Sometimes, an over the top tourist trap experience can still be emotionally authentic. CR and I rode the gondola at the Venice hotel in Las Vegas this weekend. It was a Disney sort of thing, a water ride through the shopping areas of the hotel. It turned out that our guide was an Italian opera singer (who had sung at the Bonfils center in Denver for years and arrived in Las Vegas to discover she is too short for the shows). So she sings for tourists who imagine what Venice might be like. Her voice reduced me to puddles of emotion–I was genuinely, deeply moved.
