The Mediterranean Cruise - Day 1 April 27, 2018

Day one begins in multiple cities with multiple problems. From Phoenix, George (Dell) and Karen Sennentz head out for New York. Unfortunately, a weather situation in the New York area causes a delay in their flight. It is doubtful whether or not they will make their connection and arrive in Venice at the scheduled time on Saturday.

From Florida, Antonia (Toni) Super’s flight to Newark is also delayed due to weather. We learned that she did make her connection, so we expect to see her in Venice as scheduled.

Rick and Becky Utz and Jan and Larry Rupert from Tennessee were leaving from Atlanta to New York, and experienced no delays beyond a malfunctioning airline head that miraculously started working at 16,000 feet altitude!

The Omaha Contingent, Howie and Lee Needelman, Don and Ann Hosford, and Mark and Deb Covert, all arrived at Eppley in time and made their connection into Chicago, headed on to Munich.

On the Omaha to Chicago leg, Don and Ann engaged in a muted battle of gin rummy, no visible scoring was noted. Lee and Howie read and Deb worked crossword puzzles and Sudoku. The Omaha World Herald was read (for the small amount of news and there were no known obituaries - the most studied section after the comics for those of a certain age.)

The Chicago to Munich leg featured wine at no charge, dinners that were universally poor and a plethora of movies on the small screen. The only hitch in the flight was some light-headedness and nausea on Lee’s part - assume it was the food and not the company.

Poor napping and a less than stellar breakfast service culminated this leg of our adventure.

A two hour layover and then onto Venice, arriving at 1:00. We caught our transfer via a water taxi and arrived at the hotel around 2:30. The Palazzo Veneziano is a beautiful modernized hotel on the Fondamenta Zaterre Ponte Lungo, a market street running along the Canale Della Giudecca waterway. We repaired to our rooms for a short recuperation (nap) for some and then met out front at 4:30 to walk and explore. The entire group, sans Dell and Karen who had not yet arrived, and Toni who was an early arrival and had walked herself out, walked to the Ponte de Academia bridge and then back. We stopped at a water side restaurant for pizza, calzones, ravioli, clams with pasta, lasagne and seafood with pasta. All accompanied by local draft beer and wine.

After dinner, some stopped for a gelato and then a short walk, returning to our hotel for an early retirement by 8:30. Still no sign of our two missing troopers, but we expect they will make an appearance tomorrow (Sunday.)