to do the "crawly check" is when things got REAL interesting!!! As I pulled the covers back and lifted the pillow not actually expecting to see anything but checking just in case a LARGE BLACK BEETLE went RUNNING out from under the pillow!!! David was sitting right there on the other bed and saw as my eyes bugged out of my head and I started screaming hysterically! I threw the sheets back over the bug and started yelling for him to get it out! As he pulled back the covers again sure enough it went RUNNING again this time all the way to the bottom of the bed. Eventually Brian came to the rescue and killed it! However that solved NOTHING for me! There was NO way I was sleeping in that bed! As I was in hysterics (and yes maybe shedding a couple tears) Brian was worried that since it was so late, about 12:30AM we were too loud so he was trying to calm us down. I didn't care...I wanted to march down to the front desk and try to figure something out but eventually Brian convinced me that there were not going to be any other rooms since everything seemed to be so booked up when we were making the reservations. Plus with somewhat of a language barrier we were not going to get very far at that time of night. I was threatening to sleep in the chair and was certain I wouldn't be getting a wink of sleep that night!

David eventually went into "exterminator mode" and began conducting very through searches of the beds! As Kayla was freaking out too she happened to recognize that this could be quite hilarious later on decided to capture some pics and videos of this going on... (not going to share the videos but they are priceless!)

After David was done and seeing that everything did seem surprisingly clean, I still wasn't convinced. Luckily the only thing that got me to believe I might get a wink that night was the fact that Kayla gave me one of the sleeping pills she had along for the plane ride over. The funniest part of the whole situation was that the guys ended up sleeping together in the double bed in the center where the bug had been and Kayla and I each slept in the twins! David said the next morning, "when we first walked in and saw the room setup , that was probably the last possible sleeping arrangement I would have thought was going to happen!" Thank god it was only one night... Now it's just a priceless memory we will never forget! Moral of the story still stands... ALWAYS do a "crawly check!"

The next morning Kayla and David took a romantic gondola cruise through the canals. (Brian and I decided to save some money and skip it since we had done it before on the high school trip)

Soon mid afternoon it was time to head to the train station to head off to Florence. To get to the train station we took a private water taxi and had a few last amazing views of the Venetian canals!