roaming the "streets" of Venice

So our hostel here in Venice is awesome. Robyn and I have a private room and a private bathroom. We have an AC unit and a fridge, and it's the cheapest I could find. The downside? It's not actually in Venice. I guess that makes sense, since Venice is so small and...watery...and it's not that hard to get to, so I don't mind. But this morning when we finally decided to get out of bed, we ended up waiting at the bus stop for over an hour. We were told that there was some sort of strike, that the bridges into Venice were inaccessible, and that even the pricey shuttle from the hostel to Venice wasn't going. Luckily, it finally came.
Venice is super neat. It's like Prague, in that you want to take a picture every time you turn a corner, and there aren't too many people here. It's so cool that the "streets" are actually water ways as often as not. They even have "water taxis" which I would love to have an excuse (and the money) to take. One guy, dressed in the traditional garb of black slacks and a horizontally striped shirt, tried to talk us into a gondola ride. It breaks my heart to be here in Venice, probably for the only time in my life, and not take a gondola ride. So, just for curiosity's sake, I asked how much. €80! I replied, "I wish!" Then, he offered me a free gondola ride. All I had to do was kiss him. He wasn't that old, so I might have even considered the offer, except that he followed it up by saying, "We could make love on the water." Thanks, but no thanks.