A Visit to Venice

Goodbye Milan....next stop Venice!

Immediately walking out of the train station I was in awe of the sinking city. It was a world a had never seen before and just could not stop smiling glancing around and taking in all of the gondolas, water taxis and restaurants lining the canal.

The five of us got straight to it and bought our first ever water taxi/bus ticket. Venice's transportation is basically just like any other city, a bus...but on water. So a bus boat. You walk on to the platform right on the water, it is a small waiting area on a dock and you wait patiently for your water bus to pull up, and then you board. The water bus took us to our designated stop and we managed to find our hotel. Our hotel, I have no idea how we found it, was located in the tiniest little street you have ever seen. If I had not coincidentally looked to my right we may have never found it. We checked in, after waiting about 45 minutes (apparently there had been some sort of Holiday over the weekend, so that the man working at the desk had not read the 200 emails in their mailbox, plus we were early for check in) but nevertheless we set down our bags and headed out to explore.

All of of us were STARVING at 2 in the afternoon, not having eat really anything all day. We found a pizza place, YUM. Venice, you have very delicious pizza, thank you for sharing it with us. I got mushroom pizza of course. All of my friends are realizing my slight affinity for mushrooms. If there is a dish with mushrooms in it on the menu, I order it.

Afterward warming our bellies, we walked, well, swerved and twisted through the tiny streets of Venice. The fish market was out, and there was fresh shrimp, fish, squid, scallops, octopus, you name it, these Venice fisherman were setting it out to be sold. The fishy smell and sulfur smell filling the canals grows on you after a few hours. But the sights definitely make up for the stench. We found our way to Saint Mark's (Marco's) Square. Gorgeous. It is right on the open water and the church and tall buildings are picturesque. We rode the elevator to the top of the bell tower, to look out onto the entire city of Venice. wow. Two of the sides are all clay tiled roofs and terracotta colored houses and buildings. The colors of the city are so warm The other two sides are all water and you can see a few mountains in the horizon. I took a lot of pictures attempting to catch the entire view. I wanted to ring the bells, but apparently that is not allowed. So next time Venice.
The next stop was the Argentinia Museum, full of renaissance art. We met up with fellow Roman traveler Oliver and his mom Linda (Loliver). We all walked thoughout the museum, staying out of the freezing cold.
For dinner we met up with a few badgers studying abroad in Barcelona. Our group was big and we started out with a spritzer at a small cozy bar. The choices were sweet or sour spritzer, I chose the sweet and it was pretty tasty. I guess the spritzer is a very popular drink in Venice. After the drinks followed dinner at a restaurant able to seat all 20 of us! It was a great atmosphere and we all shared wine, pizza and pasta dishes. Loliver and I split a very tasty prosciutto, artichoke heart and mushroom pizza. It was molto bene. We sat for awhile to digest our dinners, then exited the restaurant doors to cold rain...so we went to a bar. It was a small soccer bar, we found it because of the bumpin' loud music and bright blue lights flooding out into the street. Our crew of 20 were the only americans, we basically filled the whole bar, but there were plenty of italians joining in on our fun. Venice, not being known for it's nightlife ended up showing us a pretty good time. Jori and I were offered a private gondola ride from an Venice native, who's friend supposedly was a gondola driver...he showed us a picture of him wearing his striped shirt uniform and hat sitting in is gondola, but I still don't believe him for a second. We turned him down nicely, don't worry.
The next morning we ate a free breakfast at the hotel (croissants filled with orange jelly interesting) but hey it was free. We sadly checked out of our memorable hotel (we had a handicapped room) and said goodbye to Tony, the man at the front desk who turned out being friendlier than we thought.
The trip to Venice ended with a water bus ride around the city, we rode a pretty far way down the canal, and then headed back to the train station. After 6 hours our original 6 person traveling group made it safely back home to Rome.
All in all the very fast trip to Milan and Venice was three days jam packed with site seeing, eating and great company, oh and lots and lots of walking. Dad, let's go back to Venice in the summer and we can ride and look at all of the boats, you would love it!
Now, I am back in Rome, back to class, and very appreciative of and comfortable in my apartment. Next stop Paris (and 21 birthday babbyyyy!)