These old relics are barely visible from Front St. which challenged me for a closer look. The tracks are behind chain link fencing and not intended for public access but I probed and found a homeless (hobo?) dirt path between snarling thorny berry vines.There were two locomotives that belong to the museum down track in Old Town Sacramento. They would be candidates for cosmetic restoration and static display some day. They are retired now but I did find an 8mm film clip from a train buff showing this very engine, in action, circa 1956: Pacing 5021

We drove Route 321 up to Blowing Rock, NC only to be turned back; road closed for blasting. This turned out for the best because the Blue Ridge Parkway was shrouded in cloud – fog and with forward visibility less than 100 meters would have been difficult. Instead Highway 268 east detoured to alternate Route 421. The Garmin offered a sucker’s shortcut which became an adventure on NC-1167, a one lane crushed gravel road. It was scenic solitude following a small creek with fast spring run off. We paced carefully so as not to experience chance encounter with mountain man in pickup truck appearing suddenly from one of many blind switchbacks. There wasn’t a turnout or graceful way to reverse course so we pressed onward counting the NO Trespass placards. In the middle of this backcountry twlightzone, an Adopt-a-Highway sign (!) was planted.

I am the first to wake up bright and early in the morning and head into the bathroom. The shower is not quite as bad as I thought it might be, except for the fact that it is about my height and I am forced to squat a little to wash my hair. Shaving the legs in here is definitely out of the question. The hotel shower thus reveals the secrets behind two European stereotypes ? why the women don?t shave, and why on one wears shorts. After I have successfully created a bathroom that even Noah would be proud of – yes, even the toilet paper is wet – I head out to dress and dry my hair. This is when I discover that the hair dryer I have brought does not work in this room (nor will it work in any of the other rooms, that cheap peace of?), but luckily Allie?s hairdryer works and I am saved!

Us girls head down for breakfast, where the hotel staff has laid out an assortment of goodies for us. I choose to eat some of the sweet bread (which reminds me of eating a marble cake for breakfast), some granola (which is actually more like oats), and a nice glass of water. And as always, there is a basket of stale bread waiting for us at our table.

From breakfast, Salvatore drives the entire tour group over to the boat dock, where we wait a few minutes before getting on one of the water shuttles to Venice. I am kind of fond of the mini harbor and I especially enjoy watching everyone shouting back and forth to each other in Italian and laughing. (Note to self: ?Hey! MOSSIMO!? is a very catchy phrase).

My first view of Venice is spectacular. We enter by way of the Grand Canal, and it is just as beautiful as it is in the movies. There are gorgeous old hotels lining the main streets, and I love how all of the windows have flower boxes in them. Several pictures later, we walk down to San Marco?s square, where the restaurants are setting up all of their tables on the cobblestone and the pigeons (and I?m not just talkin? birds) are coming in for breakfast. Directly across from the square is a gorgeous Cathedral, and I am amazed at how ornate every little detail of the architecture is.

Our first stop is at a glass blowing shop, where a relatively disinterested Italian man gives us a demonstration. The funny part is that we spend far more time in their glass shop showroom/store, than factory. Coincidence? I think not. Tourist trap? I think so.

From the glass shop in the alley right off San Marco?s square we walk to meet our Venetian tour guide in front of the Palace of the Doge. Her name is Patti, and considering the weather, she is dressed to the nines in a nice khaki outfit. Her accent begins to grate my nerves, as she says every English word as though there each one ended with an A. (i.e. paint becomes painta, room becomes rooma, and ceiling becomes ceilinga). The palace is quite beautiful, but I become disinterested quickly because like most of the Italians we will encounter, Patti becomes long-winded when talking about history. As we roam in and out of rooms, we see beautiful renaissance style paintings, pass through a staircase covered with gold, and we even get to walk through Il Ponte di Sospiri, or the bridge of sighs, where prisoners used to be taken before they were executed. For some comic relief, maybe I was the only one who found it funny, one of the girls from Tennessee asks our tour guide why all of the women in the paintings have one boob popping out of their dresses. The tour guide becomes all flustered and bumbling avoids the question like a bad politician. Finally, to everyone?s relief, the tour comes to an end and we are free like birds.

After the tour we have about an hour and a half to go find a bite to eat. Our group of six walks down one of the side streets and stumbles across a restaurant called Trattoria al Leoncini. At the tables outside the restaurant, the curly, brown-haired waiter looks up at us and tries to convince us to eat there. ?We have excellent tables in the back!?

No one really knows what to say so I smile and call back, motioning with my hands, ?We?ll be back!?

?Keep smiling!? He shouts back at me, ?We will save you a seat! Keep smiling!?

So we walk down the street a little bit to see if there is anything else around, but everything is kind of expensive, and the other restaurant seemed reasonable enough, not to mention I think we were all intrigued by the crazy waiter outside. So when we walk back he looks up, excited that we have come back to eat.

?Sei (six),? I tell him.

The waiter gets excited that I have spoken Italian to him and he repeats the word to me questioningly and excited. He grabs my hand, smiling, and leads me into the restaurant. I am a little taken aback by this but everyone else finds it quite amusing. Finally we get halfway through the restaurant and he gives my hand to the blond waiter named Lorenzo (I know his name is Lorenzo because the Italians like to shout their names to each other every time they see one another?i.e. LORENZO!). So Lorenzo takes my hand and proceeds to hug me, which is quite awkward, but even more awkward because the hug is lasting a little longer than it should and I?m not really sure where our friend Lorenzo?s hands are. According to Natalie, several girls from the Tennessee group are in the restaurant and giving me the evil eye, which makes me feel infinitely better.

Eventually we are sat at a table, complete with a basket of good old hard bread, and given menus. I order the tagliatelle al Genovese, which is really good pasta with a greenish pesto sauce. The crazy waiter notices that we have no spoons (I think this is a well-rehearsed trick) and leans over me to give everyone their silverwear. Awesome? Everyone at lunch is unusually happy, most likely due to the fact that we have had more than 5 hours of sleep within a twenty-four hour period. To add to our pleasure, Mrs. Stoenner receives word that Hannah?s luggage has arrived at our hotel back in Lido di Jesolo, and she remains in a good mood for the rest of the day. On our way out of the restaurant, the chef behind the counter tells me to wait and yells for Lorenzo again, who is serving another table. I wave goodbye and make for the front of the restaurant as quickly as possible before Lorenzo tries anything funny again. In the front of the restaurant the curly haired waiter takes my hand and says ?Ciao.?

From this point the six of us go with some of the other groups to the Gondola station, where we have already paid to rent a gondola for a half hour. This little adventure sets every person back twenty euros, or roughly twenty-six American dollars. While in line for the gondolas, one of the men at the ticket/radio station says something in Italian, looks at me, and then shouts ?Hey! Are you going to be my girl tonight?? which I find highly amusing, although no one else seems to hear this, nor pay any attention to it. Heck, he was pretty cute; I could have been his girl for the night. (Insert devilish laugh here). I later tell Brittany about this comment and she decides the appropriate response (?no, I will not be your girl tonight?) sounds like a plausible pop song.

The Gondola ride is the highlight of the Venice trip. The gondolas themselves are stunning. They are shiny black with gold decorations and plush red cushioned seats. The gondoliers all wear the black and white striped shirts with the black pants, although they did not sing as I had expected. Rather, they shout back and forth to one another in Italian, and all I can pick up from this nonsense are the occasional words about ?caf‚? and ?tiramisu.? My brain starts to churn and I realize that either these guys are going through serious caffeine withdrawals or they have some kind of secret code going on. The group decides on the latter when I make this observation out loud and our gondolier is suspiciously silent for the next few moments.

I can see everything from the boat, and Venice is gorgeous. It would have been a shame to come to this city and not have gone in the gondolas, because we see so much that we never would have seen from the main streets. The water is deceiving because it looks very pretty and clear, but apparently there are all kind of diseases and infestations living in it. The buildings are even more extraordinary. For being hundreds of years old, they are all bright and vibrant, and even have the flower boxes I am so found of hanging from the windows. We paddle out into the Grand Canal where we can see the Ponte Rialto, possibly the only two words our gondolier utters to us the entire trip. I don?t like him; he is shady and wants way too much caf‚.

After we are all dropped back off onto solid ground, we decide to do some shopping around the streets. The areas of the city near the Grand Canal are all pavement type streets, but once we start to walk to far back, it becomes apparent that we should probably have a boat. Keeping this in mind, we head off to the Rialto district, where Mansel has informed us that the best shopping is located. Within the course of the next few hours, I have purchased a pretty ashtray (which I think would make a nice jewelry dish) made from Venetian glass for mom, postcards and stamps, and a beautiful oil painting from a man showing his work near the top of the Ponte Rialto.

On our way back to meet up with the rest of the group, we decide to feed the pigeons in San Marco?s square. Brittany buys some birdseed from vender, and in the moments that follow, I am able to take some really great pictures of all of my friends being attacked by birds! To our left, a group of gay American men are doing the same thing. In the funniest comment of the day, one of them turns to another and shouts as flamboyantly as possible, ?Christopher! You look just like Tippy Hedron!? The uber-conservative Mrs. Stoenner then supplies the second funniest comment of the day: ?What a waste.? Apparently she finds them attractive.

By this time our stomachs are grumbling and we decide to sit down at one of the tables in San Marco?s square. This is until we realize there is a cover charge of 4.40 euros simply to sit when there is music playing. We quickly get up before the waiter has time to come back and take our order and head over to a tiny restaurant called the American Snack Shop, where we each order Italian gelato, which literally means ?frozen.? (What is should mean is God?s ice cream). Everyone gets two scoops, which combined are probably equivalent to an American sized scoop, and I choose the caf‚ flavor, and some flavor that sounded like straticialleta, which was vanilla with chocolate chips.

By the time we are done with our ice cream, it is time to take the boat back to the main land and have dinner at the Hotel International again. The dinner is a repeat of last nights, except tonight?s dessert is what tastes like a Mexican flan, only vanilla, and more jello-like. Before going out, we run back up to the rooms so that Natalie and Hannah can use the bathrooms, and discover that if you flush the Italian toilets more than three times within a five minute span, they get angry and won?t work for the next 50 minutes. The five of us girls then escape out on to the main street to roam around until I convince them that we need to go down to the beach. If I had known Lido di Jesolo was on the beach, I would have started my convincing the night before.

So we walk down towards the beach and Hannah and Natalie stop to play on the swings while Brittany takes pictures. Allie and I continue towards the water when all of a sudden this man comes running up behind me. ?Scusa! Scusa! Sei di Napoli?? or something like that. Looking back I think he was trying to ask me if I was German in Italian, and trying to tell me he was from Napoli, but this is how the conversation played out in my head at the time.

?Parlo un puo l?italiano,? I reply cautiously (I speak a little Italian).

Then something in Italian follows and I just stare at him blankly. ?Are you from Germany?? he manages to blurt out, smiling.

?No no?siamo canadese. Tu sei di Germany??

?Ah canadese? No, no! Io di Napoli. Well, good luck!?

Good luck? ?Buona Fortuna??

?Si, si! Good luck!? With this the nice blond-haired guy, probably in his late twenties, walks down the pier to meet up with the rest of his friends.

Allie mutters a quick ?merci,? and we try our best not to crack up. Good luck? What the heck was that all about? As we run like silly girls into the ocean, some guy calls out ?ciao ragazze (girls)! Come state? (how are you?)? as he walks down with his buddy to meet the rest of those guys on the pier. They were probably smoking up or something.

?Ciao, stiamo bene grazie!? By this time Allie and I realize that we must get out of the water because it is making our feet smell like ass. After Brittany, Hannah, and Natalie have joined us, and we have spent a good half hour talking about nonsense, we all decide to walk back onto the streets and see what is going on. During this stroll we have the pleasure of listening to some of the local Italians singing in the bars to popular American songs. There is a band in one place with cowboy hats doing a pitiful rendition of a country song ? which makes it all the better. Down a couple joints is a guy singing to Grease, but he is singing to ?summer nights? and trying to sing both parts in different tones to differentiate between John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. And if that isn?t good enough, he proceeds to sing Pink Floyd?s ?We don?t need no education.? Hilarious! We walk around for a little more and I find a purse that I like, and have the pleasure of watching some creepy guy squeeze his girlfriend’s butt while I am standing in line to buy the purse. By this time we are all pooped and decide to call it a night because we are getting up bright and early tomorrow to leave for Florence.

By the time we arrive in Copenhagen it is around 9:00 on Tuesday morning, thanks to the miracle of west to east air travel. After stepping off of the flight, we all pass through security, at which I hear one of the airport workers tell a woman is only a necessity for the passengers coming from the United States flights. During this process we are all confused about our film again as the blond-haired, blue-eyed security woman tells us our film won?t be a problem. (So which one is it?) Everyone has a terrible feeling that our pictures are going to develop as giant white blobs. At this point I am grateful I have brought the digital camera.

From the security point we walk through a gate where nice gentlemen stamp our passports. Mrs. Stoenner has been told that the airport in Copenhagen is relatively small so we will have no problem getting from gate to gate. She was misinformed. This thing is one long shopping mall from start to finish. I feel like I am at a mall with airplanes parked outside just for kicks! We start to pick up the pace because the flight is technically supposed to be boarding. However, as we start to discover, nothing associated with Italy or Italians is ever on time! Everyone is sitting in the tiny terminal reading a paper and we come in panting out of breath with rosy cheeks. I feel very foreign and very American. The girls are all talking very loud which is making me slightly embarrassed because as we are not in America anymore, no one is talking as loud as us.

Eventually we board the flight, which is more than half empty, and every one has seats separated from each other. The flight is relatively short in comparison to the last fiasco, and I am sitting on the aisle next to an older man at the window. Halfway through the flight I can look over him and see the Alps, which are absolutely breathtaking with the snowy white peaks and steep slopes.

When we land in Milan, we all head down to the baggage claim, where about 30 Middle Eastern looking kids (maybe they were Albanian) are either sleeping on benches with luggage or walking around the area. I remember what everyone has told me about sneaky little gypsy children and protectively clutch my purse close to me. Everyone?s luggage comes except for Hannah?s, so she and her mother go off to find it. Ten minutes later they have not returned so I go to find them where they inform me that they were standing in the wrong line?that?s Italian bureaucracy for you. While they wait in the line they hope is correct, the rest of us girls decide to go through Customs without them to let the tour director know what is going on. As I brace myself to go through customs, we walk pass German Shepards being held by security guards, who are definitely paying more attention to our behinds than our luggage.

Beyond the German Shepards I see a funny looking man with a clipboard who must be our tour director. So much for customs, I guess that was it. As we explain the situation, our tour guide, Mansel David, who looks like fatter Willy Wonka, takes us over to the group from Illinois. The airport security guards are possibly even more useless then the American TSA officers, as their main job is pretty much to walk around in groups wearing their crazy neon blue and orange jump suits, checking out women.

When we reach the Illinois group, they are composed of about ten high schoolers and ten parents/teachers. They are pretty calm and keep to themselves. Eventually Hannah and Mrs. Stoenner come to meet us and tell us that the airline is going to send Hannah?s luggage directly to the airport. Everyone walks out to the tour bus together where we meet Salvatore, who is to be our Italian bus driver until we arrive in Nice. Mansel then informs us that we must wait for the last group from Tennessee who has missed a connecting flight. So for the next four hours we spend our time wandering around the Milan Malpensa airport, which basically means sitting around looking at the Italians. I also discover that the men and women?s bathrooms face each other, and when one is exiting the women?s bathroom, one has a full view of men standing at the urinal.

Eventually the group from Tennessee arrives and we can begin our journey to Venezia. This group of kids is the most obnoxious group I have ever met. Most of them have just graduated and it is obvious they have come on this trip to do some drinking. The bus ride is expected to be about four and a half hours, but it ends up being much more due to the need for bathroom breaks and the traffic jams. I had the window seat during this time so I could look at all of the scenery, but I spend most of the time looking down into people?s cars. For the most part, people just look up at me and smile and wave.

The scenery along the highway is gorgeous, though much more industrial than I had imagined, and the people drive like madmen. Every five minutes there is a beautiful cathedral or a castle, something that I am definitely not used to seeing in the states. Eventually we arrive in a small tourist town called Lido di Jesolo, where we will be staying because it would be way too expensive to actually stay in Venice. There are people walking all over the place or riding bicycles, and hardly anybody driving a car. We drive for a couple of minutes looking for our hotel until we discover that the main street closes at night so that people can stroll without worrying about being hit by crazy Italians.

Our hotel, the Hotel International, is modest and located right off the main street. There is a neon green glow around the ground floor of the hotel, but it might just be the bright green awnings that are throwing me off. After about five minutes we proceed to our rooms, which means dragging our suitcases up five flights of stairs. I am rooming with Britt and Allie.

My initial reaction to our hotel room is shock. I was expecting modest conditions, but I wasn?t actually expecting to get modest conditions, if that makes any sense whatsoever. The room is about the size of our dining room, and contains three twin beds, a small TV and a bathroom, as well as a view down to the street. The window is my favorite part of the room because the windowpanes open and give way to a sea green colored shutter that can be opened and closed as well. The bathroom itself is an entirely different experience. When we open the door, a sink is straight ahead, a toilet and a badÅ e, which is out of order, to the right, and a showerhead to the left. The shower is literally like turning on a hose without water pressure, and when we take showers the entire bathroom floods! Fortunately, not everything is drenched because there is a ?shower curtain? that looks like it is being held up by a broken umbrella.

After dumping our suitcases and looking longingly at our beds, everyone heads downstairs for dinner. Brittany, Allie, and I choose to sit at a table towards the back of the room. On top of the bright red tablecloth is a basket of stale bread (apparently the Italians love this stuff because it is hard everywhere here), a pitcher of water, and an assortment of oils. The waiters, whom I believe also own the hotel, bring everyone out a pasta dish, which reminds me of my dad?s macaroni and cheese with beef. By this time I am stuffed, but nevertheless we are encouraged to visit the salad bar before the second course comes. What?? I just had dinner! I pass on the salad bar and try to convince myself that I can eat a second course. The second course is a veal dish with beans. I was not convincing enough. I can?t eat it. Desert comes, which is a big bowl of fruit, and we all decide to go walk around the town for a while and see what is going on.

The main street of Lido di Jesolo is very vivacious. All of the tourist trap shops are open, though it seems no one is inside any of them, and everyone is either strolling the streets with their girlfriends or boyfriends, or sitting down to eat a meal. Keep in mind by this time it is about 10:30. The Europeans all eat very late. As we pass one restaurant the waiter says ?Ciao,? but none of us respond and he mutters something annoyingly in Italian of which I can make out nothing except for a lot more ?ciao?s.? We all guess he is saying something like, ?stupid Americans, I hate tourists.? Some of us decide we should get Euros for tomorrows trip to Venice, so we go in search of an ATM machine. Without any luck in that department, we walk into one of the chit shops and I see a woman singing along to a song in Spanish. I ask her if she speaks Spanish and she does! I am able to carry on a conversation with her, which is the highlight of the evening for me mind you, and she basically tells me that there is no ATM or bank near that is open at this time of night. Tired and spent, we all head back to our hotel rooms where we fall asleep to the sounds of really bad karaoke coming from the streets.