Leaving for Italy

Hooray, finally vacation -  two whole weeks!

The week before we left everyone was getting sick. Audun was sick last week, then Irene and Tor Idar got sick just before the weekend. Monday, the day before we were due to leave, I could feel it coming on: the sore throat, and feverish feeling. I hit it hard: ferrum phosporicum comp every hour, pyrit D2 every 2 hours if my throat still felt sore. The thought of spending my time in Venice sick in a hotel room bed was not inviting. And I managed to beat it. The travel day I was still taking medicines but feeling no worse and actually got better and better. I am usually blessed with an excellent immune system, so the 4 week bad cold of earlier this summer had me worried. Course back then I was exhausted from my nurse anesthesia course and anemic from the 3 week "period from hell". Anyway, I was glad to have gotten my customary state of unshakable health back (smugg).

We got off to an early start on Tuesday, leaving Stange in the dead of night (at 2am). The dogs seemed to understand that they weren't coming. One of the cockatiels thought it might be daytime - after all the light was on (last minute packing, drinking coffee) and he peeked out from under the cloth that covers the cage. Probably went back to sleep though when we turned the light off...

Drove to Rygge Airport (about as far on the other side of Oslo as Gardermoen is on this side). It was a fast drive: the new 4 lane E6 is a pleasure to drive on. Speed limits of 100 km/hr. No traffic this time of night. It's our first time flying from this airport. It seems deserted. A few people lying on benches have obviously spent the night. Ingvild is taking the car home. She, Irene and Audun will be holding down the fort in our absence.

After a 2 hour flight with Ryanair we arrived at the Treviso airport. Ryanair is OK. There are no seat assignments and the seats don't recline, but otherwise totally okay. Oh, and they keep announcing stuff on the loudspeakers, making it difficult to sleep. Tor Idar slept anyway, while I started reading «He's not that into you» which Irene had lent me to read on the trip.

This time we arrived in Venice by bus. The station, Piazzale Roma is across the canal from the train station. We soon found the vaporetto (water bus) dock and I bought tickets at the automat. To our disappointment and confusion the vaporetto took off in the opposite direction from the Canal Grande. It went throught the larger open canal that circles the actual city of Venice, eventually crossing straight over to our station, near Piazza San Marco. As on our last visit there were crowds of tourists everywhere. We dragged our suitcases over 2 bridges, and down a couple of narrow alleys, through a small square and onto a larger cobbled street. A doorway between a couple of shops was the entrance to our hotel. At the top of 54 steps we got to the reception. Our room is small, but cozy and clean, the window looking down on the tile roof of a smaller building in the courtyard. The main drawback is that we have to share the combined toilet and shower with 3 other rooms, and you have to go through the reception in your pyjamas or whatever to get there. Also it turned out that there are mosquitoes. Tiny ones that whine in your ear all night. We could see them after going to bed, 7 or 8 of them sitting on the ceiling high above our heads, way out of reach. Then when we turned the lights out the music would start.