Italy - Day 1

It’s 6am local time here in Padova, but I can’t sleep anymore. I turned in at 12 after checking my mails, and then woke up at 2, once again now. Seems like I am making full use of the EUR17 we paid for the internet connection for 24 hours.

4th Jun’07
It was my first long haul flight. Lucky I am small enough to curl myself in my aisle seat and sleep. It’s quite tiring to sit 12 hours straight, isn’t it? The Belgium born but lived in Australia all her life lady who sat beside me was impressed “I couldn’t see you when you covered yourself with the blanket”. :-p The American guy who sat by the window said “oh yes, and I admire she can make herself so compact. I am jealous…” haha.. coz his legs are long, he couldn’t move. :-p

5th Jun’07
We transit in Frankfurt for Venice then we took the Air Service our customer helped to book to Hotel AC Padova. There, we met up with YM, our Chinese colleague who reached Padova the night before.

We had a simple, but very Italian lunch. It was the biggest slice of pizza I have ever had, and yes, you got it, I didn’t finish it. Partly because it’s big, partly because boss ate very fast! Oh, then I remembered boss asked me to wear covered toes shoes instead of my exposed toes sandals.

*****************************************

Let’s deviate a bit, to talk about sandals.
This is the pair of Charles and Keith sandals I bought when I shopped with AT – Cost me S$24

This is the pair of URS sandals I bought, I thought to bring to Italy but when I tried the next day after I bought, I knew I can’t bring it along, coz it’s damn painful – Cost me S$45

Boss chose this pair for me – Cost me €27 (God, and it’s painful! Boss keep asking, “ok or not” I smiled bitterly “no choice”. Coz we couldn’t find my size for those nicer and cheaper shoes...

You tell me which pair nicer?

*****************************************

Ok back to my trip.

Next, boss brought us to Venice. We took a cab to the railway station, and then took a 40 minutes train ride to Venice. Pictures say a thousand words.. here goes…

Train station - calling for Venice City :-)

The public transport (just like bus at bus stop)

They have many aprons with sexy pics. I didn't take one that was disgusting, they printed penis on the apron and boxers!

Lots and lots of mask in Venice

We walked for 2 hours, and reached the destination my boss kept saying “a-must-go place”, the St. Marco Square. Wow, it’s really breathtaking. I admit my photo taking skills not good, so, it may not have the same impact on you. :-p

Anyway, I agree that Venice is a romantic place, the people enjoy their life very much. But I went with the wrong people, boss laughed when I told him this.

The first night, we had dinner with the Purchasing Director and he was very particular about food and wine. I am sorry, we had very good food, but because I have to hide my excitement due to professionalism, I didn’t take out the camera. Hahaha….

Traditional Italian meals start with appetizer --> pasta --> meat --> vege --> cake/ice cream --> coffee. And those were big portions ok. The pasta itself is a big portion as those spaghetti we have in Sg.

We had lots of white wine à followed by lemon ice cream with vodka à sweet wine à “grapa” (which was a grape wine, with 50% alcohol content). By the time they serve the lemon ice cream, my boss who was not feeling very well already surrender, but out of courtesy, he still sip all the way to “grapa”. Hahaha… you must be wondering if I got drunk. For the first time, NO, I didn’t. Boss said I really can drink. If my shifu and YJ hear this, they’ll laugh. I am the worst drinker among all… now, I know I am slightly better than boss. :-p

Dinner took us 3 hours plus, and got back to hotel exhausted.