Hi All,
In honor of the season premier of Survivor 17: Gaban being on tomorrow night, and in honor of the fact that I'm editing Venice photos (finally) to share with you as fast as my little fingers can edit, I thought I'd share a little Venice story and a photo with you tonight!
Recognize this guy? He's Todd Herzog, winner of Survivor 15: China! And now for the story.....
When we got to Venice, we knew that we wanted to take a water taxi over to the island of Burano first thing, because we'd been there on our previous trip to Venice and loooved that little island. (Just wait til you see those photos...you won't believe how magical it is!) Anyway, so my ever-prepared husband had already done all the research online ahead of time to determine which water taxi stand we needed to get to because this particular water taxi service ran a scheduled route all day long going from Venice to Murano, to another little island whose name I can't remember, and then to Burano. It just made the same loop all day. So we hunt down the right taxi stand and get in line to get our tickets which took forever, and then after buying the tickets, we were instructed to go wait on this covered dock for the boat to arrive. We moved onto the dock with probably a hundred or so other people and I saw this guy that looked so familiar to me but I couldn't remember where I knew him from. I mentioned it to Bart but the guy turned around so Bart didn't get to see his face. I was racking my brain trying to figure out who he was but it just wasn't happenin'. Finally the boat came and the now huge herd of people pressed forward onto the boat and then scrambled to find a seat for our ride. It was a double decker boat with benches both in the front and the back of the boat on both levels. We moved upstairs where it seemed like there were less people and of course by now, we'd totally lost Mr. Where-do-I-know-you-from. But as we turned to the right at the top of the stairs and were scoping out a bench, we saw an open one......that was butted up against the back of another bench......and Mr. Who-are-you was sitting on the other bench!!
Well, you know we just had to go sit behind him! Of course, poor Bart still hasn't seen him and even though I've mentioned it a couple times and am clearly disturbed that I can't remember this person, Bart is in "get us to our next destination" mode. (He gets like this when we travel. He is a great navigator and so.....he navigates. And once he's navigated, then he can relax!) So at this point I'm moving to the open bench and poor Bart still has no idea that I'm cooking up some kinda scheme to ask this guy who the heck he is! Now, normally I would not be comfortable approaching someone and asking him something like that, but this was now driving me CRAZY!
So we sit down on the bench behind "him" and I note that he's traveling with a girl about his age and a woman old enough to be his mom. I'm a super-sleuth like that. My super-sonic hearing is now in full force and I'm trying to make small-talk with Bart, all the while, listening to what "he" and his traveling companions are talking about behind me. (This was a little difficult, but thankfully I have some multi-tasking skills as well.) I can't make out everything they're saying but I hear words like Amazing Race and high school and it sounds like he and the girl his age are pretty good friends and then I hear that the 'mom' is really the girl's mom. Now it seems like the girl and the guy went to school together and I'm thinking, do I know him from school? Do I know him from church? Has he been on Amazing Race??? I LOVE that show!
Finally, there was a lull in the small-talk between Bart and I so I just turned around (politely waited for an opportunity to butt in without interrupting one of them) and said, "Excuse me. You look SO familiar to me but I can't remember where I know you from." They all said, "He (I) won Survivor: China!"
OH YEEEEEAH! THAT'S where I know him from!!!
So for the next few minutes we had a great chat about what he's been doing since he won, where they were headed on their trip and then Bart helped them figure out that they were probably gonna want to get off at the first stop. (We were staying on til the third stop.) So just before the boat stopped for them, I asked if we could get a quick photo. All 3 of them were so nice. It was funny because on the show, I kind of remembered him as being a bit conniving and cut-throat, but in real life, he couldn't have been more friendly and relaxed.
What a fun little "celebrity sighting" on our way to Burano. We talked and talked about it the rest of the day.....so funny!
Ok, back to editing photos. Hopefully I'll get them posted for you soon!
Nighty-night!
Dawn
