Venice, in a word, was amazing, incredible, perfect, beautiful, pristine, a little dreary, and all around wonderful. Who am I kidding? I can’t describe Venice in one word! Last weekend, Christy, Patricia, David, and I all took a train up to Venice. The train ride was about two and half hours, but it went by quickly because the views were beautiful from the train and because we were sitting next to Fernando, a good looking Spaniard who was making us practice our Spanish for once instead of our Italian. It kind of sucks that since I have been here speaking Italian this whole time that I can no longer find the words for things in Spanish, only Italian. I have heard that it is very hard to be able to speak both languages, and I agree, they are just too similar. Anyways, we got to Venice mid morning, and I immediately loved everything about it! We went on a bit of a dreary, cold, foggy day, but that worked to our advantage because there were hardly any tourists there. I had heard that Venice was smelly, dirty, crowded, and gross. But I never saw any of that. There was hardly any trash around (this might because I am used to Florence which can get pretty dirty…), it didn’t smell at all, and the water was a beautiful color of blueish green. I think I was expecting something more like the river walk where there is brown trashy water. But, this was no San Antonio, this was Venice!!! We decided to first visit St. Mark’s Square, which happened to be on the complete opposite side of town. We could have taken a gondola ride, but it was just too expensive! They jack up the prices because it’s such a “tourist” thing to do now and Europe likes to take tourists for all they have… So, we found our way walking around the city, over bridges, and through some of the tiniest allies I have ever seen!! It was actually quite easy to get around town by foot, although the streets are a joke there because they were built around the canal system. If you ever see a map of Venice, you will know what I am talking about. There are bridges that just stop at someone’s front door step and streets that start out of the middle of no where. It’s quite comical to try to walk in a direct route anywhere in Venice. But, we made it to St Mark’s and got to see a large portion of the city in the process. St. Mark’s was absolutely beautiful. The flying rats (pigeons) that cover the piazza: not so beautiful. The pigeons there are absolutely crazy!! I thought Florence had a problem with flying rats. Nope, Venice has a bigger one. People think it’s fun to feed these gross things, so they constantly fly up to you and land on you and are really brave little suckers. I just ran through them all and watched them fly away, that was my fun for the day. But, the church was absolutely amazing, inside and out. Inside, the ceilings and floors are covered in elaborate mosaics. The floor mosaics are made out marble and the ceilings are done in gold teseri. I doubt it’s real gold, but maybe...it is Venice after all. After we saw St. Mark’s square we did a little more walking around and found a pizzeria that made us a special margarita pizza (because we are awesome…just kidding, I don’t know why.) But it was a darn good pizza. It made me like Venice even a little more. Then we some how found our way back to the other side of the city, to the harbor (although the whole city is basically a harbor…) and we took a water taxi (which is really just like a giant ferry) over to the islands of Murano and Burano. Murano is where the famous Murano blown glass is from (hence the name…) and Burano is famous for their lace. We only stopped very briefly in Murano because it has gotten very touristy since they became known for their glass. However, since Burano is a little more out of the way, it was basically deserted! This was an incredible island! It used to be a very
successful and popular fishing town inhabiting over 22,000 people. Now less than 6,000 people live there. (I will one day make it 6,001…) This island was beautiful though. All the houses are painted in bright colors so that when the fishermen come home in the fog or dark, they can still find their house. (So the old story goes…) But it was like being in Venice, because everything was still navigated by canals, but the houses and buildings were painted absurd colors! It was so beautiful and we ended up staying there until dark. If I didn’t find lace so tacky, I probably would have purchased some because their lace working skills were quite incredible! After we came back on the water taxi, we had just enough time to do a little souvenir shopping before we embarked on what became a nightmare of a trip home. We bought cheaper tickets on way home because we didn’t have any place to be and therefore could take a little bit longer. But cheaper tickets meant we had to switch trains in Bologna. Well, that turned out to be a slight issue seeing as how there was a train wreck and all the incoming trains were four hours late. At this point it was already 10 PM (or 22:00 if you’re from Italy) so I was exhausted! We finally, after talking to about twenty different conductors, found the only train that was going to Florence and hopped on it. It turned out to be a sleeper train, so we had to move around to five different cars until we finally found seats. The final part of the journey was that the train didn’t stop at the right train station and we missed the last train to the other station (which is literally two blocks from home). So, we got to walk for an hour before our journey finally came to an end. So, basically, it was a little stressful at the end, to say the least, but I wouldn’t trade those experiences for the world!!!
Venice, in a word, was amazing, incredible, perfect, beautiful, pristine, a little dreary, and all around wonderful. Who am I kidding? I can’t describe Venice in one word! Last weekend, Christy, Patricia, David, and I all took a train up to Venice. The train ride was about two and half hours, but it went by quickly because the views were beautiful from the train and because we were sitting next to Fernando, a good looking Spaniard who was making us practice our Spanish for once instead of our Italian. It kind of sucks that since I have been here speaking Italian this whole time that I can no longer find the words for things in Spanish, only Italian. I have heard that it is very hard to be able to speak both languages, and I agree, they are just too similar. Anyways, we got to Venice mid morning, and I immediately loved everything about it! We went on a bit of a dreary, cold, foggy day, but that worked to our advantage because there were hardly any tourists there. I had heard that Venice was smelly, dirty, crowded, and gross. But I never saw any of that. There was hardly any trash around (this might because I am used to Florence which can get pretty dirty…), it didn’t smell at all, and the water was a beautiful color of blueish green. I think I was expecting something more like the river walk where there is brown trashy water. But, this was no San Antonio, this was Venice!!! We decided to first visit St. Mark’s Square, which happened to be on the complete opposite side of town. We could have taken a gondola ride, but it was just too expensive! They jack up the prices because it’s such a “tourist” thing to do now and Europe likes to take tourists for all they have… So, we found our way walking around the city, over bridges, and through some of the tiniest allies I have ever seen!! It was actually quite easy to get around town by foot, although the streets are a joke there because they were built around the canal system. If you ever see a map of Venice, you will know what I am talking about. There are bridges that just stop at someone’s front door step and streets that start out of the middle of no where. It’s quite comical to try to walk in a direct route anywhere in Venice. But, we made it to St Mark’s and got to see a large portion of the city in the process. St. Mark’s was absolutely beautiful. The flying rats (pigeons) that cover the piazza: not so beautiful. The pigeons there are absolutely crazy!! I thought Florence had a problem with flying rats. Nope, Venice has a bigger one. People think it’s fun to feed these gross things, so they constantly fly up to you and land on you and are really brave little suckers. I just ran through them all and watched them fly away, that was my fun for the day. But, the church was absolutely amazing, inside and out. Inside, the ceilings and floors are covered in elaborate mosaics. The floor mosaics are made out marble and the ceilings are done in gold teseri. I doubt it’s real gold, but maybe...it is Venice after all. After we saw St. Mark’s square we did a little more walking around and found a pizzeria that made us a special margarita pizza (because we are awesome…just kidding, I don’t know why.) But it was a darn good pizza. It made me like Venice even a little more. Then we some how found our way back to the other side of the city, to the harbor (although the whole city is basically a harbor…) and we took a water taxi (which is really just like a giant ferry) over to the islands of Murano and Burano. Murano is where the famous Murano blown glass is from (hence the name…) and Burano is famous for their lace. We only stopped very briefly in Murano because it has gotten very touristy since they became known for their glass. However, since Burano is a little more out of the way, it was basically deserted! This was an incredible island! It used to be a very
successful and popular fishing town inhabiting over 22,000 people. Now less than 6,000 people live there. (I will one day make it 6,001…) This island was beautiful though. All the houses are painted in bright colors so that when the fishermen come home in the fog or dark, they can still find their house. (So the old story goes…) But it was like being in Venice, because everything was still navigated by canals, but the houses and buildings were painted absurd colors! It was so beautiful and we ended up staying there until dark. If I didn’t find lace so tacky, I probably would have purchased some because their lace working skills were quite incredible! After we came back on the water taxi, we had just enough time to do a little souvenir shopping before we embarked on what became a nightmare of a trip home. We bought cheaper tickets on way home because we didn’t have any place to be and therefore could take a little bit longer. But cheaper tickets meant we had to switch trains in Bologna. Well, that turned out to be a slight issue seeing as how there was a train wreck and all the incoming trains were four hours late. At this point it was already 10 PM (or 22:00 if you’re from Italy) so I was exhausted! We finally, after talking to about twenty different conductors, found the only train that was going to Florence and hopped on it. It turned out to be a sleeper train, so we had to move around to five different cars until we finally found seats. The final part of the journey was that the train didn’t stop at the right train station and we missed the last train to the other station (which is literally two blocks from home). So, we got to walk for an hour before our journey finally came to an end. So, basically, it was a little stressful at the end, to say the least, but I wouldn’t trade those experiences for the world!!! 
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