Passing Slovenia in the plane. We wanted to visit Lake Bled and Lake Bohinj in Slovenia, but figured it was already getting too cold there. Looks like snow all the way down to the lake. Maybe next time.

Hurray, we're in Venice. Notice the yellow signs. Very helpful.

A Japanese tour group. Not that they are causing problems or anything, but the Japanese tour groups are by far the most conspicuous. They stay closely together in a pack, as if straying behind would result in being eaten by a tiger. They take even more photos than I do, and aren't half as sneaky. I count five of them in the process of taking a picture in this shot.

The luggage boats for the previous small group of Japanese tourists. In honor of the Japanese tour groups, the following photos will have two versions: my normal style, and Japanese tourist style.

Produce market on a boat.

The main canal through Venice.

Another shot of the main canal through Venice.

Famous Venician paper at the first store to carry these products.

A gondola ride to a fancy restaurant. With a cup of coffee in this part of town costing $8, would you like to guess how much it costs to ride in one? We were afraid to ask, too.

Janet here. To those of you that know my story about the fake Loius Vitton bag purchase/drug deal in Chinatown, New York, you will appreciate this shot. The knockoffs are everywhere. Greece, Poland, Italy. This is a shot of a fake limited edition from last spring. My friend has the original and it cost a million ga-jillion dollars, even though she bought it used on e-bay. The knockofff costs $80, imagine the original pricetag! Here in Venice, the streets are lined with fake Louis Vitton bags, unlike New York, where you have to wait by a locked store front for the cell phone hawks to signal the 14 year old to open the gate with the Louis stash. I guess Louis Vitton has not put pressure on the mayor of Venice, as he did Guliani.

The next series of shots is from St. Mark's Square in Venice. The honest truth is, we were more fascinated by the fact that people would let a pigeon sit on their head than the 1000 year old church. Culture overload. We hear Thailand has monkeys. We're so there.

One of the islands of Venice has one of the premere glass-blowing shops in the world. These are glass balloons and other cool things from there. Don't forget your platinum card, the set of balloons is $20,000.

Janet in heaven.

One thing I can say about Italians: they dress nicely. This is a beggar trying to take in visitors to a church. He's in the process of crossing himself, which he does to every person who passes by. He's dressed fairly nicely, in a clean suit.

From Janet:
Today in Spoletto, Italy all three of us (Daniel, Felicia and myself) saw an aquaduct from 1200's. For Daniel, Christmas came early. He jumped up and down, ran and skipped, dashed up each staircase he came across on the sides of the bridge. He had always wanted to see an aquaduct, since he was little. Today he got a chance to walk across it, stop in the center and spit over the edge, throw rocks over the edge, excitedly explain how important the aquaduct was to the people of the time. The experience ended with an encounter with two lovely older Italian local ladies, dressed in dark colors and sporting kercheifs, and their spunky mini-dog. Spunky Mini-Dog was trying to no avail to lunge at Daniel, even though Daniel was not in biting distance. Spunky Mini-Dog was so determined to chomp someone, that he furious barked and chased his own tail. Atleast he could feel accomplished. All of us were laughing, including the lovely local ladies. We drove to Aquasparta for a great meal. Somehow we downed two pizza pies, two cooked vegetable platters, and a mixed fish platter. It is so great to be with Felicia again. I have had the greatest time.