Carnival Masks and OLD Friends

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Arriving in the train station and literally taking at least 20 minutes to leave from the train out of the station is just the beginning of trying to explain how crowded it was in Venice for Carnival this year. Although it was really crowded I'm really glad we did end up making it though all the way there from Madrid, although it was slightly chaotic doing it!

We booked our train ticket from Madrid to Paris because Paris was the only place that went directly to Venice and we wanted to get there with enough time to make carnival and see the festivities, and it ended on the 24th and we got to Paris on the 21st. We arrived in Paris and tried to book tickets immediately from Paris to Venice for later that night, but we were unsuccesful by finding out that the train was full and that we could only get tickets for the next day, with 2 layovers of around an hour each inbetween. So we booked these tickets and found a hotel pretty quick just a little ways away from the Louvre. We checked in and then Cami realized that fortunately it was a Friday and on Friday nights for people under the age of 26 you can get into the Louvre to see their "permanant" collection for free! So we decided to spend our night walking around the museum looking at art that we knew literally nothing about, but it was still interesting and exciting all the same. We did manage to see the Monalisa, although there were around 50 people crowded around it all taking photos of themselves in front of it. This was all done from around 10 feet away because they have it roped off so you cant get too close and have it behind bullet proof glass and guards on both sides, must be a famous piece of art... Overall I didn't find it to be too interesting and I guess a lot of people feel the same way after they see it, but at least I can say I saw it. After spending around 2 hours walking around the museum we decided it was getting a bit boring and we were getting tired so we called it a night and headed back to our hotel to get some rest. We knew of another free tour going on the next day in Paris that was just like the fun one we did in Madrid and so we really wanted to get some rest so we could be fresh for the tour the next day.

We woke up the next day and went out for some breakfast and Cami was seriously craving some crepes! So we walked around for around 1 hour like we normally do every time we want to try and find something to eat and finally settled on a small place that had ham and cheese crepes for around 8 euro each... not bad for Paris. Might I say though that they were by far the best crepes that I have ever had and I do think about them a lot. After we finished this we set off for the Fountain St. Michael where we were to meet for our free tour, and at 1 o'clock we set off with around 20 other tourists for our free tour! Our guide was named Justin and was overall a very good guide and told us a lot about the city of Paris and it's history. From all the heads that were cut off in the guillotine during the french revolution to Sexy Kind Henry (as Justin liked to call him) who had a party and then had all of his guests drunk faces sketched during the party, and then had the faces sculpted all along the side of a bridge in stone. It was very informative and really hilarious and if your traveling around Europe I highly recommend checking out the new paris, new madrid, new basically anywhere in Europe tours! Try and make sure though that you bring enough money for lunch, and also enough money to TIP at the end!! Cami and I brought enough money for lunch, and then when it came time to tip at the end we realized we had spent all of our money on lunch and had none for tip! We ended the tour on the Champs Elysees right by another museum, but no ATM was to be found. So we, and I'm not proud of this, slipped into the shadows you could say. The tour came to an end and Justin never saw our faces agian.. But Cami and I did feel guilty about this for the rest of the day so does that make it ok? After we earned our spot in hell, we went to a place called Angalinas for their famous cup of hot chocolate, which was basically a melted chocolate bar in a much and costed 8 euro each. But Cami could not stop talking about it and we had to get it! After we finished this we walked to the Eiffel tower but not for our own reasons but for our little cousin Jenissa who is in Wisconsin at the moment. I dont know the age of her exactly but if I had to guess is around 10, it's hard to keep track of the ages of all my little cousins ok! This may sound strange but when explained makes perfect sense. Jenissa sent Cami and I something called Flat Jenissa while we were in India and asked us to write a story on the back of here about where she had been, what she had seen, take a picture of us and her in the place we took her too, and then mail her back home. Jenissa had read a book in class about someone named Flat Stanley, who ironically enough is our grandfathers name, who was flat like a pancake and had many adventures all over the world. They then took this story and made it there own, so the kids in the class drew a picture of themselves, aka flat Jenissa, and mailed it to people they knew in interesting places around the world. So Cami and I decided we would take Flat Jenissa to the Eiffel tower since EVERYONE knows about it, or as we learned in our free tour around 85 percent of the population of the world can tell you what the Eiffel tower is if shown a picture, and where in the world it is! So we hiked all the way to the tower and found a man that we though wouldn't judge us and asked him to take a picture of us holding this crayon drawing of a little girl called flat Jenissa. After we finished this we realized we didn't have much time left before our train left and headed back to our hotel to collect our bags and head to the train station. We then waited around for our train for about an hour and then hopped on for our double layover journey to Venice...

Our first train ride was from Paris to a place called Ventigmalia and was an overnight train that arrived there at around 9 in the morning. Was overall very uneventful and all we really did was sleep uncomftorably on the train. We then waited in Ventigmalia for around another hour and then hopped on another train that went to Milano and all seemed well when we first got on, only one slightly fatter man in our 6 person compartment. Then things started to get more and more confusing as more and more people came to our compartment claming that they were supposed to be in the compartment. In the end there were 8 people including Cami and I thinking that we were supposed to be in that compartment, only 6 seats. I was SO sure that Cami and I were right and we were supposed to be there that after looking at one guys ticket I told him he wasn't supposed to be there and everyone chimed in with me and he was kicked out. Then one lady just sat on one of the "extra seats" out in the isle that folded down and so our compartment seemed at peace, we were wrong. Guy we kicked out was pissed he got kicked out and went to find the conductor to complain because he really thought he was supposed to be in there, which he was. Turns out that Cami and I were the ones who weren't supposed to be in there because our tickets were booked for the day before, which is slightly confusing. What actually happened is that when we booked our tickets in Paris the ticketor we booked them through at the station booked us for Paris to Ventigmalia departing on the 21st of February at 10:30 pm and arriving on the 22nd of February at 9 am, which we were on. Then he booked us from Ventigmalia to Milano departing on the 21st of February at 10 am and Arriving in Milano later that day and then taking another train on the 21st of February from Milano to Venice. Do you see the problem here? Apparently this guy who booked our tickets in France thought we wanted to somehow teleport to Ventigmalia and take a train to Milano and then another train from Milano to Venice, then teleport back to Paris and take a train back to Milano. I was pissed off and we ended up having to sit inbetween cars for some of the trip to Milano and talk crap about the ticket guy that booked our tickets back in Paris, which consisted of basically just bashing all that is French. After a while we made a stop along the way to Milano though and noticed a lot of people had gotten off the train and there were now vacant seats, so we deserted our spot inbetween cars and found a car that had 2 open seats. We went in and sat down only to find that across from us were 3 Americans all studying abroad and were on their spring break and heading to Venice! We got to talking to them and the told us they had a hostal booked right in the heart of Venice, which we were unable to find for a good price and actually didn't even know where we were staying, and they gave us the number and we called. They had extra rooms avaliable and for 30 euro a night, which is a steal considering it was the end of Carnival and on such late notice, and we booked a room there! We got to Venice and like I said earlier it took 20 minutes just to leave the station. Luckily our newly booked hostal was really close to the station so we weren't in the crowd with our bags for too long. We checked into the hotel with our new friends and then we all decided to go out and get some food since we were all starving after our long train rides. We went off and found a pizza place close by for cheap and ordered and talked for a while. We told them a bit about our travels in India which they seemed to enjoy, and they told us about studying abroad and what places they had been so far in Europe which we enjoyed as well. After dinner we tried to find a place to go and party, but we found out that Venice is a city for the old and no one (even on carnival) parties. So we settled for a liqour store and bought a couple of bottles of wine and liqour and headed back to the rooms to drink. There were 4 kids that were on this spring break from their school, 2 guys and 2 girls, and did I mention that one girl named Ryan was really cute? We stayed up for a while drinking and I enjoyed flirting with ryan with the little bit of game I think I have, and yes Ryan was a girl even though it is a guys name. The next day thought however I really regreted drinking and felt the consequences of doing so. I spent basically the whole day recooperating, but at least I got to eat a lot of pizza while trying to nurse my stomach back to health. The day was fun though and we spent it walking around and taking photos of all the intricatley dressed people walking around the canals off Venice. We actually didn't hang out with Ryan and her friends again after that first night which was kind of strange, but we still had a good time without them, and it was probably for the best beings I think the 2 guys they were with were raging alcoholics. At the end of the first full day of being there with the knowledge that Carnival ended the next day, we went to the station and booked train tickets to Florence for the next day at 3 pm. The next day we walked around Venice a bit more and got our faces painted which was really cool, and then called it quits for Carnival and got on the train to Florence.

We've been in Florence for 2 days now and so far it's a blast. The hostal we are staying at is the coolest I've been to yet and there are a lot of people staying here so that makes it a lot of fun! They have free breakfast in the mornings and free pasta dinner in the evenings, and not to mention free Internet which thanks to that is why I am able to write such a lengthy and detailed blog entry! I also have a friend named Jenn that I've known since I was really young whose studying abroad here, and Cami and I have been hanging out with her every day. She's a really great girl and I see why we hung out when we were younger all the time. We kind of grew apart once we hit middle school and high school, but we still have a lot to talk about! We have plans to hang out with her again tomorrow night, and it's funny because Cami actually likes hanging out with her and she normally doesn't like hanging around girls my age! Tomorrow we are going on a day trip to some place to take a hike or something along the coast, I have no idea my sister planned it, but after that we are going to meet up with Jenn again for one last time and go out to experience the night life of Florence. After tomorrow we are planning to leave to go to Rome on the 27th, my birthday, early in the morning and then do a pub crawl later that night for my birthday party!! I'm really excited, first of all that my birthday is actually on the weekend this time and not on a weekday, and secondly that I will be in ROME for my birthday! I couldn't ask for a better 22nd birthday present! Things have really been looking up lately and so far it seems like they can only get better, especially on the 27th!

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