Monday, 2 March 2009

Venetian Binds

So, it's been a while...
The last couple of months have been a bit of a mixed bag for me (along with most people). But I'm not going to write about that because that doesn't interest you (and all is well in the land of Lucas anyway - for now).

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to score a free trip to Venice through work, we had specified some air conditioning units manufactured just outside of Padova on the mainland, and that we had to witness one of them be tested in the factory - score!
My client and I just managed to get on our Wednesday afternoon plane by sprinting through Gatwick airport and sweet talking the lady at the BA counter 10 minutes after the check in closed. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

All day Thursday we dutifully tested our air conditioners, which thankfully passed and will get no further column space.

On Friday I got a really good feel for the inside of an Italian taxi. As we tried in vain to get to Venice airport, a group of Italian petrochemical workers unhappy with their lot took to the roads in demonstration. From what I am led to believe it was all about the quality of the wine in the staff cafe, if I had known that I would have been out there marching with them! My colleagues ending up missing their plane and I got a free round trip to Verona (airport) when they made alternative arrangements.

Late Friday afternoon I eventually made it to Venice, found my hostel, which I then found to be dominated by American exchange students, which was actually quite a pleasant change from the back of a taxi. The hostel itself was very cool, it is basically a couple of floors of a big old building, apparently it used to be museum.
One thing I learnt about building a city on some marshes in a lagoon is that when the tide comes in everything floods, twice a day, especially when it has been raining. Not that it really bothered me, I just decided to go out, get my feet wet and get on with it! It made for some good photos too.

The hostel was right on a canal and was quite badly affected - the view out the front window

what appears to be a well waxed floor...

The water does recede though


Piazza San Marco was still flooded by the time i found it. Randomly, I also found Jason & Lynda in San Marco (truth be told they found me) A bit of a blast from the past!





Most of my Saturday was consumed just wandering around, finding interesting spots, getting lost, unintentionally finding the same interesting spots (whose interesting factors were beginning to wane) and kicking around.




I spent Sunday doing some sightseeing with Jase & Lynda and Lynda's bro & his partner.We found the unbeaten trails of Venice, and a couple of glasses of rather nice wine! Oh yeah, it turns out, Jason is still ginger, and Lynda still mocks him about it, poor fella!



To cap off the transportation woes for the weekend, my flight was delayed 4 hours on Sunday evening, i got home at 3am.Whoop whoop!

but at least I got to see this sunset on the way to the airport!

1 comment:

Andrew Roxburgh said...

Ha ha, I get it, you wrote Venitian binds and that sounds like Venitian blinds, and that's the thing on my window! Ha.

Looks like good times RaeRae. See you next month! whoop.