Venice!

Our day in Venice started out peacefully…but it most definitely did not end that way! We got up, noticed that it was a little cloudy out, so we brought in our clothes that we were trying to dry and decided to close our windows, just in case. Boy, were we smart (although I’m sure y’all already knew that). After a pretty bad breakfast, we took a boat to the main island of Venice. The boat, which was called “Invidia” had a very handsome Italian crew member named Lorenzo, so that made the boat ride a little better! We met our local tour guide Marta on the island and she takes us around various “campos” which is what they call the islands (thankfully we didn’t have to walk around all 118 islands). She gave us a lot of information about life in Venice…basically how expensive it is, how hard it is to walk around the islands because of the cobblestone roads and bridges, how their buildings are set up, how their canal systems work, and how their water systems work. After our guided tour, we went to a glass factory to see how they blow glass and make real Venetian glass. I really enjoyed the glass demonstration; the “maestro” (what they call a glass blowing expert) worked extremely fast and even after just 5 minutes had created a beautiful vase. We also got a little background on Venetian glass, which was interesting. We learned that it’s almost indestructible if it has gold leaf on the outside of it, and how to tell if a product is real Venetian glass or not.
After the glass factory, we grabbed lunch, and then went to see Doges Palace. We waited in line for about 15 minutes, and then we realized that we could go straight into the palace since we already had tickets. It was ok, we enjoyed talking to people in line…made it worth the useless wait…not. We walked around Doges Palace for about an hour, we went down to the prison via the “bridge of sighs” (which is where condemned prisoners sighed as they looked at Venice for the last time), and then tried to find our way out…which was harder than we thought. After Doges Palace, we really wanted to find an internet café because we’re young and need our technology fix or we wilt away. By this time, it had started raining a bit. Now, Venice is a slippery city, all stone walkways, stairs, and bridges, and it’s hard to get around in normally, add rain…and we have a situation. So after asking about 3 people for directions to this internet café, we find it. Is it open? No, of course not. The little man who owns this place apparently takes lunch from 10:30-2:30, and we arrived promptly at 1:40 (in retrospect, we know why he can take that long for lunch…he over-charges BIG TIME). Now the dilemma…what do we do to pass the time. Oh I know: go back to that pastry store we saw a ways back and eat the most delectable thing you see! The pastries are sub-par…but the coffee is good, and it takes up about an hour since our waiter apparently didn’t know how to bring the check to our table. We head back to the internet café, pay 2,50 Euro for 30 minutes online, and go our merry way. I will say, the internet was fast and made us all happy again (maybe happiness is worth a couple of Euro). At this time it is about 3:15 and our boat back to the mainland doesn’t leave until 5:10. So we wander aimlessly around Europe for about an hour and a half, do some shopping, and then head back to the boat dock.
When we arrive at the boat dock, we spot some of our fellow group members who have been wandering Venice as well. We chit chat and then decide to go sit on the steps of a bridge by our dock while we wait for the lovely “Invidia” to arrive. As we’re sitting there, we hear thunder, possibly saw some lightning, and then we definitely observe a massive thundercloud of doom heading our way. It was seriously something out of a movie: we saw the cloud, saw the rain, saw the people scatter, and ran to shelter. Our “shelter” was the overhang of a hotel sign that went out about 3 feet. Three feet would typically be enough shelter space, except when you put 60 people in a small area, take into account the 40 mph winds whipping the rain into you, and all the food we’ve eaten has made us a little wider…the space is not sufficient! Luckily, many people had bought umbrellas throughout the day, so we made an “umbrella wall” to block some of the rain. (I rocked my poncho from Aggieland Outfitters all day since I didn’t bring my umbrella, so I stayed pretty dry! I got some comments on how funny I looked walking through Venice with a maroon poncho, but I got the last laugh. Thanks mom for buying me the poncho, it came in handy) The monsoon started around 4:40, so we have at least 30 minutes until we can get on our boat, and it’s cold. Venice was supposed to be about 100 degrees Fahrenheit and I’d say it’s about 70 degrees. Five ten rolls around, no boat, no tour director…five fifteen comes, no boat, no tour director. One of the girls in our group, whose name is Rachel, decides to run out into the torrential downpour without an umbrella and without shoes I think to scream at the top of her lungs for our tour director Vitor. It was probably one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, here’s this soaking wet girl in a dress with no shoes, running out in the middle of a thunderstorm screaming “Vitor” over and over again. Around 5:20, a beacon of hope comes pulling into the dock…our lovely boat! It pulls into the dock and all of us run out to greet it! Well, I guess it had pulled into the wrong dock because then the boat pulls in and out of multiple docks, just toying with our emotions. So here we are, a group of about 50, in the POURING RAIN, running from dock to dock to try to get onto our boat so we can finally be safe from water! (Yes, we notice the irony in getting on a boat to get away from water.) Finally, “Invidia” picks a spot and lets us onboard. We get back to the hotel, have some dinner, and then decide that we’d had a hard day, so we go out to the beach and onto the pier with some other people in our group to hang out and watch the lightning storms going on out in the ocean (far away from us of course, I wouldn’t be caught anywhere near lightning). So that was our eventful day in Venice! Stay tuned for ROMA!!
-Erin and the other three ducks!