Tuesday 9/06 8:07pm Venice, Italia
Obviously, I haven't written in a few days, but Venice kind of wears you out. Now that I have some time, I'll get crackin.
I've now been in Venice for two full days, plus an afternoon, and I swear I've seen everything 20 times. You get lost quite frequently in Venice and so you end up finding the same bridge you just saw, even if you didn't want to see it.
I left Milan on Sunday, and I ended up being at the train station for like an hour and a half because it only took 5 minutes to walk over there. But I got a drink and just watched people until I boarded the train. I kind of slept off and on during the train ride and since it was only about two and a half hours long, it went by really fast. Once we got to the Santa Lucia Venice Station (the Venice station ON the island), I didn't have time to look around and enjoy the first sites, I had to find my hostel. Since I didn't want to be carrying my luggage and looking at a map, I memorized the map the night before, so it was a pretty straight shot to the hostel, but with carry my luggage and crossing bridges, it took a little longer than walking there. BUT, even though carrying all my stuff to the hostels is a little rough, I still prefer having it all then having left something at home. I know that sounds kind of superficial, but at the last hostel, as I was packing up, I was going through everything to see if there was anything I would leave. I could only find 3 things, which I left (one was a tshirt that I had gotten a stain on... easily forgotten). I know when it gets colder, I'll be glad I have my northface!
I read the reviews for the hostel and a lot said they had trouble finding it, but I didn't have any trouble. I can see how a lot of people would have toruble finding it though, it is literally down a street that is 4 feet wide. I guess most people are in the mindset that a hostel should be on a mina "street" or "plaza", but in Venice, the main streets are more like alleys because there are no cars... at most, 4 "people" wide. The plazas are the only place where you don't feel like cattle in a shoot. Anyways, I rang the bell, and they let me upstairs. Turns out, this hostel is very popular with the spanish speaking crowd, because the lady who runs it only speaks spanish... and it is literally in her apartment. A little weird, but I'm not paying much for it and I'm not there often, so it works. I got my key, rested for only about 30 minutes, and then I was off. This afternoon, I mostly walked around close to where I was staying, just because the island itself is a masterpiece. Actually, Venice island is composed of at least 118 little islands, which are connected by bridges, and what is what the canals run through. Most of the buildings are pretty old, having just been renovated instead of torn down and re-built. Since the island was originally navigated by boats, the bridges (which were built later) don't connect streets, just the islands, so if a street meets up with a bridge on one side, it might be 40 or 50 feet down the other side before there is another street. Makes it a little confusing because if you are trying to following a certain street, it usually only runs on one island, then you have to find the name of the next street for the next island. So.Complicated.
As I was wandering around on my first afternoon in Venice, I came across the St. Vidal Church, which happened to be having a concerto that very night of a pretty impressive small ensemble, the Interpreti Venezia. They consist of about 5 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello, a contrabass, and a pianist. I had read somewhere that because there are so many small churchs in Venice, there are always little concerts going on and that the people who actually live there attend them. So I decided I wanted to see what it was all about and I bought a ticket. At that point, I went back to the hostel for a bit, then went and got some dinner and headed to the concert, which started at 9pm. They were great and I absolutely loved it. During the concert though, it started raining, and since the church isn't exactly "up-to-code", the rain started coming through the cracks. Which was right above my head. The storm also knocked out the power for a bit, so we ended up watching most of the second half in a dimly lit church, which made it kind of eerie. But very enjoyable. After that, I was exhausted, which I'm exhausted at the end of everyday, so I went back to the hostel and went to sleep.
The next day, Monday, it was definitely raining. The absolutely first thing I did when I woke up was check the score, and since we won, I knew it was going to be a good day. The hostel had a free breakfast, but it was really just coffee and bread. Either way, I had run out of clif bars the day before, so the bread was better than buying breakfast (actually, it wasn't better, but cheaper. I would have loved to have eaten a pastry at the bakery lol). This was the morning of my Venice walking tour, so I was excited to learn about everything from someone who knew what they were talking about! The tour started at 11am, but since I didn't want to wait much longer to go to St. Mark's square, I headed out at about 945am. The good things about Venice is that while it looks big on a map, it really only takes about 10 to 15 minutes to get anywhere on the island, so I ended up making it to St. Marks square by 10am. The square is huge, and lined around it are shops that are either designer clothes or glass shops or tourist shops. I walked around and looked for awhile, and then decided to find the meeting point for the tour. At this point, there was a steady rain, and while it would have been SO much fun to look like a tourist with a giant umbrella and bump into everyone, I was only wearing my A&M rainjacket, which was the best decision ever. I still looked like a tourist, but I wasn't annoying like a tourist, or in bright yellow... like a lot of tourists.
The tour was great. We were split into groups of about 20 and our tourguide, Luicella, was actually from Venice and is a contract tourguide for several companies (so you know she is good). We spent about an hour and a half walking around St. Marks while she talked, and since we were part of a tour, we got to skip the lines to the Basillica and tour that as well. The Basillica is just amazing. The entire ceiling is painted in gold and your head gets a little strained from looking up so much. We were told not to take pictures, but you'd be surprised how many people just don't listen to that. Luicella then took us on a little tour of residential areas. We saw Marco Polo's house and ended up at the Rialto Bridge, where the tour ended. The Rialto Bridge area is my faaavorite. The entire place is just buzzing and it is lined with vendors of everything. At this point, I was pretty hungry, so I stopped at a vendor and picked out a ham and mozzorella wrap. They even heated it up for me. And since it was from a vendor, it was cheeeeap. I decided to take it by the edge of the water and sit and watch the gondolas and boats go by. Right as I sat down, it stopped raining and the sun started coming out, so it was a good decision. I sat there for awhile and fed my pidgon some crumbs. There were lots of pidgons, but there was one that was my favorite, so I just kept feeding him. He kept running at the others if they got too close to me and while at home, I wouldn't allow this behavior with the doggies, I decided to award his dedication to getting my crumbs.
After this, I walked up and down the streets for a little longer. There were a ton of stand selling fruit cups and I decided that was a pretty healthy snack, so I got a pinapple and kiwi cup, which came with a slice of coconut. How hawaiian of them. At this point, it was getting a little late, so I headed back to the square where the hostel was, and got my gelato and watched some kids try and play soccer, and then went inside. I had a very important game to watch, even if it was a few hours after the fact. I spent about an hour watching the game (on Aggie Athletics, they have the video of the games, but it takes out everything but the actually playing, so it goes by in literally one hour.
After the game, I spent the rest of the night talking to another girl staying there. She attends the university on Venice and is from Milan. Apparently, the dorms don't open for another 2 weeks, but because of the way her classes run, she had an exam the following day (today). It's weird, but she said she just had to rent a bed for a few days. Since she had spent the last few hours studying, she decided a good break would be to drill me on Texas and how it is different from life here. Her reactions were the best, especially when I said that we don't really have a big public transportation system anywhere but the big cities in the east. She was also interested in seeing my cowboy boots and hearing about american universities.
Since this post will already be reeeeally long, I'm going to split up today into a new post!
