I will not let Venice take me down!

This was my entire bathroom in the Hotel Nationale in Venice. My closet at my current hotel is bigger than this.

I should have known things were going too smoothly! 

We arrived on our lovely Mercedes bus yesterday around 7 pm at the Mestre bus station outside of Venice.  We had to unload the belongings of 48 people on a crowded sidewalk while the bus was parked in the street.  Then we had to first, get across the street, then second, get all 48 of us and our belongings onto a train that is a good 4 feet off the ground.  Yeah, it sucked.  

The train arrived in Venice and we all managed to get to the hotel intact with all of our stuff- no small miracle I assure you.  I could write for about 30 minutes about the hotel alone, but I will simply say that we were greeted with about 40 steep stairs and a very unfriendly Venecian hotel clerk.  It has only gone downhill from there with the hotel, but I refuse to waste my precious internet time on it!

We ran to our welcome dinner and got settled, then up early today to head to Padova to see some chapels and a lovely little town.  It was a nice change to the craziness of Venice- which is currently occupied by mostly Americans I believe... 

I am taking a break before our concert tonight and before our next 3 days of running about.  Venice is so beautiful and I am very glad to be here-I will write more as the days progress... wish us luck at this hotel!!!