Venice Love...

It was sad to leave Dublin, but Venice was really great too! Amy left us to go to Vienna and we met up with Connor in Venice. We arrived in Venice right around dinner time on Wednesday March 21^st. 

As soon as we arrived the first then we noticed was the smell. It smelled like dead fish. It reminded me of being in Muskegon when I was little and there was always that little section of the beach that smelled fishy. It was a little off putting at first, but you got used to it after a while.

We couldn’t really see much since it was night time when we arrived but what we could see was really amazing. I find it so fascinating that the whole city is on water. There are so many bridges to cross and there is no direct route to take anywhere there.

 It was interesting trying to find our hostel the first night. We finally did though and it didn’t take us 3 hours this time! Our hostel was awesome! We actually stayed at a university. They take the rooms that are not being used by students and rent them out as rooms for tourists like ourselves. The room was a good size and we had 2 showers and 3 sinks. It was like having our own small apartment cause it was separate from the main building and everything. It was really nice. I got a kick out of the comforters on the beds too. One side had all these happy little teddy bears on them. It was kind of funny and hilarious and strangely comforting! The beds were super comfortable too! Really soft and cushiony! I loved them!

We were all really hungry for some dinner so we wandered out to go look for somewhere to eat and we found this little restaurant right near the hostel. They had all sorts of things to choose from and Abby and I couldn’t decide if we wanted pasta or pizza so we each ordered one and split them. I ordered the pasta and gave half of it to her and she ordered pizza and gave half of it to me. We had the best of both worlds! It was pretty cheap too. We were all pleased with it.

Our first night there was not exciting since we got there late, but we were all really excited for the next day, but we all agreed to sleep in til 9AM…thank goodness. Traveling is so exhausting!

We took our first full day there pretty slow. We realized that Venice is not a very big city, so there was no rush to try to do and see absolutely everything in one day. We slept til 9:15 and were on our way by 10AM. We basically just wondered around to see what Venice had to offer. There were millions of kiosks of touristy souvenirs, and tons of guys tryin to get you to ride on their gondolas. It is a beautiful city though. Like I said earlier, it is just so fascinating that the city was built completely on water. It was so strange to walk around and not have to worry about crazy drivers hitting you with their cars! It was such a nice break! The streets weren’t really streets, they were like little alley ways everywhere and every now and then you would end up in a giant open plaza. It was really neat. If you needed to go anywhere else they always had a water taxi that you could take.

We did lots of window shopping so that we knew what we wanted to buy in the next few days. But, of course we couldn’t resist buying at least a few things the first day! I discovered these really cool rings that were made out of glass and I became obsessed with them and so did Caroline so we each bought one. Then I decided that I needed a nice purse so I splurged and bought a nice leather one from this little store right off the Grand Canal. A man in maybe his early 30s was running the little shop and he spoke really good English and was telling us how only he and his mom made all of the purses and there were awards all over the walls for winning “Best Leather” contests and stuff. He was so nice. The purse was only 65 euro and I am absolutely obsessed with it. It was the best purchase I have made so far this whole time I have been gone.

Then we were all getting hungry but we didn’t want to keep spending money by going out to eat constantly so we went to the supermarket and bought bread and jelly and we found peanut butter finally and bought other little snacks and fruit and it ended up being about 1.50 euro each for lunch. It was the best idea we had! It was so good too!

 It has been forever since I have had peanut butter and I felt like I was in heaven eating it! Loved it! We just sat on the ground right next to the Grand Canal to eat it. The weather was perfect. It was a really nice day.

We wandered around some more and ended up running into the Dogana by accident. It was beautiful. It looks like a fairytale palace! 

The roof was my favorite part! This beautiful giant structure was just in the middle of this small city on the water. It was amazing! Then we continued on our way and did some more window shopping and then went back to the hostel to rest for a little while. For dinner we walked around and found this place that sold giant pizzas at a pretty low price so we just split 2 of them and each bought a drink and sat on some stairs that went into the water and people watched as we enjoyed out giant-over-sized slices of pizza. It was a really nice and chill day.

The next day (Friday, March 23^rd) was pretty chill too. Venice was just chill in general. Woke up around 9AM again. We decided that we wanted to venture over to Murano to see the famous glass blowing. So we got on the water bus and headed over there. The ride over there was so pretty! The weather was beautiful that day. I was able to wear a tank top and be completely comfortable! Everything is so beautiful there. All the scenery was great. It was about a 15 minute ride to the island of Murano. As soon as we got off there were people there telling you were to go to see the glass blowing in person. 

We found one that was free to go into. It was really cool to see them working on it. It blows my mind to see how it works. They do it so casually and even smoke while doing it like it is no big deal…which I guess for them it isn’t that big of a deal since they do it all the time but it was amazing to watch. It was a lot smaller and a lot faster than what we thought it was going to be but it was free and we got to see how it was done.

Then we had the rest of the day to kill on the tiny island of Murano. There were millions of stores with Murano glass in them. They were all so beautiful and some of the were so intricate it was amazing! I find the glass to be so fascinating! I found a lot more of those glass rings and I know have 8 of them total. I am a little obsessed with them! They are just so pretty and cool and so different from anything I have ever seen at home. I am very happy with all of them. I never paid more than 8 euro for them either, so they were pretty cheap and totally worth it! I found some pretty good presents for people back home there too. It was a very successful and relaxing day in Murano. We packed what was left over from our PB&J picnic from yesterday and had another picnic in Murano and even stopped for some gelato before heading back to Venice.

We went back to the hostel for a little while to drop our purchases off and to freshen up for dinner. We wandered around and were basically hunted down to eat at this small little outdoor restaurant. It was really good! I just got pasta alla pomodoro and split a plate of fries with Caroline! Haha it was so good! The waiter was hilarious and joked and messed with us the whole night. It was a good dinner and nice day. We all went to bed really early that night which felt really good!

It was a good thing we went to bed so early the night before because we woke up at 5AM the next morning. We thought it would be cool to watch the sun rise over the Grand Canal, so that is exactly what we did. There is something amazing and relaxing about being awake before most people. Everything outside is so calm and serene. It was beautiful. We found a nice place on a bridge and waited for the sun. We didn’t talk, we just sat there in quiet and it was amazing. I am so glad that we woke up early for that. The colors in the sky were amazing and the boats floating in the water with small islands in the background. It was perfect. It was a little cloudy, but that made it that much more beautiful and interesting to look at. I loved it.

Obviously we were all tired, so we went back to the hostel to sleep for a few more hours before heading out for the day. Today was the day that we were gonna put all our window shopping to use. We had scoped out where all the best prices were for everything so we hit up the town to buy all of our souvenirs. I bought so much stuff in Venice! Most of it wasn’t for me though, so I didn’t feel so bad about it. One of the girls I went with bought some of the most beautiful masks that I have ever seen. They were all sorts of colors and sparkles and feathers. They were amazing! 

They also had amazing jewelry and scarves. The shopping in Venice is amazing! I even went back to the leather place from the first day to buy a wallet. I think I became his favorite customer! I showed up and he joked with me and said “Oh, you are back! What do you want this time?!” then as I was leaving he said “Okay, Ciao, see you tomorrow again!” It was hilarious! I loved that man! Wasn’t bad looking either! Haha  Then we went on a gondola ride! It was really awesome! 

Normally it is about 30 euro per person, but since it was the morning and they were desperate for people to take a ride they cut it down to 15 euro per person instead. Score!! It was really cool. It was terrifying to get on and off of the gondola! It was shaking and rocking sooooo much! But we made it without fallin in thank goodness! The gondola guy was really funny. He sang a little bit for us and pointed out some buildings for us and told us a little bit about Venice. It was really nice and totally worth it!

Then me, Caroline, and Carly went back to the hostel to sleep some more! Haha we were so tired! We just chilled out for a few hours and met up with Shaina, Abby, and Connor at San Marco Plaza. Wow! San Marco was…just wow. It was a giant open plaza with the most intricate building I have ever seen. It was so gorgeous. 

There was also a group of people all dressed in red headdresses and outfits, it was a little creepy, but kind of cool at the same time.  San Marco Plaza was also like pigeon central! I have never seen so many pigeons in my entire life! They were all over the place. You could even buy food to feed them. These pigeons were crazy! 

They would fly up to you and land right on top of you and just chill there. It was nuts!! The people that allowed it to happen were even crazier! It was fun to watch though.

It was about time for dinner and we were starving! We decided to go eat in the Jewish Ghetto. We heard that they had some great restaurants there so we had to find out for ourselves. The rumors were true. We wanted to go to this little place but the wait was an hour and a half long and our tummies could not wait that long! So we wandered a little further and found this outdoor restaurant with decently priced food. I just got a margarita pizza, but I should have gotten the potato pizza!! Wow! Carly ordered it and it was literally a pizza with a pile of fries on top of it! It was genius and I have no idea why I had never thought to do that before! It is easily my new favorite pizza though. Ugh, so good!! Alas, it was time for bed since we had to wake up early to leave to get back to Tuscania the next morning.

We were up and ready to leave by 8AM. We had a long day of traveling ahead of us. We took a 6 hour long train ride from Venice to Rome. We had assigned seats on this ride. I was in a cabin with Caroline and Shaina and 3 other strangers. It was so uncomfortable! I had a middle seat. It was set up kind of like how it is on Harry Potter when they take the train to Hogwarts. Benches on both sides of the cabin, except here it was much smaller than the ones in Harry Potter were. We were so cramped with all of our luggage and it was just so uncomfortable. Eventually the 3 other people trickled out of our cabin cause they got off at other stops and Abby came to our cabin to join us for the remaining 2 hours of the ride that we had left. Then it was much more bearable cause we were able to stretch out and get more comfy. We wish it was like that the whole trip! Then we pretended like we were in the Harry Potter movies. It was hilarious.

We were a little delirious from our lack of sleep and rest the past week. Once we arrived in Rome we had to catch another train that took us to Tarquinia. This ride was only an hour and we didn’t have assigned seats this time and it was not so crammed. Much better. Once in Tarquinia we had a taxi take us back to Tuscania.

It felt so nice to be back in Tuscania. We missed it. I even missed my rock hard, tiny bed. Tuscania truly has become my new home. I have a feeling that once I am back in Belleville I will feel like I am just visiting and will be missing my apartment here in Tuscania! It was a long day of traveling and it was a lot of fun catching up with Sara and Jenny and exchanging stories of our spring break. It was awesome.

I really enjoyed my spring break in Dublin and Venice. Definitely the best spring break I have ever had. DUH! Sorry it took only 20 years for me to actually post about it, but I was waiting on getting pictures from everyone since I did not have many. I will get back on track with this whole blog thing eventually! But overall it was an amazing trip and very exhausting, but totally worth it! I cant wait to go back to my future home in Dublin and to visit Venice again. It was great!

Until next time…ciao!

Seeing the 'Aminals' and Gettin My Holy On

On Tuesday I got to sleep in a little bit til 9AM. We split up into groups cause we all wanted to do different things. Carly, Shaina, and Abby all went to Kilkenny (of Kelkenny? I don’t remember) and then me, Caroline, and Amy went to the zoo! It was a good day. It was so nice to sleep in for a little bit! We got goin and had such good luck with buses that day! No way were we gonna try to walk all the way there when we had no idea where we were going! So we took a bus, and had perfect timing for catching it and took it to Phoenix Park. The park was so pretty! I guess, looking back at it that it looked just like any other park like in the US, but it seemed so serene and beautiful to me that day. As soon as you crossed over the line that separated the park from the rest of Dublin, it was like the world went completely silent.

 I have only experienced that in only one other place in my life and that was at the Harvard campus in Boston. It is so crazy to me how drastic of a change it was. We had to walk through the park to get to the Dublin zoo, and I am glad we did.

We got to the zoo just as it was starting to open for the day which was perfect cause then it wasn’t crowded with people all over the place. It was almost like we had to zoo all to ourselves. Just us and the animals! The zoo was like any other zoo, where it was divided up into different sections like the monkey house, the water animals, and the animals from Africa. It was really cool and it was a lot bigger than what I expected it to be.  There were  a few animals that I had never heard of before. There was this thing that looked like a kangaroo, rat, deer, and bunny all mixed together called a Mara. 

I thought they were cute, but Caroline and Amy didn’t seem to fond of them! Then things like a Tapir, red panda, African hunting dog, and the most terrifying bird EVER called Abyssinian Ground Hornbill. That thing like attacked us through the window and was HUGE! It was scary! Haha and they had peacocks loose walking around and they didn’t seem to fond of us either, but they were so beautiful to look at! 

Then the gorillas, tigers, and otters would come right up to the window as if you were right there with them. It was pretty cool to see. 

Then just like at the St. Louis zoo, they had random parts where you could pose with fake animals, so naturally I became friends with the gorillas and penguins! 

They also had a farm animal section with the most adorable baby goats and the most terrifying roosters! I don’t think that birds in Ireland like me very much now that I think about it.

 Overall I really enjoyed the Dublin zoo and I am glad that we went there.

Afterwards we grabbed some late breakfast/early lunch at this little café place right outside of the zoo inside the park. It was called The Tea Room. It was so cute! It was like a healthy and gluten free place and it was super delicious! I ordered a ham and cheese flat bread. Oh, wow! I want one right now just thinking about it! They coat the flatbread in some type of sweet tomato dressing on the inside of it and it was absolutely genius! I loved it!

 While we were sitting and enjoying our food this cute little old man came over and started to talk to us and as we talked we learned that he was a sketcher/artist. He showed us some of his work and it was really cool. He used pencil and ink together in a beautiful way. He just sketched what he thought was beautiful around him. Then he gave Amy a free sketch of Trinity College because he overheard of talking about going there for a visit later in the day. He was the sweetest man! We heard his whole life story and he told us about how much he loved his wife and how she had passed away but he always keeps a picture of the 2 of them in his wallet so that they will always stay together forever. He was so precious!

So we got side-tracked for a little while talking to him and finally got back on track and headed back towards the bus to make our way to Trinity College. As we were walking through the park we saw this guy in the distance. Then we all started to hysterically laugh. He was doing some type of tai-chi and yoga and karate mix. It was like nothing we had ever seen before and it seemed like a joke! It was hilarious. He was doing random kicks and making noises. Oh wow, it was hilarious! Alas, we finally made it to the bus stop. As we were looking at the bus schedule to figure out which bus we needed to take and where we needed to take it to an older woman stops and sees that we are confused and asks us where we are trying to get to and we told her and a bus pulls up and she says that this is the bus that we need to take (perfect bus timing once again!). She then gets on the bus with us even though she didn’t seem like she was going to get on the bus when she stopped to help us. She told us that she would ride the bus and let us know when we needed to get off. She was nice to do that, but she was a little sketchy too! So we were on the bus and then a lady and her little daughter (who could not have been more than 4 years old) gets on and as soon as the little kid passes the lady that was helping us, the lady starts to say “Disgusting child! Disgusting!” and she was telling this to me and I didn’t want to be rude since she was helping us but I also wasn’t going to agree with her so I was like “uhhh, huh, yeah?” Apparently this little girl made some nasty gesture to the older woman that was inappropriate, but none of us saw it so we are thinking this lady is crazy! Then all of a sudden we hear the little 4 year old girl start saying (excuse my language, I am just quoting the 4 year old!) “Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off!” really fast over and over and we all start busting out laughing! How is this little kid saying this and making nasty gestures to people! It was nuts! And her mother wasn’t stopping her from saying it either! It was so funny and so inappropriate at the same time! Then this old man comes on the bus probably in his late 70’s and sits down next to the lady that is helping us get to Trinity College. All of a sudden he is mubling really loud saying nothing but jibberish, but he is acting as though he is carrying on a conversation with someone. Then he starts laughing at himself as if he just heard a really funny joke. It totally caught us off guard and we couldn’t help but laugh, but we tried to keep the laughter to ourselves cause clearly something was wrong with this man. Then the little girl from before come walking up with her mom to get off the bus and the little girl says “Damn you!!” in an almost demonic voice! She was nuts! I have no idea what her mother is teaching her, but it is not good! Then that caused the old man to talk even louder and laugh even harder to himself (or the voices in his head!). Then all of a sudden the lady that is helping us starts poppin prescription pills like its Halloween candy. She just grabs them out of her purse and starts eating them! She then asks the old crazy man if he had been drinking and he replies “Of course I have! I know where you’re from!!” and the lady just continued to eat her pills. It was such a bizarre bus ride! Finally the lady told us that we were at our stop that we needed to get off at….thank goodness! We couldn’t wait to get off of that bus! As the bus pulled away the old lady was waving at us goodbye with a sketchy smile on her face as she was poppin more pills. We felt like we had just left the twilight zone or something. It was so strange and weird and bizarre we couldn’t even get over it!

We were finally at Trinity College though! We really wanted to go see the library cause I guess it is famous and really gorgeous and big and amazing so we left to go find it. When we did we saw that it cost 9 euros to get in to the library and we were not about to pay that much to just walk in and out of it. So we just walked around the campus for a little while. Wow, that campus is gorgeous! (of course it was, it was in Ireland…land of the gorgeous everything!). 

I would absolutely love to go to that college! It is right smack-dab in the middle of all the shopping and pubs of Dublin and has its own little area. It was adorable. It was really cool to walk around and see all the students walking around. There were so many different types of people. It was very similar to college campuses at home. You had your nerds, your fashionistas, and your alternative groups. It was interesting to people watch there. Then we found the place of where the man from the café this morning had drawn on the sketch that he gave to Amy and Amy posed with her sketch in front of it. It was pretty cool to see it in person, I must admit.

Then we had done everything that we had set out to do that day and it was not even 3 in the afternoon yet. We had a lot of time to kill before the rest of our group got back from their trip so naturally we went shopping! We found their shopping mall, which was really amazing looking. The whole ceiling was windows with cream paneling and everything was so bright and open. It was really pretty! 

We didn’t stay in there very long though cause we were more interested in the shops that were outside. They had so many cute little shops. We found some really great deals on clothes since the stores are trying to get rid of a lot of stuff to make room for all the spring and summer clothes. It was yet another moment of great timing! Definitely dropped a few bucks that day on clothes and what not.

 Then we stopped in this church/museum place to look around and I met a group of about 7 or 8 Irish school girls. They were adorable! They heard me talk and got so excited and asked where I was from and one of the girls says “Oh my! I know all the states and capitals! Go ahead, ask me any of them!” So I tested her and she definitely knew her stuff! I don’t even remember all the capitals! I was pretty impressed. They were hilarious to talk to. Then they asked what I did on St. Patrick’s day and I told them where we went and they said “oh, of course you did. You are a tourist!” so then they told me where all the good pubs are that the locals go to that most tourists over look. I am so glad I met them cause we went with their advice about the pubs later and it was so good! They told us to go to this place called O’Neil’s cause they have the best food. But, before we went there we went back to Temple Bar for a drink and some snacks  and did some more shopping, but this time it was for the touristy souvenir junk. Then we trucked our butts back over to O’Neil’s. It was really good. We got some ice cold beers, some good old fashioned hot wings, and chips. I had been craving hot wings since I got here and they were so good! They were a lot hotter than I expected them to be though! Holy cow my mouth was on fire for what seemed like forever! We were waiting around for the other girls to get back from their trip and we realized it was almost 10PM. We were starting to get tired and didn’t want to wait for them anymore so we started to trek back to the hostel. As we were walking back though we ran into them and exchanged some stories with them about our days and met them back up at the hostel since they hadn’t eaten dinner yet. It was yet another successful day in Dublin!

The next day we had to get to Venice for the second half of break! Our plan didn’t take off until around 4PM though so we still had some time to kill in Dublin and we still wanted to see a few more things before we left. We got up around 7AM so that we would have enough time to go out and do things and come back for our bags before we had to leave for our flight.

Our first stop was Christ Church. Christ Church is the oldest church in Ireland. It was so pretty. It was very gothic style and was in the center of all of the hustle and bustle. 

We didn’t have time to go inside of it though cause we also wanted to go to St. Patrick’s Cathedral before we left which was a little bit of a walks away. St Patrick’s Cathedral was amazing! The grounds outside of is were beautiful! They had a little park area with flowers of every color and a fountain right in the center with benches all over to enjoy the scenery. The Cathedral itself was giant and gorgeous! We definitely wanted to go inside this one and it only cost about 4 euros each. 

When we got inside they were having a service going on that was almost over. A choir of elementary aged boys was singing. It was one of the most beautiful and relaxing sounds I had ever heard in my entire life. I could have sat there and listened to them all day. It was so smooth sounding and pretty. I loved it. I was a little upset when they were done. The cathedral was gorgeous though. The stain glass windows were unlike anything I had ever seen. They were so huge and intricate.

 I cannot imagine how much time it took to do all of them and there were so many of them! You just had a feeling of calmness consume you when you were inside the cathedral. It was an amazing feeling. I could have sat there in silence all day too. I really enjoyed it.

We had to leave though to get back to the hostel in time to grab out stuff before check out time. After grabbing our stuff we still had a few hours before we needed to get to the airport so we went out for breakfast and last minute shopping. We went to this great place fore breakfast. It was buffet style and was only 6 euros for 4 items plus toast and coffee. It was so delicious! The hashbrowns and the sausage were to die for! Then some of the girls wanted to buy some gifts for family members so we walked around for a bit. As we were walking around we saw a lot of street performers and even some PETA people. One of the street performers was this older man and was singing opera. It was beautiful! He was do great. We all decided to give him some change cause we enjoyed it so much. It was really nice.

Sadly, it was time to leave Dublin. We got to the airport and were headed out by 4PM to Venice!

Ireland is definitely my favorite place in the world. I seriously plan on moving there someday. I absolutely loved it. Everything there was just so perfect. There was nothing about it that I didn’t like! It was a dream come true. It was exactly what I was expecting and then some more. It lives up to all of its expectations that the movies give it for sure! I highly recommend that everyone goes there before they die. It truly is an amazing place.