I have just awakened at my hotel in Venice, Italy, and it’s 4:30 am, my usual time for starting the day—except that Italy is exactly twelve hours “off” from Honolulu, which means that I am completely upside-down!

I left Hawaii on Friday afternoon and had a nice visit with Joey Fala’s mom, Patsy, who took me to the airport. I flew directly to Newark, where I was scheduled for a twelve hour layover. I am so lucky that my goddaughter, Elizabeth Haas Budko, picked me up from the airport to visit with her family in nearby Bloomfield for several hours. Although I didn’t sleep I had least had a little time to be horizontal.

We arrived at the Marco Polo airport in Venice about twenty minutes ahead of schedule, and after passing through immigration and picking up my checked carry on bag (I was determined to pack light for this trip!), I found several other members of my tour to travel to the hotel together on the water bus.

I swear, I can spot other organists a mile away! I guessed right on the first people I talked to who were waiting by the public transportation office at the airport!

An hour and forty minutes later we disembarked and walked to our hotel less than a block away. It meant that it had taken me 29 hours and 8 movies later to get to Italy from Honolulu! (I never sleep on planes!) Actually it was a little more than that if you count the time standing in line at immigration and waiting at the airport.

Three of us immediately went to find a nearby place to eat and we stopped at a restaurant right on the water. We were charged a 9 euro cover charge—I guess that was for the nice view at water’s edge.

I finally got to sleep about 9 pm Italy time and started writing this blog as soon as I woke up. In my email this morning was a photo taken by my friends Priscilla and Jim Carlson at the Three Choirs Festival—a picture of me with organist Stephen Strugnell from Honolulu at the last concert of the festival!