Venice

Sunday I went to Venice with some of my roommates. It was a 3 hour train ride and as soon as you get close your surroundings change from green hills to water like that. I didn't realize how much I missed a large body of water until we got to Venice. At home I obviously have the ocean and at school I have lake Champlain. Living in Florence there is the Arno but it is a very dirty river, not the same. Anyways as soon as you walk out of the train station you feel like you have stepped onto a movie set. There is a bridge and canal right in front of you. The streets of Venice are a lot more narrow than Florence. The streets are lined with stores selling masks for carnival, there was even confetti still on the street left over from the celebrations. We had no destination in mind we just wondered around. We eventually ended up near a row of gondolas. A gondola ride is about 20E per person but we all thought it was worth it. The four of us got in the boat and met Nicola our adorable "gondolear" (however you spell it) He told us there are 425 bridges in venice an 132 churches (don't quote me on that) He also told us that he is a marketing major like me, that he grew up in Venice and plans to stay there now that he has this job. He says growing up in Venice isn't that great because there really isn't anything to do there as a child it gets boring. I asked him if the gondolears ever have battles and he said they are all friendly with one another, sometimes they have races but it is all in good fun. Nicola let us all try on his hat and told us other fun facts about Venice along our 3k ride through the grand canal. After our ride we kept walking until we reached the San Marco church. We stopped took tons of picture and continued to walk along the major body of water. This area of Venice reminded me a lot of Newport, RI with all the boats and the old buildings and the smell, made me feel oddly at home. We sat down for a while with our feet hanging over the wall and just looked at the water, it was beautiful. We decided to head back to the station and as we were walking back my phone rang and Auntie (flava flav) Renee called me (SHOUT OUT) it was a pleasant surprise. She jokingly told me I only write about food and gelato in my blogs, so I told her I would try to make them more juicy. When we got to the train station 2nd class tickets were sold out so we had to get first class tickets home which was annoying but they had nice chairs. So far I have been to Rome, Milan, Florence, Pisa and now Venice, and have to say that Venice is my favorite. There isn't much to do there, unless you are with a lover and spending a romantic weekend. Venice is so beautiful and unique, which is why I fell in love with it.