That's Amore

On Friday we left the good ol' Roma and headed for Venice!

We woke up at the crack of dawn again and headed to the train station to catch our 8 o'clock train. It was a lot easier this time than the trip to Florence, we got the right train and we each had a seat. I sat next to Jo-Elle and we literally had the worst seat on the train. Right in front of us was a group of two women and a man and 3 children. The oldest were two girls who looked about 5 and a 1 year old. They. did. not. stop. talking. The girls were wandering around the aisle the entire time and the baby wasn't necessarily crying but making noises the wholeee 3 and a half hours we were on the train. I kept giving the dad dirty looks like, "Control your children sir!". Then I finally gave in and realized they were actually really cute kids even though I couldn't tell what they were saying at all (spoke very fast Italian). I even tickled the youngin's belly at one point when he was walking by. What can I say I'm a softy at heart.

We arrived in Venice and had a 20 minute walk to the hotel through the tiniest streets I've ever seen. I didn't have much time to look around as we were walking in our Madeline lines again. All I know is 20 girls with suitcases does not easily maneuver through the streets of Venice. Our hotel was incredible! Venice is famous for glass and we had two chandeliers in our room which fit 4 people.

Just a view from one of the bridges we crossed on the walk to the hotel...no big deal.

We then headed out to explore, and within 5 minutes Dana and MK were pooped on by a seagull. Another lucky day! Haha, at least I'm not the only one now. There are literally pigeons and seagulls EVERYWHERE in Italy. No squirrels, just pigeons. It's a huge let down for me specifically. We walked around some on our side of the canal which was much less touristy. We worked our way to this little pizzeria with a really pretty garden. While waiting for a table Kyle, one of the professors on the trip, bumped into the window and broke the window curtain. Pretty sure they spat in our food after that one. It's really hard going to restaurants in such a big group, we only had about half of the 20 but we get looks everywhere we go. 

We then went on a hunt trying to find a bakery we passed on our way to our hotel. You should have heard the ooh's and ahh's coming from the 20 girls walking by all these goodies. I saw this little chocolate fudgey thing and immediately asked for it. It had some raspberry flavor in it to my surprise. (Katie I thought of you with this one!) I also got a strawberry meringue which was hugeee and tasted like a lucky charms marshmallow, it was fantastic! We walked around with just a group of 5: me, Kara, MK, Dana, and Kelly. We walked out onto a dock to take in the view of the canal just laying before us. As I sat down I got a splinter in my butt. Dana helped me assess (bada bing!) the situation and we decided to sit on the concrete part instead haha. We sat there for a while then decided to take a gondola across the river for 50 cents. The gondolier (a new term I learned) fell in love with Kara and said, "Karaaa stay with me." Then pretended to kiss up and down her arm. We couldn't get out of there fast enough.

We could not pass this place up, they had chocolate sausage!

The strawberry meringue!

We shopped around on the other side of the main canal and went into really cool stores which sold tons of masks, jewelry, basically the same things in every shop though. We found this street painter who had amazing artwork! Then we hopped onto a gondola for a 20-30 minute ride/tour of Venice! It was only 15 euro per person which is pretty good for what i've heard they usually cost. We saw Casanova's old home, Marco Polo's old home, the Rialto Bridge, and tons of old buildings and canals through Venice! It is literally the most interesting city I've ever seen. But most importantly we saw about 10 different couples making out. There is no cultural foe-pa about PDA here. Our gondolier told us that at night we shouldn't ride in the gondola because couples ride them and...well...don't ride a gondola at night unless they've cleaned it recently. Bleh. Not sure if this is completely true but we didn't want to take the chance. 

Our gondolier! He was 40 years old and told us he's lived in Venice his whole life!

Couple #4 making out, get a room!

Such a beautiful view as we rode on the gondola down the small canals

After the ride we started heading back to the hotel. We were stopped at this juice bar handing out free drinks, little did we know it was sangria and strawberry shots....at 5:00. Well it's 5 o'clock somewhere. We kept walking and when we got back we changed for dinner. We ended up just stopping at this little cafe we had passed earlier in a pretty secluded piazza. I had a vegetarian pizza wrap which was delicious and hit the spot. We then had quite a few mini bottles of Bellini's (peach champagne) . I've never had them before and they were everywhere in Venice. We spent like 3 hours just sitting outside this place it was so much fun, then we headed to a Jazz bar we had passed earlier. We found out once we got there it was one of the top rated places in Italy for mixed drinks so I decided to try one...it was very inappropriately named but involved the word Sax. We were only there for a bit then headed home for bed.

The next day I woke up around 7:15 to shower and head out for the day. Kelly MK Kyle and I decided to head to the Doge's Palace. It was only about a 15 minute walk to San Marco's square where the palace was located. It was like stepping into a time machine heading over to this square, after walking through all the tiny streets the whole square opened up to these beautiful marble and stone buildings from century's ago. There was the cathedral, the bell tower, and the palace. It was completely empty at 8 in the morning and we had no line heading into the palace. We walked around without a guide this time just reading the info ourselves. They had a fire in the 1500's which ruined a bunch of paintings in the palace and there were competitions to see who would get to repaint them. It was shocking to find out these were replica's because all the paintings were absolutely gorgeous. It also contains the largest oil painting in the world. It was hugeeee. Every room was covered in gold and very gaudy. Kelly and I tried laying down on the floor in one huge ballroom to look at the ceiling...we were yelled at within 5 seconds. The palace also had a jail attached which we got to walk through, leading to it there is the "bridge of sighs" which got its name from prisoners taking their last look out the window at freedom before entering the prison. There was a room filled with weapons, and rooms filled with absolutely nothing at all with no purpose...wish I had the luxury to have a room dedicated to standing around and twiddling my thumbs.  

San Marco's completely empty, just 2 hours later it was packed with hundreds of people and vendors! And birds of course.

The Bell Tower in the square!

Beautiful, it had rained on our walk over and stopped and started every now and then.

Me standing by the water and the palace!

Inside the courtyard of the palace, as we walked through we walked allll around the building.

Inside the courtyard of the jail portion of the palace

We then walked back to the hotel and got there around 11 or so. Everyone was up and a bunch of girls had already to Murano to check out the Venetian glass. We stopped at one of the markets, which are all over, and grabbed some fresh fruit for lunch. Never realized how much I missed fruit, we rarely have it with any of our meals. We took a water taxi to the island which is famous for glass, there's another island, Burano which is famous for lace. Right when we got off we were pointed in the direction of a glass factory which was showing glass blowing. It was sooo cool. I never actually understood the concept of blowing glass...they literally blow it. This older man started rolling it around then blew on the tube leading to it and within two minutes had a glass vase with intricate detail. Then another guy made a glass horse. Too cool. As their final act they blew a glass bubble and kept blowing it till it shattered with a loud boom scaring the bejesus out of all of us. A little dramatic if you ask me.

The man making the vase!

One of the glass stores with tons of chandeliers

We walked around from shop to shop and I bought a ton of gifts. Everything was so beautiful but every store had the same things. I was starting to get a little warn out with all this shopping and we eventually sat down and grabbed a late lunch. Kyle and I split a hugeee calzone. It was bigger then my head. We took a water taxi back to the mainland and stopped at the hotel before dinner. We had spotted this little seafood place earlier in the week and decided to go back. About 12 of us went and it was fancy shmancy. We had no idea but we walked in and all the waiters were in tuxedo's. I could taste the service charge already. We sat down and they poured us champagne...there was nothing we could do. They then brought us bread and water...another 10 euro gone. I ordered the gnocchi with lobster and it was magnificent. A few of the other girls ordered fish that was, well...disappointing. MK had a mouthful of bones as her first bite. She tried complaining to the waiter when we were done (they barely spoke english by the way). He asked her how it was and she said, "Well, a little boney" and he responded, "Thank you" then walked away. We could only hold our laughter for so long. Then we walked back over to the hotel to a little bar that was right below it. It was pretty americanized and they were playing some Backstreet Boys and some oldies, needless to say we had a bit of a sing a long.

On the island of Murano!

Glass fire oooh

Glass birds by the water, I thought they looked so cool!

Hehe a little glass jewish man, would've boughten it if it wasn't 15 euro

The next morning we got to sleep in a little, check out wasn't until 11. We had heard the day before about this huge kayak event taking place that Sunday down the entire canal. No motor boats were allowed in the morning for all the kayakers. They came from all over the world! There were some themed boats, I saw one where everyone was dressed up as monks, there was some relaxed kayakers, and then there were some with gongs and whistles moving superrr fast. We thought about signing up but it was 100 to rent a kayak and 20 to register...I think I spent enough shopping for gifts haha. We walked around a little more and headed back to San Marco's where we grabbed a panino and people watched. There were the strangest characters I've ever seen in Venice. I guess because it's such a touristy place you really get a motley crew of people. We saw this one woman covered in pigeons...and liking it. We found a garden just along the water and sat there for a bit eating gelato, I felt so Italian! We had just enough time to take our time walking back to the hotel. We left for the train station around 4:20 and trekked back through the eeny weeny streets. It was a lot more depressing heading this direction but it went by a lot quicker. We got onto the train, this time  in the veryyy back of the train away from crying babies. We started out going backwards though and I felt a little queazy but halfway through the ride we switched directions. I sat next to Jo-Elle again on the way back and we were both thankful to have a moment of sleep!

One of the huge teams of rowers! 

Got a pretty good picture of the monks, they gotta be hot in those things

Overall, it was such a beautiful weekend and much more relaxed then any other trips we've had. I absolutely fell in love with the city and the city was filled with love! I can't wait for school this week and for Elba this weekend!