What a day full of adventure!  Just start walking down any narrow alley, follow it around its twists and turns and before you know it, you’ve found another quiet canal and some magical moments.  We learned the basics of the city today and did a lot of walking around and exploring.  No real place to go, just pick an alley/street and see where it takes us. We participated in a wine class this afternoon and evening.  Very fun and informative.  I vowed I was going to keep a VERY OPEN mind this trip on the food I would consider eating.  Oh my gosh, I think I’m stretched out of shape.  When the waiter brought me my dinner and discovered my plate had creatures with eyeballs staring back at me I seriously thought I should reconsider my vow.  With a deep breath and encouragement from the others, I steeled myself and plunged into the food.  Plucking something off of each scalloped shell I quickly chewed and swallowed those unique creatures of the sea.  Next up were the owners of eyeballs staring back at me……soon those were down.  With Doug scooping potatoes on my plate, he encouraged me to eat the next item up, an entire squid in one fell swoop.  Sorry there Bud, but no can do…My heart was racing, my breathing shallow.  Okay, he reasoned, just cut the head off and eat that first.  And so, I did!  A couple of scoops of potatoes and we’re good to go.  Despite Doug’s encouragement, I doubted that I could stuff a 3×2 inch body of a squid into my mouth with any realistic expectation it’s going to stay down.  So…..Let me cut it in half………….except, with the insides of the squid now pushing out onto my plate, I had the first report from the back of my throat that this was probably not a good idea.  Get back I willed my stomach contents….just stay where you are.  I’m ready for this.  I lanced half of the squid body with my fork but before I could raise it to my mouth….I reassessed my situation.  My eyes are watering.  I’m stuck against the wall with the chef smiling at me from over the counter.  There is no escape if push comes to shove, and therefore am I really willing to spoil the dinners of countless Italian patrons should the spasms in my throat and stomach intensify?  Gee Dale, that would be really selfish of you, wouldn’t it?  You should consider the welfare of others and stop this nonsense of eating nasty looking squid bodies.  When I settled it in my head that I was not going to eat any more of the squid, the spasms started dissipating.  Yay, I knew I was on the right track.  The white fish remaining on my plate was very tasty and my only job from that point on was to NOT think about the partially disemboweled squid still lying on my plate.

We soon left the restaurant and walked out to the Grand Canal.  Catching a big water bus or vaporetto, we rode it down to San Marcos.  Strolling through the area of this massive building at 10:30 at night was quite remarkable.  Trying to catch a vaporetto back north to where our hotel was we noticed that all of the ones going our way were packed full of people.  We let one go by and after 15 minutes decided we would take the next one full or not.  It had more people on it than the last one, with standing room only.  Plowing our way on board, we were soon enveloped in the throng.  But wait we had about 8 or 9 more stops.  3 people would get off and 12 more would get on at each one.  To make a long story shorter, we finally made it to our stop without too much bruising and we were able to get off.  Very tired now.  It is almost 2:00 am.  Bye for now.