VENICE

Oh, Venice... where to begin. I absolutely loved it!!

We got into Venice the next day at around 3:30 pm (an hour late), because as we found out, the trains in Italy are RARELY on time. The train itself was probably the worst I've seen so far: no AC, graffiti all over the place, toilet paper all over the bathroom (let alone the fact that the toilet lets out--or sprays out--your business onto the train tracks below), absolutely NO ROOM for any luggage of any decent backpacking size... anyway, we were glad to get off the train when we finally did. We got out of the station expecting to use our usual plan of cabbing it to our hotel, when we looked up and saw the Grand Canal. No. cabs. anywhere.

Plan B was to hit up the tourist info office and ask for the best route to the Hotel. Except when we get to the counter and tell the lady the name of our hotel, she looks at us and says, "Eh... this isn't in Venice..." and Hanna and I look at each other and laugh because we think she must be wrong. But she wasn't. So we go to the bus station to get our tickets and the ticket lady doesn't know where our hotel is (crap, the tourist info lady was right) but tells us to get onto bus 25, then we go to bus 25, the driver is nowhere to be found, and a girl who spoke English told us to go to bus 6. So we go to bus 6 (keep in mind while all this is going on its oh, about 1,000 DEGREES outside in the glaring hot sun) and once again no bus, no driver, the guy selling water on the street has no idea what we're saying, I'm sweating what must have been all my water weight, practically dripping. It's clearly a very pretty picture. We finally find the right driver and the right bus and 40 minutes later we get dropped off on a random road NOT in Venice, residential status. We start walking and we walked for another 20 minutes down empty roads with cornfields on the right and old unused houses on the left before we FINALLY find our hotel. Now, in their defense I must say it's a really nice hotel, and we didn't print out the right directions. But still, NO HOTEL SHOULD ADVERTISE THEY ARE IN VENICE IF THEY ARE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WATER. Am I right???

So the four of us practically fall into the cushioned chairs in the air-conditioned lobby and Hanna and I are about to rip the front desk guy's head off because he's giving us attitude ("well your friend should have read the directions better"), but we keep our cool because he holds the key to our room. Damn. After we take some quick army-style showers, we head back out to the REAL Venice (thank goodness the hotel had a shuttle system!) for dinner. We wanted to take the water bus through the Grand Canal and get the scenic route of Venice for dinner, but got on the wrong water bus which took the other way to Piazza San Marco. At this point, Hanna's a little frustrated that we totally took the wrong way, and are looking at the docks of Venice instead of cute little houses and gondolas, and what should happen but it starts to RAIN. It started out as a little drizzle and then turned into literally the perfect storm. So the girls are basically freaking out that we're going to die because the waves are getting pretty intense and we had't reached Piazza San Marco when it starts to HAIL, yes. HAIL. When we finally reach the right stop, we run off the boat and get pelted with really big hail before getting under the safety of the awning, completely soaked head to foot. About 5 minutes later it all stopped and it was literally like nothing had happened! Talk about a freak storm! We headed to Piazza San Marco and had a great dinner and listened to musicians in the square before heading back for an early night.

The next day we got up early and prayed that it wouldnt rain!! We started out catching a water bus to the island of Murano, where they are known for their hand-blown Venetian glass! We got to see a glass-blower in action, which was REALLY cool, and then we shopped a little before catching another water bus back to Piazza San Marco. We then headed for the Basilica San Marco, the main church. Luckily for me a girl walking out handed me a plastic-y, paper-y looking piece of "fabric" which I used as a shawl because my shoulders weren't covered. In Italy they take their religion VERY seriously and you basically have to dress in like middle school dress code: covered shoulders, and dresses or shorts to the knees... which is really not that fun in this heat. Anyway, the inside was beautiful: all the walls and ceilings were covered in mosaics made out of little tiles. Too bad no pictures were allowed! Then we went to the Palazzo Ducale, the Doge's palace, or what USED to be the Doge's Palace. There were a lot of rooms inside, each for a different purpose... it was basically huge and very religious-looking everywhere. After that we walked to Campo Santa Margherita, where we finally got to sit down and eat dinner before the Festa di Redentore (an annual fireworks festival that celebrates the end of the plague in Venice from 1575-1577!). There were a ton of young people there, apparently its a big meeting place! We people-watched and drank wine to stall time so we could keep sitting till the fireworks at 11:30. We all got a little happy as my mom likes to call it and then we met some very nice and very gay Australian boys and we all walked down to the canal to watch the fireworks. Just after the fireworks ended, we had to catch the shuttle to head back to our hotel, but we realized that it was 12:10 and the shuttle was due to leave Piazzale Roma (at the other end of the city) at 12:30! So we literally RAN about 2 km all the way from the southern tip of Venice to the Northern tip where we finally met the shuttle. It was a mess... I led the way running and sporatically stopping, out of breath, to ask strangers directions ("Piazzale... Roma...???.... Grazie!!!") after which a couple seconds later Hanna would pass the same people yelling "Grazie! Grazie!" over her shoulder as she ran past and Saaya and Sarah bringing up the rear. I must admit Im very proud of myself considering I don't remember the last time I worked out and we actually made it relatively on time.. only 10 minutes late ;) but the shuttle was 10 minutes late too so we were perfect!! Our shuttle driver Luca helped us in and out of the shuttle and tried to persuade me not to try and call my boyfriend at 1:00 am Italy time (which, in my defense, would have been PERFECT timing US time).

The next morning, Hanna and I got an early start (relatively... a decision we made BEFORE the Festa di Redentore the night before) but then missed our shuttle because we had to pack up all our things since we were leaving Venice that evening. So we got on the 11:15 shuttle and when we got to Piazzale Roma, got on the water bus (this time taking the scenic route) to the Accademia where we hoped to see Da Vinci's famous drawing of the man in the circle (the name is escaping me just now). We walked through the whole museum (which by the way did NOT have air conditioning) only to come to the end without seeing the ONE thing we paid the 6Euro entrance fee for. When we asked the museum worker where it was, the lady kindly told us that while Da Vinci's famous drawing IS at the Accademia, it is locked away in a private room for restoration... and has been for 9 years. Thanks for nothing, National Geographic guide book (and it was THIRD EDITION!!).

After our disappointing visit to the Accademia, we got lunch at a REALLY yummy hole-in-the-wall place. Having heard that the only cure for a hangover is more alcohol, we ordered some white wine at lunch to have with our spaghetti bolognese & mushroom pasta (it was BOMB: there was basil in the pasta itself, and it came with mushrooms and shrimp in a really light olive oil dressing). YUM! After lunch we met back up with Saaya and Sarah and we walked to a famous church called Santa Maria della Frari. We finally found it (and the "best" gelato place in Venice, according to Naned, our rude-turned-helpful hotel front desk guy) and we got some gelato and sat by the canal to enjoy it! After finishing our gelato, we decided to try the church... but being inappropriately dressed, we weren't allowed inside haha. Instead, we decided to take a gondola ride, even though it was kind of expensive, because no trip to Venice would be complete without one! Our gondolier was named Bepi, short for Giuseppe (surprise surprise...), and he only had 3 months gondoliering (sp?) experience because he just graduated from gondolier school, which is apparently very hard to get into and it is a very prestigious profession. Each of us got to try gondoliering (it was REALLY hard) and we had a nice and pleasant journey through the small canals of Venice with Bepi singing (half-heartedly) the whole time.

The gondola ride was a perfect end to our stay in Venice, which may be my favorite stop so far. After the gondoloa ride we headed to the train station to meet Luca who was dropping off our luggage from the hotel. We had a quick (and not so yummy) dinner near the train station before getting on our train to Florence. Ah, so lovely :)