Friday, September 12th
We spent the bus ride playing with Diane's daughter, Mya, and convincing her of things such as us being vampires, we knew Harry Potter, and we were best friends with Spiderman. She is a wonderful, incredibly smart little girl.
We ran into another detour, as apparently we needed a confirmation code to pass into the city. We had a receipt to get in and everything, but I guess there was some racism shown toward our bus driver who was black, and we ran into some problems there. Eventually, after about a half hour of hassle so far, Rachael ended up getting off of the bus and by simply having a young woman go up and coax them for help, the immediately let us through. Sick Italians.
We got on a water bus kind of thing that took us to Venice. We were running late and got there with about 20 minutes of the tour left. We got to go inside of San Marco Church which was beautiful. It was filled with gold mosaics and it was the most perfect example of that type of architecture I have seen so far on this trip. Simply amazing. Even for the dimly lit atmosphere, the tessera glittered in the beautiful lighting. I took lots of pictures even though you aren’t allowed to. It was so beautiful.
After that, a group of us took off for Rialto Square which we heard was a good place to eat and explore the markets. We walked through the streets which were so full of people that it was unbelievable. Pick-pocketer’s heaven. I bought a few little glass trays from a stand because I have an obsession with blown glass. I think it is beautiful, and these were so cool, and very reasonably priced. I think they were actually ash trays, but I’ll use them for holding jewelry or candy or something.
In walking down these streets, Mike actually ran into someone he knew back home from Mexico. He meets people everywhere we go and is the most social person I have ever met, so we just assumed this was some new guy he called his “friend,” but it turned out it was his brother’s best friend from back home. I guess he was in town because his work was being shown in an architecture exhibit. I wish we could have checked it out later, but we eventually split up from the group and didn’t have the chance. It sounded really cool from what Mike told us afterward.
Mike’s friend ended up accompanying us for lunch at a jazz café that we found on one of the quieter side streets. We were disappointed at the false advertising of live music, but the atmosphere inside was worth it, and the pizza was the best I’ve ever had in my life.
We walked around to some more shops, and realized that Venice is filled with lots and lots of masks and blown glass. Along the shoreline, we found a gondolier, and decided to be tourists, even though it was quite an expensive ride.
Our gondolier was a really nice man named Luchino, who spoke good English, and was actually quite funny. I didn’t feel too bad about missing the majority of our tour, because he took us down all the canals and gave us a history lesson on the way as well. Some of the places we got to go past were the residences of Motzart and Vivaldi. He also told us about a trip he took to Las Vegas where he rode on a fake gondola. Apparently they are secretly motorized there, and he gave the gondolier a hard time, as he didn’t expect that the passenger would be a real gondolier from Italy.
It was really cool seeing the entire city, built on top of water, where instead of cars going down the road, everyone travels by boat down the alleys and canals. It was amazing seeing how Luchino navigated around some of the corners, especially with how heavily trafficked they were. It was funny seeing all of the other tourists in the gondolas as well. There were several groups of very friendly oriental travelers who were having the time of their lives. They waved and were so happy, and took tons of pictures and videos of us as we passed. They were a riot to watch.
We finished the ride and kept on our way of exploring the busiest city we have been to yet. It was so crowded everywhere you went, and was absolute madness. It started to rain, so we continued to look into some of the shops, and eventually made our way back to the main square to get a better look inside of San Marco. We looked around in there, and then found some really cool musical groups outside of some fancy restaurants to examine for a while. It was very, very Italian music, and I loved every minute of it.
We walked along the coastline, and had some interesting experience with two men selling high name purses illegally. We talked them down to ridiculously low prices for the girls who wanted to buy them, but as for my lack of interest in a Gucci or Parada purse, combined with my lack of interest in illegal activity, I decided to watch the bargain a little, rather than actually make a purchase myself.
We took the boat busses (or whatever they are called) back to the main shore to catch our bus back. I loved taking this means of transportation. It was literally the same as a bus, stopping at all different stations along the coast, except for the fact that it was on the water. There were so many waves, and so much chaos driving through the huge canal, but it was interesting seeing such heavy traffic in the water. We watched the sunset over the skyline of the beautiful city on our way back on these “busses.” The lighting through the haze was beautiful, and the pictures I took will never do it justice.
We spent the bus ride playing with Diane's daughter, Mya, and convincing her of things such as us being vampires, we knew Harry Potter, and we were best friends with Spiderman. She is a wonderful, incredibly smart little girl.
We ran into another detour, as apparently we needed a confirmation code to pass into the city. We had a receipt to get in and everything, but I guess there was some racism shown toward our bus driver who was black, and we ran into some problems there. Eventually, after about a half hour of hassle so far, Rachael ended up getting off of the bus and by simply having a young woman go up and coax them for help, the immediately let us through. Sick Italians.
We got on a water bus kind of thing that took us to Venice. We were running late and got there with about 20 minutes of the tour left. We got to go inside of San Marco Church which was beautiful. It was filled with gold mosaics and it was the most perfect example of that type of architecture I have seen so far on this trip. Simply amazing. Even for the dimly lit atmosphere, the tessera glittered in the beautiful lighting. I took lots of pictures even though you aren’t allowed to. It was so beautiful.
After that, a group of us took off for Rialto Square which we heard was a good place to eat and explore the markets. We walked through the streets which were so full of people that it was unbelievable. Pick-pocketer’s heaven. I bought a few little glass trays from a stand because I have an obsession with blown glass. I think it is beautiful, and these were so cool, and very reasonably priced. I think they were actually ash trays, but I’ll use them for holding jewelry or candy or something.
In walking down these streets, Mike actually ran into someone he knew back home from Mexico. He meets people everywhere we go and is the most social person I have ever met, so we just assumed this was some new guy he called his “friend,” but it turned out it was his brother’s best friend from back home. I guess he was in town because his work was being shown in an architecture exhibit. I wish we could have checked it out later, but we eventually split up from the group and didn’t have the chance. It sounded really cool from what Mike told us afterward.
Mike’s friend ended up accompanying us for lunch at a jazz café that we found on one of the quieter side streets. We were disappointed at the false advertising of live music, but the atmosphere inside was worth it, and the pizza was the best I’ve ever had in my life.
We walked around to some more shops, and realized that Venice is filled with lots and lots of masks and blown glass. Along the shoreline, we found a gondolier, and decided to be tourists, even though it was quite an expensive ride.
Our gondolier was a really nice man named Luchino, who spoke good English, and was actually quite funny. I didn’t feel too bad about missing the majority of our tour, because he took us down all the canals and gave us a history lesson on the way as well. Some of the places we got to go past were the residences of Motzart and Vivaldi. He also told us about a trip he took to Las Vegas where he rode on a fake gondola. Apparently they are secretly motorized there, and he gave the gondolier a hard time, as he didn’t expect that the passenger would be a real gondolier from Italy.
It was really cool seeing the entire city, built on top of water, where instead of cars going down the road, everyone travels by boat down the alleys and canals. It was amazing seeing how Luchino navigated around some of the corners, especially with how heavily trafficked they were. It was funny seeing all of the other tourists in the gondolas as well. There were several groups of very friendly oriental travelers who were having the time of their lives. They waved and were so happy, and took tons of pictures and videos of us as we passed. They were a riot to watch.
We finished the ride and kept on our way of exploring the busiest city we have been to yet. It was so crowded everywhere you went, and was absolute madness. It started to rain, so we continued to look into some of the shops, and eventually made our way back to the main square to get a better look inside of San Marco. We looked around in there, and then found some really cool musical groups outside of some fancy restaurants to examine for a while. It was very, very Italian music, and I loved every minute of it.
We walked along the coastline, and had some interesting experience with two men selling high name purses illegally. We talked them down to ridiculously low prices for the girls who wanted to buy them, but as for my lack of interest in a Gucci or Parada purse, combined with my lack of interest in illegal activity, I decided to watch the bargain a little, rather than actually make a purchase myself.
We took the boat busses (or whatever they are called) back to the main shore to catch our bus back. I loved taking this means of transportation. It was literally the same as a bus, stopping at all different stations along the coast, except for the fact that it was on the water. There were so many waves, and so much chaos driving through the huge canal, but it was interesting seeing such heavy traffic in the water. We watched the sunset over the skyline of the beautiful city on our way back on these “busses.” The lighting through the haze was beautiful, and the pictures I took will never do it justice.
No comments:
Post a Comment