On Saturday July 29, 2000 I left Metz with John Stella to travel for a few days before meeting my family. We left midmorning for Innsbruck, Austria. We arrived early evening on the 29th and found the bus that would take us towards the glacier. We got off the bus in Neustift, which is about halfway between Innsbruck and the glacier. We walked around and found a hotel. There wasn't a shortage of them because of the winter Olympics that were held there back in the 70's. They gave us a key without evening asking us for any information. We had a good night's sleep and got up early to head to the glacier. When we got to the highest the road went we bought our lift ticket and got onto a ski lift. At this point there still wasn't snow, but we could see the snow on the TV monitors near the ski lift. As we were in the ski lift we went up another 1000 meters to around 3000 meters. At the end of the lift we rented skis and equipment. Off to the slopes we went. There were only 2 slopes open, but there weren't many people on them so it was very nice. We skied for about 5 and half-hours. During that time it snowed for about 4 hours. There were very good conditions and many unused areas of the slopes. I can say that I didn't fall on the slopes, but the lifts did present a problem for both of us. After the skiing we headed down the mountain to pick up our bags and then we headed for the train station in Innsbruck.

On the evening of Sunday July 30th we headed by train to Venice, Italy. When we arrive early in the morning of the 31st we had both had a limited amount of time in Venice. John had to leave by train in early afternoon, and I was to leave late afternoon. We got a map, checked our luggage and set out to see Venice in a short amount of time. We headed towards St. Marco Plaza and found out that there is a lot of walking to be done in the city of Venice. It is a very confusing place to get around because of the lack of enough bridges across the canals. We took a gondola ride and did a lot of walking down narrow streets. It was a very nice city, but a little expensive. This is probably because everything has to be put on a boat to deliver it to the businesses. Had a great time visiting this city that is so well known.