Gucci Gucci Gucci!

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I haven't updated in a couple days, so here's what we've been up to. Friday we took an EARLY train out to Venice for the day. We ended up getting stuck on our train at a station a few stops before Venice for quite a while. We didn't really know what was going on, because everyone around us was speaking Italian. For some reason, 2 of the trains couldn't run, so we had to load onto another train with 3 trainloads of people to ride the rest of the way to Venice. Phyllis and ended up standing in between cars, so we had to sway back and forth when the train turned, while we got rained on from the cracks in the side. When we finally got there, it was raining pretty hard, so we were pretty concerned that our day was going to be miserable. We caught the boat into San Marco's Square anyways, and along the way the rain let up. Venice is so cool, it looks like a cross between something from Disneyland and New Orleans. I didn't realize how big the canals were and how many of them there are. The people who live there can only get around by boat. We explored a lot of the glass stores and got quite a bit of inexpensive jewelry made from the famous Murano glass. We took a gondola ride around the canals, that was really fun, even if it was cheesy. I would definitely like to go back and stay a night there next time, very cool city.
Yesterday I went off by myself in the morning to wander around and shop, which was nice, I got to see a lot of the city, and managed to find some cute clothes. We went out to dinner at a restaurant my cousin Kristin recommended. It was very good, mom had an octopus salad and Phyllis and I had lobster salad. The waiters were very nice and explained the menu to us, since it was only in Italian. We met some guys there from Canada who were my age and spending 7 weeks over here, it sounded like a really cool trip. We also talked to a guy, Joshua, from Manhattan who told us that Gucci was having a 50% off sale on their summer line, you just had to ask a salesperson to show you what was on sale (since of course Gucci wouldn't have sales signs in their windows). So today, after coffee, we wandered over there. The store was closed at first, so we went over and had great pizza in Piazza Santo Spirito. When we went back and Gucci was open, we were a little scared to ask someone, in case Joshua was pulling our legs. Turns out he wasn't, Phyllis and I each got a bag for 50% off, very cool. We walked around some more, got some gelato (which is Italian ice cream, Grandma), then ended up back at the apartment, where we lounged and had cheese, crackers, and wine for dinner. We leave for Positano tomorrow, it will be nice to be near the water, but I really enjoyed Florence and would definitely come back next time!

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