May 17 - In transit to Venice - We love Italy, We love Italians

We hate Italy, we hate Italians. It's a long story.
We were sad to leave SML. The farther away we got from it, the better it seemed. when we got to  Milan, SML seemed heavenly. We had two hours, in theory, to scoot down to the Duomo and the fancy shops. By the time we checked our luggage at the station and sat through an interminable traffic jam on the way in the taxi, we had about one hour. The first stop was the loo which was on the fourth floor of this arcade. that took 15 minutes so we are now down to 45. A "quick" bite took another 15 so we had about 30 left. We zoomed around the Emmanuel II arcade but made sure Carol squashed the bull's balls in the centre. I think that gave her some kind of strange satisfaction.
Back to the station and the train. We got to our seats and found a man sitting in mine. He wanted to stay and was suggesting in a very smarmy way that we could sit elsewhere. Well, we were so hot and tired that Carol exploded and said "get out of our seat now!!!!" He dragged his heels so Carol added
"You're taking your bloody time!! Get out!!"
By this time he could see he wasn't going to win so he moved to his real seat which was next to Carol so for the rest of the trip they were playing elbow war, each claiming the arm rest between them whenever they could. He was a real piece of work. Actually the first nasty Italian we had run across on our trip so far.
Ahhh, then there was our arrival in Venice. We were supposed to call the office here to let them know we had arrived (late). No one answered. We got our vaporetto tickets and were told to go 100 metres to the left to catch our boat. There they told us to go 100 metres back to where we came from to catch our boat. Then we were told to go back to the first wharf which was 100 metres to the left. Just imagine us pulling 100 lbs of suitcases back and forth all this time. Ridiculous. So Carol exploded again and we eventually got to the right wharf and made it to our agreed meeting point. Thank God she was still there waiting.
Our apartment seems ok. We will explore it in more detail tomorrow. We had a nice meal right next door which calmed us down, Carol so much that we barely got home before she crashed. The restaurant crew were great, very nice and helpful. We love Italy, we love Italians. Ciao.