Venice

Tired and hungry and I'm sure looking at least completely lost we went down to the barge for the water taxi. We don't speak any Italian, so I approached a young friendly looking guy, it seemed that perhaps he was on his way home from work. Map in hand I did my best 'I'm not really a mono-linguistic stupid tourist' impression as I pointed to where we wanted to go. He gave us the thumbs up (thank goodness for hand gestures), I pointed to the water taxi stop and he pointed to the sign and the listing for the next taxi. When the taxi arrived he motioned for us to aboard. We tried to stay awake on the journey and it wasn't long before I felt someone looking at me, it was the guy I'd asked directions from earlier, he reverse-nodded towards the next stop. I bowed slightly, but deliberately as we stepped off the barge and into the night.

Google maps - great sometimes, only sometimes.
Don't get me wrong Google got us pointed in the right direction, the general vicinity of our hotel. We circled time and time again as Venice is built so as once inside the city at night time you can't see any landmarks. Here in Australia, you look to the horizon to see where you are, in Venice you look right, you look left, you look up, only buildings, and they look very similar in the dead of night with tired eyes.

Many times I asked for directions, firstly from only the most 'trustworthy looking' (whatever that means) people we passed and many times we ended up where we started. No matter how lost we got, we could always seem to make our way back to the water taxi stop we disembarked from, we figured it was a good sign. Eventually I started asking for directions from all passers-by, twice we passed these guys that looked Sudanese I was tired and sick of asking for directions so I approached boldly and said that I needed directions to the hotel and if they could give me the right directions that I'd be forever in their debt, they were very helpful and their directions were indeed spot on. They explained that our hotel was a newly re-furbished hotel, which on the down side meant that nobody seemed to know exactly where it was but on the plus side was luxurious and spacious and very cost effective.

It wasn't until the next day that I realised that the Sudanese that I had assumed to be tourists were in fact knock-off bag sellers.