VENICE

This past weekend me and my roommates decided to go to Venice for Carnavale/Valentine’s Day. We took the bus from Siena, then once in Florence we got on a 3 hours train ride. We left in the early morning, so we go to Venice around 1.00pm.

Thankfully every single day was soooo sunny, not a cloud in the sky.

It is safe to say that Venice is the most breathtaking beautiful romantic place I have ever been to in my life. It floats in this gorgeous lagoon and in the horizon line lies the Dolomite Mountains.

With the gondolas and architecture and lagoon, it is no wonder why this place is so unbeliabley romantic.

The first day we all bought masks to wear around that night. We walked around and checked everything out. So many people were coming into the city! Our apartment was this gorgeous place we rented from this woman for the weekend. She owns this huge house 3 minutes away from San Marc’s Square. I even got to sleep in my own room! J

That night we went out to a restauraunt and I got a seafood dish, I had to, I was in Venice, plus being in Tuscany there isn’t much of a fish market whatsoever. I have a seafood spaghetti dish – mussles, scallops, clams, crawfish and shrimp – o m g it was amazing.

That night we just walked around with some other kids from the program. We soon ditched them because they were far too trashed to even hold a conversation. So we passed by the Rialto bridge area, saw an open air party and joined in. It was a rather big crowd and a bar set up. There was “rave” music playing. There were not many drunk people. I was expecting an atmosphere akin to Mardi Gras, but not so. During the day, people were out with their kids and families and lovers were scattered all about every street corner and making out in every gondola. But there were no half naked drunk people or boobs or drag queens, so i considered this to be quite tame.

The way I felt about it was a kid friendly, celebration with some drinking involved, but not necessarily in the sense of excess. Throughout the day there were families w/ kids dressed up in little 17^th Century outfits and such. Very cute. There was definitely a Halloween element to the whole thing. They also had people who would go allll out with their outfits and tourists would flock to them and take pictures. If you are in costume or in a mask , you are not supposed to speak all day to anyone. My friend from the program, Kate, actually made a costume and wore it, mask and all. She said it was a wonderful experience, actually being A PART of the whole celebration. On Saturday night she was sitting in San Marc’s square watching the sunset and all of a sudden a bunch of photographers were taking her photo all fanned out in front of her. She was a Carnavale celebrity for a day.

The next day we went inside San Marc’s and for 3 euros, got to go to the top! Amazinf pictures and views. It was like having a regular’s crow’s nest over the square, looking at all the shenanigans taking place and costumes. The inside of San Marc’s. I was awestruck. All the art work is made of mosaics and the majority is gold mosaic. Really stunning. On the roof of San Marc’s square are these set of statues called the Four Horses, the real ones, are from the 2^nd century BC and are in the top of San Marc’s museum, part of the 3 euro fee. These really struck me. Each horse is so realistic looking and was made of gold. They obviously are no longer all gold. They were actually purposely scratched long ago, because they sight of their gold was blinding on a sunny day. Also, they are said to have been a present to Alexander the Great and were later put into the hands of Constantine.

We then headed out onto the vaparetto (water metro) to go to the Jewish Ghetto. It is a very historical part of Venice, mostly b/c it is a unique part. It is where many Jewish people lived throughout all the hundreds of years of persecution in Europe. There is a small memorial bronze mural in the main piazza for the Holocaust. Also, there is a synagogue across the way, which does tours and has a museum. Unfortunately, it was a Saturday, so we were unable to get in on that interestingness. I kept on thinking about The Merchant of Venice.

That night we went out and went on a ride down the grand canale in a vaparetto. We sat outside of the boat of course, to get the best view – even though it was rather nippy.

The next day we went to the Doge Palace. The Dogi ruled Venice for 1000 years. They were basically like Venice Presidents. They had a pretty strong system of checks and balances like us. The prison is connected to the palace. They must’ve been true believers in the whole “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” phrase. Here, from the prisons that you meander through, you can actually see the Bridge of Sighs. This bridge is the last view prisons would see before they were “summoned” meaning in most all 95% cases, execution. The name comes from what the prisoners would do, sigh at the beautiful view of Venice, before going off to die.

After that we went to the Campinile, the Bell Tower of San Marc’s. We bumped into Kate wandering through the Square with her camera and made her come up the Campinile with us. Kate is a photography major and an very talented one at that. She was in Europe last semester and her work is just beautiful. We insist she get the great views. An elevator takes you to the top and you can see all of Venice and beyond! The Dolomite Mountains and everything! The bells did go off while we were up there. Holy crap it was loud. My ears were ringing. BADUMDUM.

Kate then told us her Saturday nite craziness. So turns out she ran into this American student whose shit had hit the fan with his hostel reservation and he and his friends all got in a huge fight and parted ways earlier that day. So he and Kate hung out and she ended up letting him sleep on the floor of her hostel along with the three other Italians who were sharing the room with her. This comes into play later on…keep that in mind.

Ok, so being the English major DORK that I am, I convinced my roommates to go to Harry’s Bar w/ me. Harry’s Bar is one of Hemingway’s haunts in Venice. The façade is straight up 20s art deco. Walking in, we were greeted by sharp looking older Italian men in white tuxes and black ties. We opted to sit at the bar. Although it was 11.30am I asked if they made Montgomery’s at the Bar. OOOOO Montgomery, really the bartender said, This early in the morning? You won’t be driving anytime soon, will you. I said I wanted what Hemingway drank and he said, yes but he was an alcoholic, you better go with the Bellini.

The Bellini is the famous drink from Venice, their signature. It is champagne and peach juice. Very delicious. We drank this stuff as soon as we go to Venice on Friday. It is “cheap” here, 4.00 euro, anywhere else in Italy the price is double or higher. I think they bartender’s appreciated that I knew some history about the place, cuz they hooked us up!!!! I ordered a 15 euro bellini drink and my roommates ordered coffee. After that the manager came up and chatted with us. He brought over free “dolci”, cookies. One of them was this paper thin light crispy flaky cookie covered in powdered sugar. He said this was also a signature Carnavale cookie from Venice. He then gave us all a round of Bellinis. After an hour of banter and taking the 1920s authentic scenery in, we got out check. The bartender slid it over to us and said a “friendly check”. The bill was only 20 euro. No way all the stuff we got and ordered was that much. The menu was expensive! And all the stuff we got for 20 euro, pretty damn sweet.

We went back to get my other roommate from the apartment and decided to have a goodbye to Venice from the sunny seaside street that had docks on the edges. We brought a bottle of Bellini and drank it while watching the lagoon wave by us. We all dangled are legs off the side and soaked in the sun as it glittered on the water. What a nice way to say goodbye to Venice.

So then we were rudely awoken.

We figured getting out was gonna be noooooooooo ppppprrrrrroooooooobbb. The only problem about that, was that everyone else who was there that weekend was thinking the same thing.

Standing on a vaparetto pick up point squashed like sardines, awaiting a boat. The first boat to come up was full so it just passed us by. Meanwhile everyone is pushing and being rude and we have all our are bags and stuff which seemed to be getting pushed up against us more violently every other second. Carol starts talking to this American guy next to her. They begin reflecting on their Carnavale weekend. He starts telling Carol about his crazy adventure and how he and all his friends parted ways and decided to seek out their own Venice experience after their hostel reservations went to shit. Do you know Kate? I say. “Funny story,” he says with this big grin on his face. So yes, we meet Tim, the random American student who slept on Kate’s floor. Meanwhile the crowd is getting worse and no empty vaparetto coming in sight. We start weighing our options. We know have 30 minutes to get to our train, the ride takes 20. So we’re kinda freaking out. This one fat German couple is puching Carol, who stands at 5’2’’ and they are yelling in German and Carol is telling them off and everyone is mad. So a vaparetto pulls up, and everyone is ambushing it. Tim sees an opening on his side and yells, over this way, we all sneak by the entry way and the Vaparetto takes off. Leaving the fat German couple behind. We waved to them as we left the dock. Yay. We made it on time and talked to Tim on the ride to the train station. Tim paid it forward to us and I found it all very charming in a karmatic sorta way. Also I do not believe that karmatic is a word and yes, my english has been suffering! That’s what happens when you are in a 2.5 hour Italian class M-Thursday!!! I will not be surprised if when I get back I say si and grazie to people. O geeez the stares I will receive.

Travel update: I am going to Paris w/ my roommates in 2 weeks. Two of them are having bdays on the same weekend and what better way to celebrate. Also, Vienna, Mykonos & Athens are booked!