Euro-trip Part 1

Ah, Venice. It's even better than in the movies. I'm only postulating here, because I haven't seen any movies set in Venice. And if there aren't any movies set in Venice there should be, because it looks like this:

Oh yeah, and this too:

Never mind that our one-star hotel only had one shower. Never mind that I've literally subsisted solely on pizza for the past five days (and here I'm using "literally" in the literal sense of the word). Venice was wonderful. A decaying Disneyland.*
Venice glittered in the sunlight, beckoning to the jaded traveller who's seen too much plain old brick and stone. Venice put on airs of mystery beneath the moonlight. Then it glittered some more.
I spent the first three days of Fall break eating gelato underneath the blazing sun beating down on the 170 canals that make up the lagooned-locked island of Venezia. At one point while walking through Piazza San Marco, one of the mini-orchestras employed by a piazza-straddling café began to play a familiar show tune, and I just closed my eyes, savoring the moment -- and smacked right into my friend's back while she stopped to take a picture. Oops.
Pardon all my waxing poetic, but no amount of clichés can capture the beauty of the floating city. But perhaps Longfellow put it best in his poem that went a little like:
Something something "Swan of cities"
something something "illuminated spires"
And then something about "illusions."
So what I'm trying to say is that when the pigeons stole my bread crust right from my pizza box it was a-okay, because my bread crust was stolen while in Venice.

*I'd love to claim credit for this nifty turn of phrase, but I think I stole it from Rick Steves.