Venice

Venice was probably my favorite place out of all the places we went in Italy. The flight getting there was kinda rough, but once we got there, it was well worth it. We stayed in a nice, little, historic hotel called the Pensione Guerrato. It was just a couple of blocks from the Rialto Bridge. This is a shot taken from the Rialto Bridge.The evening that we got into Venice, we met our tour group and shortly afterwards we did an orientation of Venice, which basically just involved us walking in the streets of Venice and Karin, our tour guide, telling us about the city of Venice. She led us to a "surprise". We had no idea what it was. Later on we found out that Karin had arranged for us to go on a Gondola ride! It was so much fun! It was probably one of my most favorite experiences while in Venice. Karin arranged for a singer and an accordion player to come too, and they serenaded us. It was pretty cool. This is a picture of me and my mom on the gondola ride.It's kinda strange. All the Italians eat dinner really late. I normally have dinner around 6:00, but here, restraunts don't open until later. When you are in a restraunt and you sit down, the table you are sitting at is considered "your table" and you can sit there as long as you want. You are in no rush to eat and go. They assume you want to be there for awhile, so you actually have to go get your waiter if you want your bill so that you can leave. Also, another thing they do differently is lunch. For lunch, everyone goes home. If you work, you close up your shop for a couple of hours and you prepare a meal for your family. Kids even get to leave school and go home for a family meal. All the shops are closed for this, so if you want to shop around lunchtime and in the early afternoon, good luck finding shops that are open!

For dinner the first night, we went around 8:30. We had the choice of getting a regular pasta dish or a seafood pasta dish. I chose the first option because I am honestly not a big fan of seafood. Venice is apparently known for having good seafood tho, and those that chose it were not disappointed. My meal was okay, but I definitely ate better food while in Italy. It seemed like as the week progressed the food got better and better. I tried to remember to take pictures of all of my meals at dinner. This is what I had:The following day, my mom, and two tour members - David, Jennifer, and I decided to go to the home of Peggy Guggenheim. She was a lady who collected a lot of modern art. Some of the paintings I didn't really care for, but there were some that I thought were really cool. She was a big fan of an artist by the name of Richard Pousette-Dart. She had a whole building filled with all of his art. There was one painting of his that was soooo cool! When looking at it from across the room, it looked like light was coming out of it. It is entitled, "Lost in the Beginnings of Infinity". Unfortunately, they did not allow pictures here. When I went into the bookstore, I decided to buy a magnet of it, but it does not do the painting justice at all. I just found a picture of it online, so this is it:
After lunch, we toured St. Marks and the Dogge Palace. Here are some pictures of these places.The last picture is a picture taken inside the Dogge Palace. You can see Saint Marks from it obviously.

We later went into Saint Marks for a mass. Mom wanted to hear their organ and I guess just experience what a mass is like. I don't know what my deal was, but I was extremely tired, and I actually fell asleep during the mass. I kept on nodding off. I felt bad, but I couldn't help it. The mass was in Italian, so I had no idea what they were saying. My mom was expecting the music to be impressive, but she was quite disappointed with the music. We ended up leaving during communion, which I'm actually glad about because I've heard that Catholics don't like you to have communion unless you're Catholic or something like that.

Later on that evening, we went to a concert. This was something that I really wanted to do, and I really enjoyed that. It was a bit expensive, but I thought it was worth it. It was held in Chiesa di S. Giacometto - the oldest church in Venice. It was a pretty small church. This is the church the concert was held in. About 35 people showed up for the concert, and that's about as many people the church could hold comfortably. There were four instrumentalists, and then they had three soloists altogether who alternated in between songs. One was a singer, and the other two were violin players. The singer was really good, and the violin player was AMAZING! Most of the songs that were performed were by Vivaldi. This probably was my favorite thing that we did that day.

The next day, we got up early and went to the Academie of the Fine Arts. This honestly bored me, and I was not happy about being there so early in the morning. There was a coffee shop right near the Academie, so a bunch of us from the tour went in there. I definitely needed a pick- me-up, so I got an espresso, and my mom got a latte. I'm not a fan of coffee, but I needed caffeine in my system b/c we had a big day ahead of us still. My mom and I decided to switch drinks, and I actually liked the latte better. I guess it's b/c I don't care for black coffee, and a latte has more milk in it.

Anyways, our next stop was the Gondola workshop. They had a place in Venice where they build gondolas. Karin told us all different kind of facts about this trade. Only a select number of people know how to make gondolas. It is passed down through generations. A father teaches his son, and the son teaches his son. They even have this secret paint that they use, but no one knows what it is. I don't remember all that Karin told us, but I remember thinking that what she had to say was interesting. Here is a picture of a gondola workshop:

And here is a picture of a view taken near the gondola workshop. It's probably one of my favorite shots from Venice:
After that, we all had free time to do whatever we wanted. Some of us from the tour decided that we wanted to go to the San Giorgio. Since there aren't any cars in Venice, you either have to walk, or you take some kind of boat. In this case, we took a Vaporetta. It's basically like a bus on water. Each vaporetta has different destinations. The first vaporetta we got on was the wrong one. It took us in the opposite direction we wanted to go, so we got off that one at the next stop. The next vaporetta we went on was going to the San Giorgio, but little did we know, it was the longest route to the San Giorgio. It basically took us out into the ocean, and then circled back into the port on the other side of Venice. This ride was very windy and cold. I was freezing during this whole thing, and not very happy about it, but the San Giorgio was almost worth it. The San Giorgio is basically another historic church. It's actually very pretty - inside and out. I guess the thing that I really liked about the San Giorgio is the bell tower. You go up in this elevator, and you go all the way up to the top, and it just has an amazing view of Venice. Here are some pictures taken from the bell tower:
Okay, so wierd story. When we were on the Vaporetta, I was with Jennifer, David, Linda, and my mom. Apparently Linda and David had the same camera. Linda forgot to bring batteries for her camera, and she asked David if she could borrow his camera charger. David likes to joke around, and he was like, "Well, I don't know Linda; it's gonna cost you. I think you're gonna have to buy me some chocolate if I let you borrow my charger." Keep in mind this was said on the Vaporetta and not mentioned at all in the San Giorgio. Linda, David, and I had been up in the bell tower long enough, and we decided to take the elevator back down. There is a priest running the elevator the whole time. We got in the elevator, and half way down the elevator, the priest (who can't really speak English) pointed at Linda and said, "You buy him chocolates?!" It was so weird! I have no idea where he got that from! It was like divine revelation or something! Linda, David, and I were all freaked out that he said something about that since we didn't mention that in the San Giorgio.

After the San Giorgio, my mom and I decided to do some shopping. They have a lot of shops in Venice, and I was dying to go in some of them. They have really cute, fashionable clothes there. Here is a store that I went in and really liked:
Venice is famous for their glass. It is called Murano glass. Before I left for Italy, Julie Anderson asked me to get her a cross from Italy. I ended up finding her a cross made out of the Murano glass. Here is a picture of a shop that sells the Murano glass:
The last night we were in Venice, the tour went to a restraunt called Birraria. Here, Karin just ordered us a bunch of pizzas. I wasn't too impressed with this pizza to be quite honest. It wasn't bad, but I've had better. But like I said, as the week progressed, the food got better and better. We did have Tiramisu, and that was REALLY good. I gobbled that thing up!

That night we packed up because we had to get up early the next day and move on to Florence. My next entry will probably be about Florence. Sorry about such the long post. I hope you didn't mind!