I'm feeling kneaded!!

Saturday, 9 July

Today was my birthday and I get to enjoy it in my favorite city in the world .... Venice!  We jumped on a Vaporetto and went to Murano -  in ancient times his was where the Venetian Glass Artists would create their work. Not really being sure which point on the Island to hop off we just went with the crowd - it was very sheep-like!  We were directed to one of the glass factories and were able to see some of the techniques used in glass blowing.  Afterwards Bobbie & I broke from the herd and just wandered through the backstreets and eventually followed signs to the main canal. It was nice just walkin through 'suburbia'.  Merrily going through many many glass stores shopping up a storm with gifts
(hoping people like glass!). You have to be careful though - if it's too cheap it's more than likely imported from China .... and if I wanted Venetian glass from China - I would go to China.  With a smattering of Italian and English we discovered that authentic Murano glass is sometimes stamped (not always though because some two tone colours would shatter). So we're shopping smart!

Thoroughly enjoyed the excursion but we had to be back on the main island before too long as Bobbie had organised a birthday present for me - a full body massage.  A little daunting because I remember my sisters' full body massage experience in Thailand a few years ago (eep).

Ok so we made it in time (finding an address in Venice is challenging to say the least) and I was led to my room.  The lady handed me a little packet and mumbled something in Italian that I thought ended with 'sleep'.  Bobbie had made it very clear I was to RELAX & ENJOY so I figured it might be an eye mask. It wasn't. I pulled it out of the packet and thought to myself 'this is one damn big eye mask ... And see through too'.  Ok so guess no.1 was incorrect.  Then I thought maybe it's to cover my meager chest ... But I couldn't see how on earth I was to put those two elastic little bands around me. Oh dear, nothing for it but to ask.  So I call out in Italian to ask what to do.  She fiddles with it for a second and it dawns on me .... It's a paper g-string!  Ok so you're 
more than likely laughing now - I do know about paper g-strings but this was one hell of a huge thing. *groan* I put the damn thing on (the right way of course!) and lie face down ready for my massage.  It was a very relaxing massage, though she could have spent the entire hour on my feet (bliss)!  I obviously relaxed a little too much a couple of time because I heard myself make that contented little snort/snore sound in the back of my throat!  Oops

After a while she tapped my hand to get me to flip over ... Thought process was like this "it's ok, pretend like you go full frontal with paper g-strings on all the time!". "keep a straight face". "Geez I hope I'm looking relaxed"  When she got to my stomach, I almost giggled ... Not because I'm extremely ticklish but she was moving her hand across my expanding belly like it was a lump of dough and I was being kneaded in order to make bread buns.  Straight face, straight face!  And THEN ... she massaged my chest and that was probably the weirdest thing I have ever experienced!  I thought she was trying to make profiteroles (cause that's about how much dough she had to work with!)  

Ok so now I was all slicked up with massage oil and when I related the experience to Bobbie I thought she was going to pee herself - she just had visions of me trying to put that damn paper g-string on my eyes like and eye-mask.  I will point out here I did no such thing - I'm not as Cabbage as I am green-looking!

Met up with my friend Rhonda from church who also happens to be in Venice.  It was a very hot sticky day so a quick respite in the hotel room was needed.  We crossed the closest bridge and wandered around looking for somewhere to eat. Found an open-air restaurant and ate way too much and waddles back to the hotel.  We had a lot of laughs especially when taking our selfies!   Earlier in the day Bobbie bought me a Sacher Torte at the chocolatier next door o our hotel (it was a SIGN) and we celebrated my birthday with Rhonda & Bobbie singing Happy Birthday to me .... And a somewhat disturbing running man dance was performed! We had no knife to hand so used the plastic cup to cut the cake.  It was DELICIOUS!

All in all a great birthday!