a venezia

I'm in venice working at the university in Mestre for a week. Yesterday I saw some of the regatta, where the old style rowing boats (think of a big gondola with a dozen gondoliers on it) race each other up the canal grande - very cool though very hard to watch unless you've got a ticket for the grandstand. you end up standing on tiptoe behind a crowd at the end of a passageway that leads to the canal. the best view I got was when I retired to a nearby bar and they had it on television.