We’ve been in our current office for almost a year now. I want to take you through the evolution of our office(s). Clear-Media has been based in El Segundo since 2007. We were previously at 135 Main Street. Right next to a bar. In the afternoons we could watch the beer truck deliver kegs,…
LAX to CDG to VCE
We left at 3:30p on 4/7/10 on a 10.5 hour Air France flight to Paris (CDG). Pretty uneventful, other than at check in we were told we could only take 1 carry-on bag. We were somehow under the impression that we were allowed the 1 bag / 1 personal item US domestic policy. So our minimalist packing was somewhat in vane. Having never flown across the Atlantic, I was fascinated at how the flight attendants quickly served us dinner at no more than 4:30pm. We sat next to a young mom (around our age) with her 5 and 3 year old daughter and son. While the mother spoke completely in French, it was interesting to hear the children intermix every other sentence between French and English. I later caught a glimpse of their passports and noticed they were Americans. It amazed me the intermixing of languages but without a seeming awareness of the flip-flopping.
I handled the lengthy flight (my longest single time airborne to date) pretty well. Whoever designed the economy seats clearly never tried out the design for a 10.5 duration, as no human’s spine bends in a elderly hunched pose naturally. We both watched “It’s Complicated”. After, I got addicted to playing Plants vs Zombies for the duration of the flight. We were served breakfast at 7 or 8a Paris time (1a pst). They slowly brought the plane to life as if we had spent the night. While I wasn’t exceptionally hungry, I ate, not knowing when we’d stop next. However the vegetarian meals we both ordered were indistinguishable items, despite being served first.
Exiting the plane, I was immediately drawn to the transparent glass jetways. Also, the Charles de Galle airport is quite a modern architectural feat. Very interesting to look at as I set foot for the first time in Paris.
We walked through customs, even though we were still traveling internationally. We had a second security check-in for the Italian flight.
The 2 hour flight to Venice was amazingly quick thanks to a heavy nap. We picked up our bags, didn’t have to go through any additional customs and purchased a Ali Laguna (water taxi) ticket to Venice for 13 euros each.
After 45-50 mins in the boat, we approached Venice. Although we were surrounded by many Europeans in the water taxi, it was interesting the everyone treated the approach with an equal amount of enthusiasm and wonder at the view of the island city.
We reached our Rialto stop and much to our surprise, found our hotel. A cute little place that smells like old people. Not as tiny as Lindsey expected.
The room was amazingly quiet thanks to a decorative wall padding from floors to ceiling. The “double bed” was 2 singles pushed together, but disguised with double sheets. In the bathroom, complete with Dolomite porcelain fixtures, and the shower sat on a minor platform, making you feel as if you were on stage.
We dropped our stuff and headed to explore. What you quickly learn about Venice is having no expectations or destination often leads you in serendipitous ways. It’s this strange mix of main roads and back alleys where one minute your in a crowd of people sharing the 10 ft street to an empty open courtyard with no one in it but you. All very unique and beautiful. Rick Steve i believe says the city has the charm of romantic decay. And that becomes true as we spent time walking about the city.
We poked around a non-crowded St Mark’s Square, hit up the train station to buy our tickets to Florence, tried to figure out the wifi situation with Venice Connected while buying Vaporetto passes (water taxi) and also grabbed our first bite of gellato. Mine sadly was a casualty of photographer enthusiasm, as I reached to grab my camera, and dropped my cone of pistachio.
No biggie, we were soon off to dinner! I had a Calzone and Lindsey had Ravioli (with “spontaneous herbs” which me took to mean spinach). We both our table service and .5L of house red for the two of house.
We made it back to the room and crashed.
This concludes a rather lengthy Day 1.
