Venice

What a city! Thursday, we got in at dinner time and luckily had a direct train. Our hotel was right near the train station, which was really convenient, and the breakfast was great! I hung out with two girls- one of whom is a student worker, so I was invited to go out for a nice Italian dinner compliments of the program! I had tortellini, my favorite pasta!

Friday we started touring museums and churches at 8:45 am! We finished touring with my class around lunchtime. Then, my friend Tori and I decided to go all around the city. We got really lost, but it was so much fun! I had a poor map, so I would say, I think St. Mark's is in this direction, and then five minutes later, there we were! We went over the Rialto, the famous bridge and saw tons of churchs, including St. Mark's! The pigeons (aka sky rats to Amanda!) were all over the place, definitely grossing me out! The weather was very hot, so of couse I had to eat more gelato! At night, the program had a dinner for us at a restaurant. The food was not too great, but they kept bringing out bottles of wine for us- of course cheap ones. It was crazy!

Saturday we went to more churches and neat small ones all around the city. The artwork in them was incredible. The program gave us free passes to ride on the vaporettas, which are boats that function as the metro, so we rode over to Murano, an island where they make glass. That night we ate at a small restaurant around St. Mark's, and I ran into a friend from high school, Julia Shull! What a small world! She is studying abroad in Tuscany and decided to go to Venice for the weekend as well! That night, there was a huge festival to celebrate the ending of the plague. It is religious in that I think they have it because they prayed for the plague to end, but now I do not see how it is religious at all. There were people and boats everywhere! The waters were really crowded. After sitting on stone by the water for three hours (we weren't really prepared with lawn chairs being in another country and all), there were fireworks! I was really glad to see these since I missed the Fourth of July! The best part was that they played American music the whole time- songs from Grease, heard it through the grape vine, all of it!

On Sunday, I was exhausted after walking so much. I went to mass right down the street at this beautiful church. It was different- most people dressed casually in jeans, there was not any air conditioning, and it only lasted 40 minutes. It was neat to know exactly what they were saying, except everything was of course in Italian. We took the train home yesterday afternoon and had to figure out how to switch trains in Verona because the older trains just saying that they are going to Munich. You have to make sure that they are stopping in Innsbruck.

I loved Venice! It felt like I was walking around in a maze. The only gross part was that since there are not any trees, the dogs can use the bathroom anywhere they please. The food was pretty good. My new favorite sandwich is tomato and mozarella! I even had some amazing pesto sauce for dinner one night! Carb city! The streets were so quaint. The paint was coming off of all of the houses, but they were all so pretty with their rooftop gardens and window boxes! This was the coolest field trip I have ever taken!

Oh and to the Hale clan- I've taught everyone the initial game for train rides, which they all love! If only we could play the alphabet game, I would use Uncle Chris' sneaky "quick release" tactics!