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[America, how I've missed you!]

Venice = A Giant Maze

Ciao!

Another week gone! We’ve spent this week in Venice and Loreto. Last Saturday night Melissa and I took an overnight train from Paris to Venice. (Let me just say quickly how fun it was to lug all of our bags and heavy suitcases through the Paris metro, transferring 3 times and lugging up and down stairways, walking the mile to the train station, lifting on and off trains, and our escapade in Bologna… thankfully there were some gentlemen in Venice…) The train cabin was very small and there was another girl with us. Ironically she was Spanish and studying in Paris – going to Italy for holiday – so we could practice a little Spanish with her and she could practice her English. Although my space was only about 1 ½ feet high, I didn’t really mind. I just laid there writing and listening to my music. It was so nice to just relax. Once we arrived in Venice we found our hostel and dropped our bags off. Our hostel was right on the grand canal! The first night they put us in this private apartment (moldy bathroom… not cool) but the second night (Monday night) our room was overlooking the canal. When I woke up Tuesday morning I literally thought it was pouring outside all morning because of the water sloshing around from all the boats. Haha! 

View outside our window

Sunday morning after dropping our bags off we found this great café for breakfast with amazing fresh-squeezed orange juice. Soo good and refreshing!! In Europe they drink a lot of juice. A lot more juice and water than pop. Fresh orange juice is the best. We found some steps on a canal and ate, watching the gondolas go by. It was so different than Madrid or Paris – much quieter and peaceful. We made our way through the winding streets to our tour starting point and took a gondola ride and a walking tour of the city. No, our gondoleer didn’t sing. I wish! It was very surreal. Very peaceful. (My camera was dead this whole day so no pictures of the ride…) The two main ‘attractions’ in Venice are the Rialto Bridge and San Marco square, where there is a huge cathedral. There are also pigeons EVERYWHERE in Venice. Pretty much everywhere in Europe. In the train station even, you name it. I am allergic to something in Italy. I thought maybe it had something to do with the pigeons but someone suggested it might have been from all the mold in Venice, which is much more likely! It seems to be getting a bit better so we’ll see.

Part of St. Marco's Square

Sunday night we ate dinner at this little café and had our first Italian pizza! It was good (although not as good as I expected). The Italians also don’t believe in butter. On your bread you just put oil. On your toast you just put nutella (YESS) or jam. Although the toast is really an American thing. Also on your salad you just put oil and vinegar, or oil and salt. Which I’m totally fine with. We managed to make it back successfully to our hostel in the dark. Yay! Don’t worry, Venice is actually a very safe city, or so our tour guide said. It’s SO EASY to get lost in Venice. The walkways are sometimes very narrow and sometimes just lead to a dead end. The city is like a huge maze. Venice is virtually made up of 118 islands, and it’s these little walkways and bridges that connect them. There are literally no cars in Venice. They have police boats, ambulance boats, bus boats, and we even saw luggage boats and a hearse boat!! Boating is obviously the easiest way to get around, and if you don’t have a boat you have to make your way through the giant maze to get anywhere. I thought it was kinda fun. We had a map but it didn’t really help because not all the streets and walkways were on it. Luckily there were signs everywhere pointing to the main bridge and square.

Cafe where we ate dinner

On Monday we took a boat tour of three islands surrounding Venice. Oh also – it was SO hot there – Madrid was hot but it was a dry heat, and Paris was pretty cool, highs in the low-mid 70’s maybe. Italy is very humid. Anyway, the islands were all so cool and each so different from the others. The first island, Murano, was where one of the main glass factories is and we saw a short glass-blowing demonstration. If you ask me, the Corning glass museum demo in Corning, NY was way cooler (not to mention way longer). I still enjoyed this one and the little museum they had. Beautiful chandeliers!

The second island, Burano, was so quaint and picturesque. It had tons of little fishermen’s houses painted in brightly different colors. I loved it! Lace originated here and there was a lace shop where we could see a lace making demonstration.

Burano

 

The third island, Torcello, was definitely the most different. It was very naturey and we did not feel like we were in Italy anymore! We walked by this canal to get to the ruins of an old church. It smelled like the outdoors and was very countryish and felt like a nature preserve or something. I don’t think I’m very good at describing it lol. Hopefully the pictures help a bit.

Torcello

We were so glad we did this boat tour. I don’t think many of the tourists get to see these islands, and they were all so unique! The boat ride was fun too (minus the sweltering heat) because there was a family from Puerto Rico on there who were singing (In Spanish ;) and joking with everyone and they had the whole boat smiling and laughing. I think it’s really fun meeting people from other countries. One of the girls in our hostel thought Melissa and I were Canadian because of our accents. Haha! We might as well be Canadian. Our friends in Spain from NY made fun of us saying we were from Canada too. My favorite is meeting other people from the states. It’s like you’re instantly connected.

Monday night we took a ghost tour of Venice. It was fun but not exactly what we were expecting. It was similar to the original walking tour we took, and was even by the same tour guide, Francesco. We did get to see Marco Polo's house, and that was cool. We ate gelato after and we found a music group on top of the Rialto Bridge, so we just sat eating our gelato listening to them. Pizza and gelato pretty much sums up our food experience in Venice. Fine by me! On Tuesday morning we made our way to the train station to head here to Loreto. We met a Robert from Dallas on the way to the station who actually carried both of our bags (at the SAME time) up the huge bridge for us. We were so thankful! We took two hot trains to Ancona, where Cristiano Giuseppetti picked us up and took us to his home in Loreto. More on that to come in my next post…

The Grand Canal

Where have you been?

Dear Dutch subway slide,

Where have you been? Where were you when I had to lug my 50+ lb suitcase and bags all over the Madrid metro? Or the Paris metro? Or how about on the Italian trains? Hm??? I wish there were more of you. Please get back to me.

Sincerely,
Worn out

Si. I mean Oui.

At the moment I'm actually in Italy but I wanted to catch up a little bit with Paris first. I've found that it's very hard to keep up with this blog, but now that I have a few days to relax, I may have a chance to upload a few things. Paris was great. It reminded us of home instantly because it was overcast and cooler. Go figure. We found Paris to be much better than Madrid. The food was great and we were just able to function better. Probably because it's the #1 tourist city in the world so most people spoke English, and by this time we were used to using a metro system and navigating on our own. The people were actually pretty friendly and a few times we were saved by the kindness of strangers. It was pretty hard in the beginning to get out of Spanish mode! I found myself saying "si" many times instead of "oui" and it was hard for my brain to stop thinking in Spanish. We were able to cram a lot into 2 1/2 days! I got to do so many wonderful things. My favorites would probably have to be climbing up inside the Eiffel Tower at night when it was all lit up, and seeing the Paris Opera House. I also really enjoyed my banana and nutella crepe =)
Here are some highlights of Paris in pictures:

The Palace of Versailles!

Versailles Gardens

Marie Antoinette's House

(Room inside the house)

The Seine River (and Notre Dame)

The Louvre

The Mona Lisa!

Notre Dame at sunset

Climbing inside the Eiffel Tower!!

Inside the (gorgeous) Paris Opera House

It was also here in Paris that Melissa and I had to say goodbye to our wonderful friends we made on our trip. We all became family for 4 weeks, and we've seen each other at our worst and our best lol! It was such a pleasure spending time with you girls and I can't wait until our reunion! I am going to miss you girls! Love you!!