Sydney was the first city we visited in this fourth continent I ever set my foot, Australia. I had been wanting to come to Australia since way back when I was still working for IBM in Indonesia but my training or assignment was always to Asia and once to Canada (that made me wanting to move to). Because of the meagre pension I got from IBM (don't tell my ex-boss, he already knew) I chosed the last day of the low-fare season which fell on June 14th. That was the main reason why I flew to Sydney on my birthday :-). The combined airfare from TO to Jakarta return and Jakarta to Australia-New Zealand return was cheaper than if I bought 'around the world' fare. Besides that, we would have to come back through the U.S.A. As I said earlier, coming back through the U.S. is always my last choice. The U.S. custom officers are terrible, especially if they know we come from Indonesia. All in all, we spent about Cdn $ 6000 for our air tickets. Yes, three new canoes but what the heck.

Prior to our departure to Sydney, we already knew that both Australia and New Zealand have strict custom regulations. I didn't know therefore that going through the 'green line', non-declare exit route, almost cost me my Australian dollar allowances. We didn't bring prohibited items like meats and dairy products so with full confidence I checked 'no no no' in the custom declaration. Lo and behold, all our packs and luggage were x-rayed. The officer asked us to open them all and found two items that deserved questions. "What is this?" "Oh, that is a spice for cooking sir," I replied. They were 'bumbu masak' that made Indonesian dishes par excellent :-). "This is still food but it's OK," said the officer. I took my breath again. "What is this?" "Those are candies," was my sheepish answer. "It's chocolate but it's OK too." For the second time, I was able to breath and after that, I knew how to spell relief when the officer let us go without digging any further. We later learned from the Indonesians we met in both countries, DECLARE something that would make the officer happy and your 'martabak' plus all your other delicacies would be blessed to go to your friends or relatives' tummy.

We were very happy when we exited the door to see familiar faces, Winarta and Giokkie who we last met in Toronto about 20 years ago. Believing and enjoying our canoe camping stories, they ignored the fact that we almost didn't sleep at all in the airplane. It was fully loaded, thanks to the last day of the cheapest fare and there are 3 hours time difference between Jakarta and Sydney so that we arrived at 4 AM our body clock time. We went sight-seeing through-out the city, taking all kind of public transportation, from train to boat to monorail. My life long dream to see Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House came true. The ports are beautiful, more than Toronto and Vancouver, forget Halifax :-).

Sydney is about the same size as TO, around 4 million people live in an area that I believe is not much different from TO. The public transportation is quite OK though a bit expensive. A fare called 'day tripper', unlimited travel around Sydney for a day cost Aust.$ 13. Our Canadian dollar worths about 10% more than Australian. Sydney was 'discovered' by James Cook when he landed at Botany Bay in 1770. So it is about the same age as Toronto, much younger than my birthplace Jakarta which was built in 1527. Blame my Indonesian history teacher if the year is wrong :-).

The Winartas took us to Sydney Tower, slightly smaller than our Toronto CN Tower, still the tallest free standing structure in the world I believe. In there, we took Skytour, an animated 3D surround-sound virtual journey around Australia. Not bad mate :-). Yes, the continent is splendidly amazing and as beautiful as Canada :-). The floras and faunas are quite different than the rest of the world, and so are the people. My friend Dave at IBM said, "If you travel around the world (Dave is a world traveller) and find your fellow travellers, the American and Canadian would probably spend a week holiday in the place you visit. The European about a month and the Australian a year." I think Dave is right :-). Everybody I met ridiculed me for staying only 3 nights in each cities. I was glad that I could make an excuse that my wife wants to be at the World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto at the end of July :-).

In the evening, after dinner the Winartas took us to a beach, too bad it was not a lover's lane type but we were not after that though. After 27 years of marriage we look more to the stars above than to each other. :-) Yes, it had been a while I have not seen the Southern Cross constellation. It was beautiful, no wonder the Aussies put it in their national flag. I printed the sky-map of Melbourne prior to leaving Indonesia for Australia. We planned to go to a cottage at Phillip Island near Melbourne to watch the penguins and the stars but that will be in a different story. To be fair to both our friends in Sydney, on the second night we moved to stay at the Basukis. The sight- seeing and our Australian journey will continue in the next episode. Till then, bye for now.

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Hello my dear friends and families who couldn't wait to read our next part of yours truly 'around the world trip'. Australia and New Zealand's part is actually the third one after we left Canada on May 5, 2002 and spent more than 2 weeks traveling in Europe. We went to Singapore and Jakarta thereafter and stayed for another 3 weeks before we left for Sydney, Australia on June 14. I wrote my experiences while in Indonesia in my mother language, Bahasa Betawi, mixed with Indonesian and the language of the future generation called 'Bahasa Prokem' so that most of you won't understand anyway. As I still love Canada and my friends there, here is the third part of my journey with Cecilia my wife, written in English with no trace of Australian and New Zealand's accent.

I chose a unique title again as I did in my 'Europe Through The Side Door' for this story because I had been to several special 'gates' traveling to and in both countries. Who amongst you had ever had a stranger coming over prior to a trip you were going to make and gave you NZ $ 200 with no strings attached? Yes, a fan of my writings who had been following me since I moved to Canada, dropped by my Mom's house and gave me that money. To top that, Cecilia and I got a special gift of Aus. $ 1000 for sharing our experiences in life. "What about the gate?," you asked. How many of you had ever gone through immigration booth without needing to stop at that gate? That happened to us on our way from Jakarta to Sydney through the Indonesian immigration counter. Our travel agent just waved at the officer and he let us went through without even asking who we were we and what our names were. Perhaps going through this special gate could only happen in Indonesia, I wonder. In addition (remember this is post September 11, 2001) we didn't even have to show our faces to the Qantas airline check-in people. The travel agent checked us in and just handed the boarding pass. Yes, there are many special gates in Indonesia. No wonder a few of my friends and relatives said this country is a "paradise" for doing business and I am sure you know what I mean.

There were other special gates that we went through while we traveled. First in Sydney. We didn't have to learn about any public transportation there because one of our friends picked us at the airport and the other one dropped us when we left Sydney for Auckland. We stayed for 1 night at the Winartas, my friend from IBM Indonesia who I haven't met for 20 years and 2 nights at the Basukis, our friends from Paroki-Sby. Throughout this third part of our journey, we had excellent demonstration of Indonesian hospitality. Imagine this. Our host and hostess in Auckland, AB and JB, an Internet friend from my Psychology mailing list let us use their daughters' room so that A the hubby had to sleep on the floor on an air mattress. BTW, A is a native New Zealander who had become 'Indonesian', thanks to J's brainwashing :-). Yes, only Indonesians would suffer for their guests and the immigration officer would wave at friendly tourists like us :-). Only among Indonesians would you find two-bedroom apartment that can accommodate 7 people and that how we stayed in Melbourne. You won't be surprised then if I tell you, I have a friend from Indonesia who had lived in Toronto for 25 years and is an executive with a prominent company. They don't have beds in their home which is a very big house, worth close to a million dollar. They all sleep on a mattress on the floor just like what we did in Melbourne.

As it happened numerous times in Europe, we felt grateful for all the gifts we had received in our Australia and New Zealand's trip. Thanks again to your prayers or your special blessings. The weather in Australian cities we visited were excellent. Even the local people couldn't believe our luck :-). Yes, on the other hand we were showered through-out our stay in New Zealand. The sun never said hi to us, not even for a second. Then we understood why it was like that. It was meant to be so that we had the time to gather with some Indonesian immigrants in Auckland. They are having a hard time and therefore I recommended them to read my sharing 'Pengalaman Imigran Toronto' that I wrote many years ago. It was a story of Cecilia's and my life as immigrant in Canada, the best part and the not-so-good aspect. A few said, if they could they would prefer Canada but it was the most difficult. New Zealand was the easiest for them to get permanent resident visa compared to Canada and Australia. Forget the U.S.A., none of those Aucklanders would like to get their shoes x-rayed when boarding the plane :-).

I haven't told you yet. When I was in Bandung, we went to the best (meaning most delicious) restaurant for 'martabak', an Indonesian delicacy. They sell both the cake type (martabak kue) and the egg and meat type (martabak daging). The name is Martabak Canada and if you are a local people, it is at Jl. Kebon Kawung. I asked the owner (I was assuming because he seemed to be the boss) why did he name it Canada. I thought he was once a Canadian landed immigrant that was not able to stand cold weather because these days, Bandung has hot weather, thanks to the pollution. He said, "In order to be well-known," (biar terkenal). I said, "Why don't you use Martabak U.S.A.?" "I don't want to be bombed," was the answered (saya tidak mau digranat). Well, that's one of the reasons why some of my friends in Australia and New Zealand prefer to live in Canada than in the USA, if they had a choice.

Till the next episode where I will tell you our experiences in the 3 cities and their vicinities that we visited. It may not be as interesting as our experiences with 'Marylin' (that some of you liked that episode very much :-)) but I have different excitement to share. Till then, bye for now. Read More......

There is a time to start and a time to end. This story has to be finished and for those of you who were reading it during the company hour, you've got to get back to work :-). Those who took a break from their study, you better get back to your thesis work :-). Well my friends, I told you earlier that we loved Milan. Actually, after we had the time to digest all our experiences in the 5 European cities we visited this time, we loved them all. Each city was unique and brought good memories, including the 'free tour' to Murano :-). It was compounded by our 'luck' that we met C and H in Zurich who offered us to stay at their apartment on our last night in Europe after we arrived back from Salzburg. Imagine if we had to go to Camping Seebuch and endured the hassle of just one night camping. I might not be able to smile back to all the Singapore Airlines stewardesses on our Zurich-Singapore flight :-).
Our train from Salzburg, after passing many beautiful and scenic places around the border of Austria and Switzerland, arrived around noon on May 21. Knowing Zurich well then, we stored our backpacks at the train station and we took advantage of our Eurailpass. Its holder was entitled to a free Lake Zurich tour. However, because of the time, we took the shorter (one hour) version of the tour. It turned out that we were on the public boat (not an exclusive tour boat) that stopped at many places. Eventually getting bored as that lake was nothing special, we got out at a place called Kirchberg. The idea was to visit Lindt chocolate factory near there. Bad luck this time because the tour was only in the morning. Lonely Planet misguided us again when it said that visitors would get ample sample of free Lindt chocolate. It was a lie, cause we were offered only ONE small piece of Lindt chocolate. It was even smaller in size and less in quantity than those we gave to our neighbours' kids at Halloween time :-). No wonder Switzerland is a rich country :-).
I was kidding of course because C who was so generous with her time and everything else for us, picked us up at the station after we returned from our do-it-yourself tour. We had dinner together and continued chatting till the evening with her and her husband. I enjoyed talking to H because he has a hobby to visit hot countries like Indonesia and Kenya (safari). When I asked what is his favourite place in Indonesia, he said Bangka (island). I was alarmed and of course demanded a justification :-). He had been there several times and he said, the beaches were perfect. I didn't want to argue with my host, of course. But later on, without H knowing I verified his statement with my Bangka island relative who swore without the bible that H was right :-). Since my wife doesn't like hot places too much, I doubt that I will ever visit Bangka island. C showed us an exemplary generosity of an Indonesian, not only by driving us to the airport, but walked together to the departure gate on our last day in Europe, May 22. She could do so because she worked for Garuda Indonesia (airline) office in Zurich and thus has special privileges.
I have many friends and some of you guys do not believe in God which is fine with me. After all, in my birth country called Indonesia, it seems that the more people believe in God, the more determined they are to kill one another. So, whatever you believe in, the canoe "god", the cycling "deity", they all must have worked together with the God that I believe in making our European trip such a wonderful experience. Whether you gave us your blessings and prayed for us or you just said farewell, I thank you again for your prayers and your best wishes. It is Cecilia's belief and I had to agree with her if I still want to win in Scrabble :-) that it was more than just luck, we had Divine Providence. To our "sponsors" of this trip, our family and friends, danke schoen noch einmal, grazie mille, terima kasih berat. Please pray again for our next Australia and New Zealand trips, to start on June the 14th. :-) Greetings from Jakarta, bye for now.
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Friday May 17 was a perfect day. I woke up quite early, 5:30 AM and by 7 AM, after a filling breakfast of super-bihun (Indonesian rice noodle) we went to the train station. We were a bit fortunate that the train to Salzburg started from West Bahnhof and stopped at Huetteldorf, the station where our bus from the campground ended. Thus, we were able to catch an early train and by 11 AM already arrived at the Salzburg train station. We knew where to go, Camping Kasern but we did not know which bus (number) to take. After asking a couple bus drivers, we were told to take bus number 33 first and changed to 15 later on. The number 33 driver was quite helpful. When he stopped at the two routes intersection, he told us where we had to wait. Danke schoen, thanks in German went a long way, compounded by the fact that we were carrying two big packs plus one more day pack pour moi. It made people really wanting to help :-).

The camping fee in Salzburg was cheaper than in Vienna, in fact very cheap, only 12 Euros per night. The campground was not as nice as Wien West but quite OK. Actually, it was quite scenic because it was at the outskirt of the city and has an ice-cap mountain as a background. Salzburg was pretty hot on that day and the day after so that we had to put sun-screen lotion. Knowing that this was another place we could stay long, we bought the 72 hours Salzburg card that entitled us to go to major tourist attractions plus free public transportation.
On the Saturday, we cooked our last 'Indomie goreng' (Indonesian instant fried noodle) for breakfast. It was our saviour in helping us to manage the cost. Imagine if we had to eat breakfast in the restaurant every morning. For 10 Euros you might still be hungry. We couldn't wait to go to downtown and checked famous places like Mozart Wohnhaus (residence), Festung or an old castle-fortress, Marionetten or puppet on a string, and some others. I calculated at the end of the day, had we had to pay individually, all those visits would have cost us 26 Euros. So in just one day, we almost broke even the cost of the Salzburg 3 days card, 32 Euros. Actually if I added the transportation cost, we already won :-).
Just when we were finished preparing supper, our friends from Stuttgart, Germany, J and L came over. We already made a plan since Cecilia and I were in Toronto, to travel near Salzburg on the Sunday with them. They stayed at a nice 3-star hotel but quite far from Salzburg, in a small town called Puch. They already had dinner so we ate by ourselves and offered our nice soup to J who likes to eat :-). Yes, she is the chef of her own restaurant in Stuttgart, a small Indonesian cafe. We chatted with them over beer by the reception office, a distance from our tent. When it got dark, also since they already travelled for about 5 hours from Stuttgart on that day, J and L left and we returned to our tent.
I haven't told you yet that since morning, a young couple from Germany (easy to see from their car) pitched their tent next to us. The girl was quite voluptuous, you know what I mean. Her hair was blonde and I named her 'Marylin Monroe' :-). Well my dear friends, you know that Cecilia and I like to go camping. We have been to numerous campground in Ontario, some of them like Algonquin, Grundy Lake and Bon Echo Provincial Park, about 10 times each. But never in our lifetime, did we ever hear sounds like what was coming from 'Marylin' and her partner when we approached our tent, next to them. It was undescribable, even an X-rated movie didn't come near :-). That's why I said the camping fee of 12 Euros was very cheap. Now we know why in all the campgrounds we had stayed while we were in Europe, almost everybody had a camping van.
In terms of weather, Sunday May 19 was not the best. It was cloudy and from time to time we got rain shower. It didn't matter though cause we were travelling in a car with J and L to a resort area near Salzburg. I had to say that the views were quite fantastic around the three lakes we went, Wolfgang See, Attersee and Mond See. To top that, as we have a German chef with us, the food choices at lunch and dinner time were excellent. They surpassed continental meals at our last cruise trip :-). We were lucky that the two restaurants we went had excellent chefs. The cost was very reasonable too, 60 and 50 Euros including drinks and tips for the lunch and dinner respectively. Yes, that's the difference between small town and big European cities.
Monday was still a holiday in Austria, Pentecost. As we skipped the Mass on Sunday, we were determined to go to a church, Fransiskanen Kirche where the day earlier I saw would have Mass with Mozart music at 9 AM. We left early from the campground as I knew we would be lost finding it :-). There are so many churches near the area called the Dom (cathedral) in Salzburg. Saying "Wo ist die Fransiskanen Kirche?," where is the church, to a stranger caused us to meet our 'guardian angel'. He said in perfect English to follow him because he knew it was not easy to give direction. When we chatted with him on the way to the church, it turned out that he was married in that same church 37 years ago. No wonder.
We continued our self-tour around Salzburg after the Mass by going to Mozart's Geburthaus (birthplace), Residenz (the palace) and a few others. If you have ever seen 'The Sound of Music', all the shooting for that movie was done in or near Salzburg. Through a tourist promotion booklet for the movie fans, we knew where else was each scene shot or taken and we checked a few. By the time we finished our tour and went back to our campsite, "Marylin" and her partner had already left, so Cecilia and I killed our evening by playing Scrabble :-). In the next episode, I will end this mini-series after we had to return to Zurich again and left for Asia. Till then, bye for now.


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If you love history, Vienna is one the cities in Europe you wouldn't want to miss because it is so rich in history. You name any profession, any specific subject, Vienna has a museum for that. When I was working at the Lab, we developed the PL/I compiler for the S/38, predecessor of AS/400, now called i-Series. We had two assignees from Vienna because the IBM Lab there already developed the PL/I compiler for another system, the 8100. One of them was a bachelor and the other had kids. That was the first time I knew that Vienna's native is crazy about classical music. He was in my team and his very first question was where he could buy or rent a good piano for his kids. Perhaps in the deal with IBM Toronto Lab, cost of musical lesson and quality piano rental for the kids was included because he didn't care much about cost. Now I understand it much better why he was so 'crazy' about music. They are all like that :-). You would also understand if you know that waltz was invented in Vienna.
I am not that keen in learning or knowing about history but one interesting observation was about churches in Swiss and Austria, neighbouring countries. Cecilia and I checked a couple famous churches in Zurich and they looked bare because they had become Protestant churches. Yes, Zwingli was a native of Zurich. You go to churches in Vienna and they would still look 'catholic' :-). If you are Christians I am sure you know what I mean. You go to a Catholic Mass and if the homily or preaching is boring, there are so many other things that you could enjoy :-). The stained glasses, the sculptures and the statues, the painted ceilings, the hundreds of 'dust catchers', oops ornaments. Now you know why Catholics like to go to Mass :-).
May 15, Wednesday, was our second day in Vienna. After taking the free shower, feeling so happy, I prepared breakfast. We brought the instant-coffee, Nestle's three-in-one, from Toronto and this also lasted till we were in Salzburg. I cooked fried rice a la Vienna, left-over rice from dinner the day before with egg and sausages. BTW, Austrian sausages are delicious. Cecilia joined me or woke up as soon as breakfast was ready :-). Don't tell me she is smart. With the Indonesian style or rice breakfast, our energy for the day was enough to do the city tour ourselves, hopping from trains and buses to trams, vice-versa. At around lunch time, having spotted a Chinese restaurant near our campground, we decided we would treat ourselves with oriental dishes a la Vienna before our siesta. The cost of that buffet luncheon was not that bad. Including beer and tips, it cost only 18 Euros for both of us. "The food?," you asked. It was heavenly, compared to my 'Indomie goreng' or instant fried noodle we brought from Toronto.
We had a small surprise when we came back in the evening after a whole day sight-seeing. There was another small tent at one side of the campground. When we arrived and I was ready to prepare for supper, an oriental looking lad approached us. He introduced himself as 'Tony' and asked whether there was kitchen facility. I said I didn't know, it didn't seem so because the guy at the reception office didn't tell us about it. I told him that if he needed to warm-up food or did small cooking he could use my stove. He told me he was going to cook pasta. I said, I was going to prepare dinner and will share some with him. So we chatted while Cecilia and I cooked. He was a student at U. of Victoria in B.C. and was touring Europe. When he told us his itinerary, we thought he was a millionaire or a relative of Korean President Kim Dae Yung. He planned to travel Europe for 70 days! He explained to us however, that he was using the cheapest fare one can tour Europe, a student bus package fare to some number of countries, I believe less than 200 Euros. He had just finished his under-graduate study at U. Vic. and will be returning to Seoul, Korea. If we admired his guts, looking at how young we were and knowing that I just retired, he also became our fans. Knowing we had two children, this Korean boy dared asking if any of them is a girl :-). Indeed, I and him exchanged a few jokes with me making fun of his politicians. I forgot to tell you that as soon as he learned we are Canadians, he moved his tent next to us, only a feet or two apart :-).
We woke up quite early the next day because we wanted to secure the free bike that visitor to Vienna could get. They were scattered in some number of places inside the inner (old) city. After making some effort, we were fortunate to get two bikes in perfect condition, one had a pink colour and the other blue. They perfectly matched our cycling outfits. I didn't know how many people in Vienna that saw us on that day bought Nokia cell-phones. Yes, at the back of the bike, covering the whole rear-wheel on both sides, was a big advertisement of Nokia. After about an hour cycling and checking whether it was worth it to visit Sigmund Freud's museum (pricey :-)), we took a break in Sigmund Freud's Park near Votivkirche. Lo and behold, we saw Tony approaching us from a distance. He probably didn't believe that we do not have any daughter :-). He was amazed seeing us, either he couldn't believe that we were being employed by Nokia or he didn't understand how we could get matching bikes and outfits. :-) Till the next episode where I will share with you the experience of a lifetime when we camped in Salzburg.
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When we first arrived at the Venice train station, the local people call it Ferovio, I inquired as to how much was the reservation cost for the night train. After taking two trips and seeing how empty were the 1st class wagons, we decided to take a chance by not taking the sleeping wagon and thus saved 50 Euros. I had once taken the sleeping couchette on the train from Lourdes (Tarbes) to Paris in France. It was crammy and unless you sleep, it is not comfortable. If our compartment could be 'monopolized', Cecilia and I would be able to sleep even better than in a sleeping couchette.
The train for Vienna started quite on time at 20:46 and I took the time to check the two wagons earlier. They had about 30% occupancy rate, pretty safe :-). We forgot that even though it was weekday, we were not the only ones from Italy who wanted to go to Vienna. At every station thereafter, whenever people boarded and entered our wagon, we held our breath :-). We didn't want to arrive in Vienna without having slept at all because it would be in the morning. After several stations and about an hour passed by, we knew that our gamble paid off. We had one bench each in the compartment to snore as we pleased :-).
There were two nuisances despite the comfy 'bed' we had on that night. The Austrian passport officer who dared to wake us up :-) and the train conductor later-on checking again our train tickets. I woke up quite early, as soon as the light from the sun started to creep in. When I glanced outside the window, I had to hold my breath again because it was very scenic. I think it was around Echberg, still in the Alps region as our train was still 1.5 hours from Vienna. The train arrived precisely at 6:27 in Wien's Suedbahnhof (Vienna South-station). We spent about an hour sipping coffee at the station while studying the Vienna's public transportation and how could we go to our campground, Wien West. After the self-study crash-course, we purchased two 72 hours ticket for a total of 21.20 Euros, about US $ 3.50 per day. From the map that we got, we figured out that we needed 2 transfers to reach our campground. First, we had to take what they call the S-Bahn, their rapid transit train from Suedbahnhof to a station called Karlsplatz. Then we had to take their U-Bahn or their subway system to a station at the west end called Huetteldorf. Finally, a bus number 148 or 152 should be there waiting to take us another 3 km to the campground. We became very familiar with all the U-Bahn (there are four lines) as well as the train and tram during our stay in Vienna. In my opinion, it is much more efficient than our poor Toronto Transit Comm. :-). Toronto tourist wouldn't be able with just Cdn $ 5 to do a city tour for 24 hours. The trains and buses frequency also beats ours.
When we arrived at Wien West campground, finally, we were very pleased with everything. Surely it is not a scenic campsite, what do you expect of a campsite inside a city. However, it was very clean, we could take shower for 24 hours if we wanted to :-). The all-you-can-shower camping fee was 13 Euros per night cheap. On top of that, we learned later that we could also use the kitchen facility. We took advantage to wash our clothes here because the dryer was also free and we still knew how to wash clothes by hands. (There was a special sink that had grooves just like Indonesian washing board). As usual, we took an early "siesta" for 1 hour after we cooked our breakfast and thus made our stomach happy.
Not wanting to waste time in this great city of Europe, having mastered the public transportation system, we went downtown. We chosed first to stroll along the famous street in Vienna, Kaerntner Strasze. Like Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, Kaerntner is also an exclusive street, meaning expensive items sold there. Not too far walking, we came across an information booth that also sold opera tickets. We were told that the cheapest seat for Romeo and Juliette was 120 Euros. We had lots of excuses, we wouldn't be able to understand the German translation anyway and we didn't bring our suits, only cycling short and jersey :-). As dusk fell, we went back to the city after our real siesta at the campground. Even though Wien West is quite a distance from the city centre, because of the efficient public transportation we were not tired going back and forth several times per day. Having been serenaded a few times by the Blue Danube song in San Marco piazza in Venice, we wanted to see that famous river. Upon seeing for the very first time, one of its tributaries near the U-Bahn station Schwedenplatz, we were quite disappointed because the water was very brown and not blue at all :-). The same brown water was there to see when we checked the main river for the second time on the next day. Well, I then realized, had Cecilia and I seen the river after we married for 27 hours and not 27 years, I was sure the river would have looked blue :-). Take care my friends, till the next episode where we will share the excitement of biking around Vienna. Auf wiederschreiben.
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We managed to walk for about an hour from the train station to our hotel near San Marco piazza without too much of a problem because we carried day packs only. If you have been to Venice, you would likely agree with me that it was not easy to find ways. I had to rely on my compass and the city map from the tourist office at the train station where only main streets had names. Whenever I was not certain, I asked old lady for direction. If the alley way in my birthplace Jakarta is small, some of the streets for pedestrian in Venice are even smaller. That city was built by joining 117 little islands and only through walking would you be able to experience its uniqueness.
After walking for quite some time and hearing complaints from my partner :-) because I walked too fast, we were happy to find our hotel, Noemi. We secured a room there with the help of Father Kusmaryanto after he called the camping place we intended to stay. It was far from Venice, about 1.5 hour by boat and then taxi. The last word scared us :-). So Father Kus called a couple or so hotel and found that Noemi only charged 73 Euro. We were speechless and couldn't argue with the guy at the reception desk when he told us the rate was 87 Euro. He shook his head when we mentioned that our friend reserved the room with the lower rate. Not to spoil our trip nor tarnished the image of Canadian :-) we asked if we could stay for 2 nights since we only reserved it for 1 night. No vacancy. When we started to go out and found a 3-star hotel next door, Best Western, we came in. "Do you have a vacant double room for tomorrow night?," I asked the guy. "Yes." "How much is the rate?" "Two hundred fifty Euros." I felt much better after saying thank you very much, staying at Hotel Noemi :-).
We strolled along San Marco piazza and did some window shopping, admiring the beautiful work of art in Venetian glasses. The romanticness of Venice started in that piazza where we could listen to couple bands playing romantic music. It was so powerful that we could see two guys kissing and caressing one another when we took our 'boat tour' in what is called vaporetto, public boat. That was how we did our main sightseeing, using the boat to check the island city of Venice. As happened in Milan, the mayor of Venice must know that we were celebrating our anniversary. In the evening, we had another free choral performances in 'Festa di Primavera 2002', that was held not too far from San Marco. It was the grand final of a singing competition of the best Italian singers in Venice and nearby.
Let's skip the rest of the night story after we returned from the show and the planet Jupiter in the Gemini constellation above us told your Gemini boy to not forget that Venice means romance :-). Let's fast forward to the morning of May 13 in Venice. After a do-it-yourself breakfast in the hotel, we were on our way to catch the vaporetto to Murano island. It is the island where the famous Venetian glasses are manufactured or rather are designed and created. A nice looking gentleman approached us and introduced himself as a representative from Murano tourist office. What a coincidence, I said to myself, this guy knew where we were heading. He told us that only twice a week, the Murano promotion office offered free personal trip to visitor interested in seeing how Venetian glasses are made. We jumped at the opportunity and he escorted us to a motorboat (that could accomodate 10 passengers or so). We hopped into the motorboat and off we went to Murano island. As the boat was quite small compared to a vaporetto (that could accomodate 100 passengers) he took a short-cut going inside the city or the small canals because Murano island was on the other side. Again, I wished I could paddle a canoe through those canals :-). Only after the boat docked in one of the Venetian glass companies entrance did we realize we had been had :-). To cut the story short, it was not too bad though. We had a private demo on how one made the various glasses. We checked the store wares and just exclaimed 'beautiful' from time to time to appreciate our host generosity :-). Yes, the cheapest item was in the hundred of Euros, the beauties would wipe our budget :-). We were glad when the company guy showed us the door to the street. Didn't I tell you earlier, Italian are friendly people?
After visiting that pricey company store, prices of a few items at ordinary stores in the island looked so cheap that my wife went for a shopping spree thereafter. Perhaps that guy at San Marco piazza was genuinely from Murano tourist office :-). Since we were not able to stay for another night in Venice, we got ourselves ready in the afternoon for the night train to Vienna. We intentionally didn't reserve a sleeping couchette in the train and took a calculated risk. We will share with you what happened on that night train in the next episode. Take care, bye for now.
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