We'll just chalk it up to a memorable experience...

Friday was Dustin's birthday and the day he could officially wear his new Tech stripe. (Happy new stripe and birthday day!!) It also happened to be his one day off a week. (Boo to only having one day off and working 12's the other 6 days.) So I decided to surprise him at work and took him a cake at midnight on Thursday to celebrate. It was also a good excuse to share with his coworkers and not to have a humongous cake sitting on the counter for me to eat. It was a good compromise. I even found a recipe for white chocolate macadamia cake which is his favorite cookie. But it was in cake form. Cool, huh? Oh and it had homemade cream cheese frosting. Who doesn't love cream cheese frosting?!?!

Anyway... So we spent much of Friday being lazy and flying his plane a couple of times. (Don't worry the interesting part comes soon.) We decided it might be fun to head to Venice and eat at the Hard Rock Cafe. We got to the train station, purchased tickets and waited for the 6:43 train. And waited and waited. It was late. So late that we figured it just wasn't going to come. (and this really NEVER happens.) When the time came and went for the 7:23 train we were really wondering if we should just head home. But at 7:35 we had a train! We finally arrived in Venice at 8:50pm, purchased our water taxi tickets and hopped on. I counted it out. We had eight stops. We just kept thinking, "If we can get there by 9:30 we will be okay." (Oh I forgot to mention we had a time crunch because the last train out of Venice is 11:56 and if you miss that one you are spending the night.) So of course, at stop one, Piazzale Roma, we have to sit at the dock for 10 minutes! Finally we start moving again but we get to Ponte Rialto and they kick everyone off! WHAT?! Ummm...NO I have to get to San Marco Piazza! Now we have a ten minute walk to the Hard Rock. By the time we get there it is 9:45 and it's a half-hour wait to sit down. There's just not enough time. We decide that maybe we should just head to the Burger King that we are pretty sure is "just around the corner" (you know where this is going don't you...) After walking and walking and walking some more we come to the square where we remember it's in. OH and it's CLOSED DOWN! Completely dark and boarded up. Now what to do.... We decide to head back to the Rialto and try and sit down to eat and then hurry to the station.

We did find a nice little place right along the canal and it had really cute lights, and the food wasn't too bad. The best part was they had a VERY clean bathroom WITH a toilet! (This is really something to treasure.) I was grateful we at least found this place. Oh I forgot to mention that during dinner I got a text from my friend saying that Italy was having a train and transportation strike. Would have been good to know!!

After a nice dinner we hurried to the train station and realized we might make the 11:06 train home. But of course, with our luck, we walked up to the head of the train just as it was pulling away.

So even though nothing went as planned. And we spent a lot of time jogging through Venice. It was still a fun night with the hubby. Hopefully soon we can try and make it to the Hard Rock for real. Happy Birthday Dustin!

Dustin is now 29! Holy cow. This is also when we still had hopes for the earlier train.

Finally seated at a restaurant!

Beautiful view right beside our table!