THE GENE POOL: ITALY: VENEZIA

Before we jump into my honeymoon, a few words on not posting for nine months. I tried to write about my mom's death several times but couldn't stop crying -- it was brutal -- and my solution was not to write about anything indefinitely.

My trip to Italy, however, has relit my writing mojo -- it is worth noting that I have had four published NOLA articles in this timeframe. So here we go with our trip to Italia. A wedding festivities post is sure to come at some point after the honeymoon adventures.

Wow. That's what I keep mumbling to myself every time I look around in Italy. It's so freaking beautiful, you could just look around forever. And then some more after that. The buildings, the mountains, the water, the beaches, the towns. So bellissimo (was auto corrected to bellies sumo).

With that said, three complaints before we get into specifics -- and pictures! -- of Venezia.

The smoking here is ridiculous. It's like every child in this country at some point gets a soccer ball and a pack of cigs. The worst is at outside restaurants when the person next to you nonchalantly lights up.

No one told me they don't got pepperonis here. I miss them so much. A warning would have been nice. On the second day I saw a sign that said Peroni, and I was like, 'Yes, this place has it.' But it turns out, that's a brand of beer. Sad.

They don't cut the pizza. You cut it yourself with a knife. That's a minor complaint, but a regular knife ain't the best way to slice and dice a pie, ya feel me?

Here's the forms of transportation we've taken in six days in Venice and Sorrento: water taxi, water bus, gondola, cruise ship, mini cruise ship, tour boat, plane, train, car, taxi, minivan, city bus, minibus and golf cart.

Venezia pictures

This is the back view of our water taxi going from the Marco (and I add a pause here because of the swimming game) Polo airport to our hotel in Venice. Amazing, right?

Also, the taxi looked just like the boat Indiana Jones got carved up by the big ship propeller in the Last Crusade chase scene. "My soul is prepared. How's yours?"

Straight ahead is our Venice hotel right on the Grand Canal. Service was excellent. Guy gave us a map and circled all the places we could go and where to get on the water bus.

This is the inside of St. Mark's Basillica in the main square of Venice. You'll notice as we go through that even the ugliest church in Italy is prettier than Jennifer Aniston.

Not terribly far from our hotel is a casino. Holy snikies, I can gamble on my honeymoon. It was founded in 1638 and is the world's oldest gaming house, so it was worth taking a look-see just for that.

Nicole agreed. Oh yeah, Nicole, my wife, is on this trip too, and I should reiterate here that we're having the time of our lives here in home country. Ah, love.

The website said it has a poker room, and I was intrigued. What we found there, however, was more like just a room.

We showed our passports, and I had to rent a jacket to go into the gaming room. That part sounds fancy, and it seemed like this could be the start of quite an evening.

I then walked into the slot machine room with Nicole. The website said it has 600 slot machines. It was more like 60. It looked like one of those side of the road casinos next to a Subway.

I went to play poker upstairs. Uh, no. There were four -- count em, four -- table games going. Like total. That's it. Two roulette. One Caribbean poker. One blackjack. There were maybe 20 people gambling in there.

Oldest gaming house, more like lamest gaming house.

Roulette said 2.50 minimum, so I figured I could play a while as that's not a lot. I put 2.50 on red, but the dealer said minimum for that is 20. I think.

It seems that whenever I talk to someone here with English as their second language, something is lost in translation. I am left dazed and confused. Alright, alright, alright.

Anyway, it landed on black. 20 euro gone. I then played blackjack for about 20 minutes and ended up leaving the Venice casino five euro ahead.

So yeah, I'm a winning gambler in Europe. Nicole lost 12 euro in her half hour on slots. What a loser.

On Wednesday we took a day trip to Padua. We had a private tour guide, and she was magnifico. Here she is discussing the history of Padua with Nicole. Or are they discussing hair products? Hard to tell.

The guide -- sorry to say we forgot her name -- kept saying "and this is why" whenever explaining the history to us.

Padua, a rich town filled with designer stores, has a university dating back to 1222. It kind of started modern medicine by examining corpses.

The Scrovegni Chapel was another stellar religious house. It was built by a man who had guilt over the sins of his father. He didn't want to go to hell himself, and "this is why" he built the chapel.

We watched a video in Italian on the origins of the chapel with English subtitles. The guide apologized.

The art inside is by Giotti from 1302-1305. He didn't know what depth perception was, but he was ahead of his time in everything else.

The main piece is of the final judgment. Giotti painted Scrovegni at the bottom right above the door begging to be let into heaven.

Then it was on to St. Anthony Basillica, my favorite of all the churches we saw in the first half of our trip. It had many chapels all around the church set up for different countries.

It houses Anthony's tongue, chin and vocal chords -- all discovered to be still preserved 32 years after his death. "And this is why" religion and science are not the same.

We touched his tomb with his body inside. And why we were waiting in line, it hit me: My confirmation name is St. Anthony of Padua. Good thing I put this excursion into our vacation package.

Pictures aren't allowed inside, but here be the outside.

When we got back to Venice, we went back to the center of the city for our gondola tour. It was magical.

Still can't get over buildings being in the water.

This was our gandolier. I held my camera up and took a no-look picture. Not bad.

Can't say enough how much I enjoyed this. I never wanted it to end. I looked long into Nicole's eyes, told her how much I loved her, and then we smooched. And smooched. And smooched some more. I hope you say smooch at some point in the day after reading this. Fun word.

This is my new Facebook profile picture. I never want to forgot that night. The water is so calm, and it's so leisurely.

Our only noteworthy meal in Venice came Wednesday night at Vino Vino. I had the fish of the day -- in the family of sea bass, according to the waiter.