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!