Sunday, March 3rd
After the crazy adventure we had in Romania this past weekend I wasn't doing ANYTHING today, (I know, I too see a theme brewing here...) so I slept in till about 1:30 pm. And then did nothing. Well maybe I watched some Dancing with the Stars, but that doesn't count, it was just some much-needed rejuvenation juice for my soul.
Monday, March 4th
I love Interior Design! I still don't think I would choose it as a career, but I love this class SO much! We worked on our midterm today, and the hours flew by as I created my Dream Room that I have been preparing for all of my life through my Pinterest boards.
Kinley made dinner tonight and bought a little surprise for Morgan and I: baby food! Get it? Cause we accidentally bought baby food in Romania and snacked on it for the duration of the trip? Haha. You're hilarious Kinley. In all seriousness though, (look away for those of you that are faint of heart cause I'm about to get gushy) I love you so much, Kinley, you are awesome. I love you too, Morgan and Ginger, but this is Kinley's time to shine, you too shall have your time soon enough, just you wait.
I had my first quiz of the semester tonight in my Stats class and it was EASY BREEZY. The hardest question on there was, "What's the median of this set of 8 numbers?". I think that pretty much says it all. I got a little bit nervous because it seemed way too easy, like I was missing something. But nope! It was just that simple. Lucky me.
Tuesday, March 5th
Yikes! This morning, I got up 20 minutes before my Design class which is a 10-minute walk away. I'm quite Impressed actually that I managed to arrive only 1 minute late. If you are more than 15 minutes late, they count it as an absence, and if you get three of those, then your grade goes down an entire letter. Good thing I made it.
Later in the afternoon, I had signed up for a schiacciata tasting with LdM. When I got there, the lady didn't even wait for the stragglers, and we had to book it over to the restaurant cause apparently the guy was closing up shop early today. I learned that schiacciata is Florence's word for foccaccia (apparently, they call it different things all over Italy. In Rome it's called white pizza, which makes no sense to me at all), and they served it to us as little sandwiches with prosciutto and cheese on the inside. Some of them even had fig jam and honey as well, which made for quite the interesting combination. It was a tad bit dry for my taste, but it was pretty delicious, nonetheless. The other students were nice, a little awkward at first, but then this one girl showed up a little later and began talking about how she hated studying abroad in Korea and that broke the ice. I was a bit disappointed to hear how she hated it so much (which was only really based on the fact that the people didn't really give her personal space and were on their phones too much), but I'm glad it got everyone talking, and we all had a pretty fun time after that.
I ended the night with a little Bible study with the Fantastic Four, in which we read a passage from Romans and had a really nice discussion about for an hour or so.
Wednesday, March 6th
Wednesday morning was filled with stress. Apparently, there is going to be a train strike on Friday, the day we booked our train for Venice! We hadn't had any experience with this yet, but it's apparently a common occurrence all over Italy for there just to be random days where the workers decide to strike, and no one can take public transportation anywhere in Italy. Ok, to be fair, it ranges in scope and region of strike so it's not always ALL of Italy and ALL public transportation, but this time it was. Sometimes Italy can be kinda stupid.
Questions filled my mind as my emotions began bubbling toward something like rage. How are people supposed to get to work when there's a strike? How is anybody supposed to plan anything ever if their plans could get a wrench thrown in them at any time by a train strike? I did a little bit of research on the strikes, but it only brought more questions. I learned that there's a few trains that still run so people can get to work, but how do I find out which trains run? I also learned that these strikes are planned weeks, and even months in advance. If the train stations know there is going to be a strike, why would they sell you a ticket for a train they know isn't going to run?? And if your train doesn't run, do they give you your money back? That seems like an evil scheme if they plan train strikes, don't tell anyone which trains run, and then don't give you back your money when your train doesn't run. Ugh, I had places to be, so I'd just have to figure this out later.
I went to the little biscuit tasting activity, where they led us to a biscuit shop, but somehow the shop didn't get the email, so we weren't able to go inside and get the full story. That's ok, we still got to taste the biscuits and hear a shortened version of the history from the LdM lady as some sort of call and response protest was happening around the corner. We learned a little about the guy who started it, as well as the tradition to dip the biscuits in coffee or Holy wine. Interesting. I don't think I'll be doing that, but thanks for the inventive idea.
Overall, it was quite an enjoyable experience as the biscuits were absolutely delicious and I met some cool people along the way. Also, I was talking to the LdM lady about the train strike, and she said that all trains between 6 and 9 AM have to run so people could get to work, and guess what?? Our train was at 7:20!! Our train was still going to run! I'd never been so happy in my life. And we didn't have a connection, which was perfect because it meant we didn't have to deal with the risk that our connecting train would be cancelled, and we would be stuck in some random city during a train strike with no way home.
Later that day in my sketchbook class, I had quite an eventful time. First off, there was some guy playing music outside of the church we were drawing, which was kind of interesting to listen to at first, but it got pretty old and honestly a bit depressing when he just kept moaning the same 3 notes in a minor key over and over for hours. Good thing I brought my headphones. Second, as the time passed, the wind became stronger, and the air became colder, and my fingers began to freeze off and fall onto the ground. Just kidding, they didn't really fall onto the ground, but it did get to the point that I couldn't draw anymore because my hands were so numb and shaky that I couldn't move them properly. At that point, I would set down my sketchbook and pencil and spend a few minutes rubbing my hands together, breathing hot air onto them, until some feeling returned, and I could draw again. Towards the end, I had to do this about every 7 minutes which began to get irritating pretty quick. Thankfully, there were some corgis nearby and these adorable little kids playing with pigeons to brighten my mood and hold me back from the brink of despair until I was finally saved from my misery when our professor led us inside the church.
I was also beginning to get a little frustrated with my sketching, as it wasn't quite turning out how I wanted, but my professor came over to help me and I had a miraculous breakthrough. He said that he rarely ever sketches with straight lines and told me to make everything more "sketchy" and less over-analytic, which would help the drawing to have more character and look better overall. I tried it with my next sketch, and it did wonders! Once I got the structure down, I began to just experiment with different kinds of line textures and let my pencil go wherever it wanted in the moment. It felt so freeing and allowed me to have much more fun with it while also creating a sketch that was way more artistic and creative.
Thursday, March 7th
Second quiz of the semester: Finance. This one I was not so hyped about, and I studied for a few hours until I felt pretty confident. I memorized all the formulas and terms she gave us and was familiar with most of the concepts like bonds and risk and all that. None of that did me any good, however, because when I went to take the quiz, I soon realized that 80% of the quiz was centered around the concept that the relationship between interest and prices was inversely related. Which was the one thing I couldn't quite remember. Great. I decided to go with the idea that interest rates and bond prices were directly related, since it made sense to me that if a bond's interest rate was higher, it would be worth more (since the investor wants to receive more money from the interest payments), making the price of the bond go up. However, there was a massive communication error between me and the professor, as she had never really clarified the difference between market interest rate, and the interest rate of a bond, which they often call the coupon rate. I didn't read the textbook thoroughly enough to find that out for myself, so I was just left with the misconception that when a question simply states, "interest rate", it means the bond's interest rate not the market interest rate. Right after I finished the quiz, I looked it up and was met with the sinking feeling of dread as I realized I had made a grave error and over half of my answers were now wrong, meaning there was a really high chance I failed the quiz.
Well, that certainly motivated me to figure this whole thing out, as I still didn't really understand WHY market interest rate and bond prices have an inverse relationship. At some point during my sulking, I remembered that I have a mother who worked in the Finance World for like, a long time, so I immediately called her, begging her to explain Finance to me. At last! I finally understand (with no help from the professor I might add, but now is a time for celebration, not bitterness)! I can now be happy once again and have achieved a state of inner peace, knowing that the likelihood of me failing my Finance class is no longer hanging out at around 70%! You might be asking yourself, why is it that market interest rate and bond prices have an inverse relationship? Unfortunately, in order to the answer that question, I would have to considerably raise the word count of this blog, and most likely bore about 80% of the readers to death in the process. If you are really dying to know, you can email me or something, and I would be happy to divulge my newly acquired Finance secrets if you ask nicely. Otherwise, I'm sure Google has a mediocre explanation for you.
For dinner, I made some yummy dumplings (technically I just heated up some frozen ones in a pan, because I wasn't going to spend hours making dumpling dough from scratch), as well as some fried rice. The fried rice I actually did make from scratch, but it ended up turning out super soggy. I sometimes lie awake at night, thinking about the fact that the one thing I actually made with my own hands was an utter disaster, and wondering what that means for my life. Do with that information what you will. Kinley and Ginger said that they thought the rice was really good even though it was a tad soggy, so I'm glad at least they enjoyed it. Someone, please remind me to never make rice ever again, for the sake of everyone within a 5-meter vicinity of me at dinner time. Every time I've tried, I have been absolutely horrid at it.
After dinner, we all geared up for our next adventure: the chocolate fair!
As we were walking over there, the sun was starting to set, casting a golden glow over all the world. I brought my camera, of course, which means I was intermittently stopping to take photos every 10 seconds or so. I would stop abruptly whenever my eyes caught a glimpse of something with the potential for a cool shot, effectively causing the rest of the crew to bump into me, which resulted in a procession that I'm sure had a strong resemblance to a little family of bumbling bees on their way to the honeycomb. For the good of all mankind, someone should really put one of those signs on my back that says, "Beware, may stop suddenly".
The chocolate fair was everything I dreamed it would be and more. The intoxicating aroma of cacao filled the air as we wandered around the lit-up tents housing rows and rows of truffles, chocolate covered fruits, fudge, and pretty much any chocolate you could imagine. There were even some pastries, candied nuts, cannoli, and licorice mixed in there, for a little extra spice, I guess. To start off the feast, we all split a delightfully soft and fluffy chantilly cream pastry that made my heart soar. After some more wandering mixed with a fair amount of goggling at the seemingly endless chocolate wonders, Ginger and I split a bag of candied nuts while Morgan and Kinley shared a Cannolo, lady-and-the-tramp style.
We passed by crazy chocolate feats of all kinds; there were tall chocolate fountains, enormous pristine-looking chocolate eggs, and even chocolate salami! No, it wasn't real salami, just some combination of chocolate and nuts made into the shape of salami, but it was still pretty neat. After we had had our fill of chocolatey delights and bought a few chocolate squares for the road, we headed home with shimmering eyes and an extra bit of love in our hearts.
After a somewhat intense discussion with Kinley regarding the entire history of my love life and some mourning song serenading with Morgan to our little Mucci Pucci Bucci in an attempt to heal his sad and broken soul, I decided to watch The Tourist, seeing as I was about to leave for Venice the next day. And who doesn't want to see Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in a death chase through the streets of Venice? I ended up loving the movie way more than I thought it would, and there was a major plot twist at the end that I had NO idea was coming! You should go watch it. Just do it, you won't regret it.
Friday, March 8th
And so begins our journey to Venice, with a slightly stale cream-filled croissant (courtesy of Ginger) that filled my soul, we (Ginger, Morgan, Vince, and I. Yes, you read that right - no Kinley! So sad. We will miss you. cries) set off on our train to Venice. Yes, the train actually ran despite the train strike! How lucky we are that we were able to actually use the train tickets we had bought at the time and place we had bought them for.
Despite the American college students who were sitting a row or two behind us loudly criticizing some poor girl's prom dress the entire duration of the train ride, it was actually quite pleasant. I had to turn on my rain sounds super loud to tune them out, but even with them on I heard the guy say, "oh my gosh we are being so mean"... Yeah. You are. So, stop doing it then.
Hey, maybe this could be the same train that Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie were on when they went to Venice in The Tourist! How crazy would that be? I sincerely doubt it, but I'm putting it down in the records as the same train. Why? Because I can.
We stepped out of the train, a slight drizzle coming down, to see the very scene where Angelina Jolie invited Johnny Depp on her boat! Ok, I'm going to stop now. But you have to admit, it's pretty cool to be walking down the SAME STAIRS that Johnny Depp walked down like 14 years ago. What? No, I'm not obsessed with Johnny Depp. He's just amazing, that's all.
Hopping on a water ferry, we began the trek in the general direction of St. Mark's Cathedral since that's like the MAIN Venice thing. And Ginger is obsessed with St. Mark's. There's a giant canal that winds down the middle of Venice, and a bunch of tiny little canals spread about throughout the city, which means there's pretty much two ways to get around here. (Well, three if you count the gondolas and private boats, but who do you think I am, Madame Money Buckets?) You can walk or you can take the only form of public transportation: the water ferry. I was delighted to be taking the ferry, as it seemed like an adventure, and sure enough it turned out to be quite the enjoyable experience. They all had an indoor section with some seating (which was usually filled to the max), a large standing area near where you entered, and a little balcony-type area out the back where you could sit (if the seats weren't covered in water, that is) and gaze dramatically at the scenery passing by. I bet you can't guess which option I chose. Of course, I opted to stand, so as not to take a pre-emptive bath, but I got some great photos as well as a memory that will last a lifetime.
Here's some videos from the ferry!
I guess I was a LITTLE too in the moment, because part way through my dramatic gazing, I was abruptly brought back to earth by a voice behind me telling me to hurry along because we were getting off at this stop. Morgan and I pushed through the mobs of people to get to the exit, but the ferry man was closing the gate right as we got there! Ginger and Vince exchanged worried glances as the ferry-operator man shook his head. It was too late; we had missed our chance to get off. Welp, I was used to it by then, so we just got off at the next stop and managed to somehow find them again after wandering through the maze of winding narrow streets for about 20 minutes.
Dozens of little shops lined the streets, and we explored several of them, browsing through tiny glass trinkets and earrings, as well as postcards (of course). In a recent development, I was on a hunt for some gloves as I soon found that the wind and rain combined with the fact that my hands were holding my umbrella and camera rather than being stowed safely in my pockets, made for an interesting combination that left my fingers to fend for themselves in the battle against frostbite for the second time this week. And it didn't help that the weather was supposed to continue in this fashion all weekend, and the majority of our exploring was going to take place outside. No, that wouldn't do. So, I bought some cheap gloves from a little stand, which no doubt would fall apart before the end of the trip, but at least would do a substantial job of keeping my hands warm for a few days. It even had cool little embroidered designs on the thumbs and pointer fingers so I could still use my phone! How neat. The plaid design wasn't my first choice, but my options were a bit limited, so I took what I could get. I can't say I was too surprised when, after owning the gloves for approximately 8 minutes, one of the 6 buttons adorning them had already fallen off. Anyone want to make a bet as to how many buttons will be left by the end of this trip?
We spent the next few hours in this fashion. We wandered about, admiring the unique atmosphere created by the narrow canals, peering through glass windows like wonderstruck little children who have never before tasted chocolate, grabbing snacks here and there, and purchasing random memorabilia that struck our fancy. Ginger got a giant orange scarf, Morgan, some leather gloves, and me, several more postcards (who's surprised at this point?). Bridges shrouded in mystery, narrow cobblestone winding streets, ancient theaters, and soon enough, St. Mark's!
Ginger could barely contain her excitement, practically sprinting the last few blocks. Despite the construction throughout the square (hmmm I see another theme here), St. Mark's was absolutely stunning. After a quick little history lesson from Ginger, we took a million photos, then joined the line of people waiting to see the glorious interior of the cathedral. Surprisingly, it wasn't long before we had entered and were surrounded by GOLD covering every single inch of the place. Ok, maybe not EVERY inch, but at least a good 80% of it. Wow, these old people were rich.
Once we had fully absorbed the beauty, we headed out in search of a way to fill our stomachs. Our first mistake was not picking out a restaurant ahead of time, instead deciding to just "wander around" until we found something that looked good. I see another theme; we certainly like to wander, don't we? I don't really mind though, as it's one of my favorite pastimes. We paused a little too long while looking at the menu of one particular ristorante and ended up getting violently heckled inside by one of the waiters. We probably could have been stronger against his persuasions, but we all just really wanted to sit down and eat some real food for the first time today, so we gave in.
After the violent heckler server man seated us upstairs, we were pleasantly surprised when a sweet lady named Janis introduced herself as our server. She was much nicer company than that other guy and hilarious, too, insisting that we eat the crackers as she kept bringing more and more.
A highlight from our lunch conversation:
"Armadillos have so much leprosy" - Ginger (I think).
I gobbled up that spaghetti like there was no tomorrow, and once we were finished, we said goodbye to our new friend Janis and departed for the next segment of our journey.
I think the plan at this point was to wander round a bit more before taking the train to fake Venice and checking into our Airbnb. I say "fake Venice" because it's technically Venice, but not really Venice at all. It is on the other side of the water surrounding the main island, and it has the vibes of some random run-down city in North Dakota. Not that I've ever been to North Dakota, but that's what I imagine it to be like (No offense, of course, to any readers who might reside there. Feel free to correct me on my hasty assumptions). Oh well, it was cheaper than staying on the main island, so I'm not too upset about it.
As we made our way to the docks, we stopped in a little shop that sold silk scarves. “These are all ugly,” a member of the crew who will remain nameless (for the sake of protecting the innocent, of course) not-so-subtly whispered to us, right as shop lady came to talk to us. She was right, but we all laughed hysterically at her expense as we awkwardly ran away. Thanks for the mid-afternoon entertainment, your sacrifice is greatly appreciated.
We stopped at a stone bench to take a quick shivering sandwich break (Morgan and Ginger had brought sandwiches with them, opting not to eat at the restaurant), then strolled down the way into a garden. By this time, the fabric of two of the glove buttons had somehow been ripped off, and another button was now lying on the street somewhere.
After taking a quick turn about the Basilica Santa Maria as well as the Peggy Guggenheim museum (just kidding, we didn't actually go in because it was expensive, but we took pictures of the outside just to say we were there), we got back on the water ferry and embarked on the relatively long journey back to the train station.
This time, we had to go all the way down the canal, so we were on for quite a while, which means I had plenty of time to observe the water-ferry man and his duties. I'm not a stalker, I promise. People watching is a perfectly socially acceptable pastime, right? When we got to a stop, he would take out his rope and make a fancy slinging/tying motion to close the gap, then he'd open the gate, let the people on, then close the gate, go into the pilot's cabin and have a quick chat with him before getting out again a few minutes later and repeating the process all over again. I can't imagine how tiring that would get after doing that same thing for hours. Oh, to be a ferryman with fancy rope-tying skills with the sole purpose of keeping one's spirit of adventure unhindered. I know, I know, of course that's not all that makes up a ferryman, but just let me have my few moments of dreaming, would you?
Once we arrived at the train station, we had to run to catch our train again. What is with us, always running to catch trains? Most of the time, once we've effectively spiked our heartrates and unsettle our stomachs by sprinting across the station, we arrive at our train with a few minutes to spare. It seems a bit in vain, but as they say, I guess it's better to be safe than sorry. I'm always dallying behind, deeming the running part unnecessary, but the crew just really likes to run everywhere, I guess. I suppose I can let them have their little races.
Our Airbnb was quite nice and cozy, despite the spring-loaded cabinet doors and the "couch" which was actually just a bed since it had no back to lean against (this trait became especially noticeable during the movie night that would occur in a few hours).
We dined at La Tana di Oberix (which was apparently some Italian cartoon that they decided to devote the restaurant to, making their devotion apparent by painting him on the walls), but despite the cartoon, it was a surprisingly somewhat classy place. Ginger ordered some mussels, Morgan got squid ink pasta (one of the famous dishes of the Venice region), and I got cheesy gnocchi. It was all quite delicious. Well, my gnocchi was, at least. We all tried little bits of each other's dishes so we could all have the full experience. None of the dishes were horrible enough to make me want to throw up, but let's just say that I won't be ordering mussels or squid ink pasta in the future. The taste actually wasn't that bad, but it was the chewyness of the mussels and the deep murkiness of the pasta that really got me. I'm glad I tried them, for sure, but I'm also glad I didn't order whole plates of them myself. This whole having-food-adventurous-friends thing was working out quite well for me. I didn't have to worry about wasting money on an entire dish that I didn't like but could still try some of the local peculiar dishes! It's a win-win.
Now it's time for some out-of-context highlights from our dinner conversation:
“Hannah loves the whippings” - Ginger. I can't even remember what this was in reference to, but I assure you, it's nothing to be worried about.
“Oh, to be the Lord’s best retard” - Morgan.
After that lovely dinner, we retired back to our Airbnb for a Casanova movie night on the strange bed-couch. I had been telling everyone we had to watch this movie because: 1) it takes place in Venice, and 2) Health Ledger. Who could say no? I certainly loved it, and I'm pretty sure they did too, so it turned out to be a great time for everyone.
Saturday, March 9th
Today was the designated "little island" day, as the plan was to spend its entirety on the two little islands of Murano and Burano, which were a short ferry away from the main island. It was raining quite hard this morning, and, because the weather app specifically said that it wasn't going to be raining, I didn't bring my umbrella, which was a huge mistake because there was a ginormous line out the door to get on the ferry to Murano. And the line cut through one of the main walkways outside the train station, which meant that throughout the entire hour we were waiting there, we continued to be wacked in the head with about a thousand umbrellas. At least Morgan had had the sense to bring hers, so we all spent the hour huddled under the one tiny umbrella and reading our books.
It was still raining when we finally arrived in Murano after about 2 hours. I really hoped it would stop soon so I could still get a few nice pictures. Our first order of business was to stop into this overpriced Billy Joel Cafe for some food and shelter. It wasn't actually called the Billy Joel Cafe, but the entire time we were there, the only music that played was Billy Joel songs, so I then deemed it the Billy Joel Cafe. I'm not complaining though, I love Billy Joel. The prices however, not so much. Ginger and I decided to split a sandwich, and I got one of those thick European hot chocolates to warm me up. Despite my near repulsion at paying 6 euro for one tiny cup of hot chocolate, I must say, it was quite delicious and just the thing to raise my spirits.
After we finished our conversation about the Bechdel test and our Professional Summoner summoned the check for us, we went back outside and were delighted to find that the rain had stopped! Usually I don't mind the rain, but when it tries to ruin my camera is when we start having issues. But no rain! Now we could see all of the beautiful little brightly colored shops that lined the streets. It was like a little fairytale village come to life and it made my heart unspeakably happy just to stand there in awe, taking as many photos as I possibly could to capture the scenery.
If you thought there was a lot of glass on the main island, your mind is going to be blown when you hear about Murano. Murano is the glass island to beat all glass islands. Literally every shop we passed by had either food or glass. No in-between. So, of course, seeing as we were in the glass island to dominate all glass islands, we had to go see a glass demonstration. We found a place called the Glass Cathedral and paid a small sum of money to watch the man perform his glass magic. We explored the cathedral (which wasn't really a cathedral, just a large building with tall ceilings), ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the beautiful glass sculptures until it was time for the demonstration to start. We watched with bated breath as he began to heat up the glass in the blazing fire, then periodically took it out to roll in on the table, blow into it, or poke at it with some large metal tweezers. After several minutes of a various mix of these actions, out came a beautiful vase! He did one more, this time with a little more pulling and twisting with the metal tweezers, which came out as some sort of animal-looking thing. At first, I thought it to be a horse when he was making it, but then he never made the head and stood it up on the table where the head was supposed to go, so there goes that idea.
Once the demonstration was finished, inspiration struck, giving us the desire to go find little glass things of our very own, so we browsed around in the glass shops for a while. We went in and out of probably 10-20 of them before we were satisfied. I came out the other end of this venture with a pair of Murano glass earrings (surprise surprise) made into a shape of a cube and filled with some sort of lovely gold liquid. They are beautiful, but I'm describing this horribly, so I guess you will just have to take my word for it. One shop we went into was owned by a silly man who we soon became a kindred spirit. As we looked around, he began cracking jokes such as "don't worry, you won't find these in TJ Maxx, I made them all myself" and “the candies are sugar free” (in reference to the bowl of little candy figurines made of glass).
As afternoon came around, we decided to take the ferry to Burano so we could hopefully catch a glimpse of it before the sun went down and took with it all of the sunlight that is so very helpful for my photography. Back on the water we go! After some more reading, a decent bit of rocking, and a whole lot of avoiding the stampede of people pushing their way in and out of the ferry, we made it to Burano! And wow, if Murano was a fairytale village, then Burano was the lovechild of Candyland and Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. On steroids. The buildings were even brighter and more colorful than I'd ever seen! If I was the Grinch, then my heart would have grown 2 whole sizes larger in that moment.
As we poked around the numerous quaint and petite shops, we soon discovered that what glass was to Murano, lace was to Burano. It was everywhere! If I'd have found lace earrings, I certainly would have bought them without batting an eye, but there were none to be found, so I had to settle for a few postcards. We refueled with some pizza, then continued on to explore more shops that housed a variety of things (not just glass or food!). We took a turn about the soap shop, smelling all of the smells we could handle (many of the smells were quite unique I might add, if you like carrot and chocolate soap, then boy, have I got the place for you), then found a silk and lace shop where Ginger bought a tablecloth for her mom, and Morgan found a nice silk scarf made by this kind lady who was proudly showing us all of her wares.
I wanted to take a little break from the shopping, so I decided to venture off a little on my own, which landed me in some alluring little passageways in between the main streets. Ah yes, the ember of adventure has finally sparked in my heart again. Not that it wasn't there before, but it grew happier when I stumbled upon some uncharted territory.
My guilt ate away at me, exploring the underbelly (not really, but I've always wanted to use that word, and this seemed like the perfect time) of Burano without the others, so I went back to the rest of the crew, then led them down one of the paths I had found earlier to this quaint little mask shop. "Look, that's Kinley!" I exclaimed when I spotted a vintage postcard of a little girl surrounded by pigeons. We went inside to look at the masks and the shop owner began telling us about how he had made all of these exquisite Pirates of the Carribean masks and about the lace ones that his wife made! Not long after, his wife came down the stairs and began excitedly showing us her masterpieces, describing how long they had taken her, how she had designed them, and a bunch of other little interesting tidbits. I even found some more Murano glass earrings that I loved, so I got those too, even though we weren't in Murano anymore. Close enough for me.
After saying goodbye to the sweet couple who owned the shop, we spotted a little pier in the distance and practically galloped over in our excitement. It turned out to be the best decision we had made that day, as there was a gorgeous view of the sunset over the water! It was like nothing I had ever seen. The dark clouds that had been covering the sky most of the day parted slightly to reveal a golden sunset that stunned us all to silence. We all just sat there for a while, peacefully staring out at the sea until the end of time. At least that's what I wished I could do. In reality, we were only there for about 25 minutes because we decided it was probably best to go before it got too dark. After taking a million photos, though, of course.
Please excuse the excessive number of photos of practically the same thing... they are all slightly different and amazing and I couldn't choose between them.
Once we got back to the main island, we found a restaurant for dinner, where we shared a Venetian sampler as an appetizer which was filled with all sorts of crazy things. I didn't know what half of them were, but I made myself try them all no matter how scary they looked. Besides getting a little bone surprise in one of the fish things and some gooey looking thing that I'd really rather not to know about, it was a fairly tame fulfillment of our "exotic food tasting adventure" requirement. Again, none of them were extremely repulsive, but besides the bread, I don't think I'd order any of it again. Ginger got a squid tentacle, Morgan got some salmon, Vince got oyster pasta, and I got potato and sausage pizza (hey I was trying to be adventurous, ok? I wasn't really in the mood to be eating squid tentacles). We all tried each other's, and I made myself try the squid tentacle despite the slight terror growing in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't that bad actually, a little chewy for my taste, but not bad. Say it with me this time, it wasn't repulsive, but I don't think I'll be ordering it in the future. I think it's safe to say that that's pretty much how it's gonna go any time I try a strange new food. I'll let you know otherwise. Unfortunately, my potato sausage pizza was quite mediocre, which only proved to further push me back into the picky-eater ways of my younger years. At least I'm taking little bites of new foods, which is more than I could say for my 7-year-old grilled-cheese-eating self.
Highlight of tonight's conversation: discussed what type of cheese we are.
After stuffing my belly with mediocre pizza, we embarked our next journey: finding our way back to the train station in the dark. It was not as easy as it sounds. I had my google maps out, which was taking us back and forth through seemingly endless twisting paths, but despite my best efforts, after about 10 minutes of this, we somehow ended up right where we started. Morgan then took over the navigating and I put my map on the backburner until we started to get confused again. When we put our heads together and began working together, we finally managed to get ourselves onto the main road, and from there it was pretty much a straight shot to the train station. Well not straight exactly, since the road was curved, but you know what I mean.
The entire rest of the walk, Ginger and Vince chattered back and forth, discussing their favorite words, only pausing when we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some tea and biscotti on which to munch while we watched another movie. I couldn't wait to get back to the Airbnb and collapse into bed after being on my feet the whole day, so the rest of the walk was pretty silent except for the occasional "benevolent!" or some such word from Vince or Ginger, followed by sounds of agreement from the other. By the time we got to the train station, they had made a whole list of their favorite words. You should definitely ask to see it if you get the chance.
Once we trained back to fake Venice and arrived back at our Airbnb, we began the movie that Vince had suggested, which ended up being quite the strange movie (which I should have expected, seeing as it was a suggestion from Vince), which I was not prepared for at all. It was called Scott Pilgrim something or other, and I was thoroughly confused for the first 15-20 minutes I saw before I passed out on the couch. Ginger and Vince seemed to like it though, and I got some milk and biscotti out of the deal, so I'm happy.
Sunday, March 10th
Morgan and I shared a lovely cream-filled pastry on the train back to real Venice, then we headed back to St Mark's square to see the Doge's Palace, where the real Casanova was held prisoner! The movie Casanova also had several scenes there, so I was pretty excited about that. I really wanted to go see the place where they filmed Casanova's home, and we had planned to exactly that, but then realized too late that it was closed on Sundays. So sad. I guess I'll just have to imagine it then.
After waiting in line for about an hour, we spent several more hours exploring the palace, which was filled with beautiful architecture, large paintings that spanned the enormous walls, and gilded detailing pretty much every where you looked. In the main room (where I imagined they held balls and other such fancy events), all of the Doges who had ever existed were portrayed in portraits painted at the top of the walls surrounding the entire room. It was here that Ginger gave us another history lesson, explaining to us about the Venetian language, who the Doges were (basically like kings but sorta different) and a bit about how the political system worked. I found it quite interesting how they ruled for their whole life, but the position was inherited by blood. Another little interesting tidbit courtesy of Ginger; when making our government, the founding fathers looked at Venice's political system and took some inspiration from it! How neat! As we looked around at all the portraits, we noticed they were all painted in pairs except for one, which just had a looming empty black space next to him with a name under. Gee, what happened to that guy? We looked it up, he was apparently decapitated for some sort of treasonous act. Note to self: don't cross the Venetian government.
We then went down into the prisons to see where Casanova was held. It was pretty cool, and mostly what you would expect of a prison, but after we made it all of the way through, I realized we hadn't seen Casanova's cell! You would think that they would put a little plaque or something there but no! I felt gypped. That was like 80% of the reason I came to this stinking palace in the first place! It's ok, it was still pretty cool though. At the end, they had a little showroom of ancient pottery. As we were studying the little fragments, Ginger turned to me with wide-eyes and said, "so this is what ancient pottery looks like... guys, remember when we found those shards of pottery in that garden in Siena? I think we may had accidentally stolen some archaeological artifacts...". Welllll, it's too late now. Haha. If you value your life, you won't tell anyone.
Next on the agenda was to dine at The Florian, which was established in 1720, making it the longest running cafe in Europe! We learned from our Personal Pocket Tour Guide Ginger that a bunch of famous people had eaten there; Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Casanova, and Lord Byron to name a few. There are gobs and gobs of others if you want to look it up. However, we almost didn't make it across the square to the cafe due to the violent winds and rain attempting to blow us away into oblivion. I'm not even joking; I don't think I've ever been in such a violent wind and rain storm before. As we recovered from our perilous trek, shaking out our umbrellas and attempting to tame the wild mess that had become of our hair, we joined the line to be seated and studied the menu while we waited. By Golly, this place was pricey! I guess that's to be expected, what with it being the longest running cafe in Europe and all, but my goodness, how do people afford this? ONE macchiato was 8 euro. 8 EURO! Before we knew it, we were at the front of the line, and then being led into the glorious golden cafe. It was a journey of wonder and awe as we admired the exquisite design of the cafe while the host led us to our table, and we couldn't stop gaping at the beauty of the interior until about 15 minutes after we had sat down. We spent a few minutes taking pictures and soaking up every bit of beauty that we could, before taking a closer look at the menu. After several minutes of deliberation about what would be the most cost-effective yet tasty experience, we decided to split the "Afternoon Tea" bundle between all of us, marking the inauguration of the most expensive tea party on which anyone had ever embarked. Ok, I'm sure the Queen of England had pretty expensive tea parties, but it was the most expensive tea party I'VE ever been to, at least.
We got some lovely photos, and despite the waiter snootily looking down his nose upon us for splitting a 60-euro tea party that was clearly only meant to serve one person, we had a lovely time. Our food arrived on a giant fancy platter and was made up of exactly 2 tiny finger sandwiches, 2 tiny biscuits with jam and cream, 2 macarons, and a cup of tea. This certainly wasn't going to fill us up, but we were mainly there for the experience and had already accepted our demise into poverty. We delicately split all the tiny morsels between ourselves so we could each taste a sample of everything, then passed around the teacup every so often, each taking a few sips. It was all pretty tasty but nothing out-of-this-world like I would expect for 60 euro.
Once we had delicately gobbled up every last morsel, I glanced over to my left and noticed the couple next to us had left 2 macarons on their plate. 2 MACARONS! They really paid 18 euro to only eat 3 of their 5 macarons. They couldn't even be bothered to take it to go? Wow. I don't think I will ever comprehend why someone would leave behind 2 perfectly delightful macarons that were worth roughly $4 each.
At this point, we only had about an hour before our train left, so we took that time to meander our way back to the station. Along the way, Morgan and I stopped at a little shop we had seen the other day for some meringues and a black forest cherry flavored cannolo to split, which made for some lovely snacks on the train (although a bit messy due to the meringue dust that refused to stay where it was supposed to be).
For the entirety of the train ride, I read my fantasy book and was elated to find it riddled with Italian sayings and a main character by the name of Dante (yeah, that one, as in the famous dude from Florence)! I didn't even know that it was at all connected to Italian culture when I decided to start reading it; what a bizarre coincidence! The strange thing was that the book did not claim to be set in Italy, but rather some fictional island where they referred to the "old language", which I only recognized as Italian thanks to Duolingo. It was kind of a dystopian setting, as it was about this girl who was chosen by the gods to be the Finestra (another Italian word, meaning "window") who was to protect the island from the giant flying beetle-like things which would otherwise kill everyone on the island. If Italian is the "old language", does that mean the book is set in a future Italy and therefore foretelling Italy's demise?? If so, that would be awesome, so that's what I'm choosing to believe.
Since the super-expensive tea party that we had at the Florian earlier didn't quite fill us up, we decided to grab some McDonalds when we arrived back in Florence. Not that we were planning to make a habit out of it, but of course we had to go to an Italian McDonalds at least once for the experience. To my utter shock and horror, we discovered that there were NO breakfast sandwiches (quite disappointing as they are my favorite) which was probably due to the fact that Italians only have coffee and a croissant for breakfast. They also had some additional menu items like the "parmesan snack" (which was literally just a stick of parmesan cheese) and tiramisu! How fun!
After gobbling down our burgers and fries, we trudged our way home and plopped into bed. The best way to conclude a trip, I always say.
And now, the moment you have all been waiting for... Photo dump time!
I hope you have enjoyed spending these past 43 minutes peering into the window of my life. I know I have. Quite honestly, I think Venice has been my absolute favorite trip so far, and I would absolutely jump at the chance to go back again.
Soon I shall be caught up and telling stories not so long after they happen, but unfortunately today is not that day, so check back in at some point for some more adventures.
Ta-ta for now and have a lovely day!