For all of you who have been so excited that we are bringing you along on this trip of ours, prepare yourselves. I am about to bring you along on the night train. *evil grin*

Imagine, if you will, a train compartment somewhere between the size of a queen and king bed (an apt measurement, as you will soon see) . Now imagine that you are in one of the six seats in this compartment. Remember that the night is a very hot one. Look across the compartment at your spouse sitting in the seat opposite you. Wait a while, looking wistfully at the air conditioning unit that is silent. Then imagine you hear over the intercom, "...the train is now 20 minutes delayed. We appologize for any inconvense."

After we had sat in the train for about forty minutes with three other English-speaking young adults, the train finally pulled away from the station and a meager amount of air conditioning leaked from the vent. Not long later, Bryan and I converted our seats into a cot of sorts (they slide down to meet in the middle). The trick is, the "bed" was not much wider than Bryan's shoulders. But we slept, head next to each others' feet on and off the rest of the night. And so did the three other people in our compartment.

When we finally pulled into Venice, we could see our cruise ship sitting in port . As we pointed it out to each other, our cabin-mates were very envious. They had not arranged lodging for themselves for tonight. They planned for another night train. Poor things! What were they thinking?

Anyway, so we tried to lock up our backpacks at the station, but the luggage service was more than we wanted to spend, so we wore our packs around Venice this morning. We have had a lovely time, despite not having had a chance to shower yet this morning.

We walked the cobbled alleyways, with walls so tall that you are often in the shade. We found a gondola and went for a ride. That has been on my bucket list for some time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Then we walked to St. Mark's Square and ate a little snack. Then we picked up a gelato. Now we are enjoying a Sprite and the WiFi at another McDonald's, and soon we will be walking over to board our cruise. I can't wait to be cruising! What fun! :)

Ya know, the night train really wasn't that bad . Awkward yes, uncomfortable, yes. But not so bad we wouldn't do it again. What it did was save us both time and money. For a fairly cheap ticket, we were able to cover a long distance. It would have been a full day by train to get there, and we would have had another night of lodging to pay for. So, it worked out well and met our needs. We actually both did get some sleep, which was a plus. What I would not do is 2 night trains in a row! Knowing the cruise was on the other end made it so much easier for Mer and I to just enjoy the experience.

This was my second time in Venice and keeping with the theme I enjoyed it much more this time around. Much of the island is a shopping mall for the tourists and I had been a bit let down last time. This time, Mer's excitement wore off on me and we had a lot of fun exploring the island, despite being pretty tired.