Trip to Venice

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The next weekend I went to Venice with Sarah- this is a long story so I will condense it a little but it also has some humorous parts to it. To begin with, we didn’t get out of class until 4:15. Our flight was at 6:30. The drive to Beauvais airport is about 1 hour at the most with traffic, so we had plenty of time to get there. Let’s just say that our taxi driver was a little incompetent. First of all, instead of taking the direct highway to Beauvais, he took a road that runs through approximately 37 small towns, each with many many many red lights. Also, he let buses get in front of us and then stop- not one bus, not two, but at least 4, each of which stopped and let people on and off. He also let a string of motorcycles get in front of us and let other cars take the right of way when they should have yielded. He drove below the speed limit a majority of the way. He refused to pass cars when there finally was an open road. He kept shrugging his shoulders and saying, “Il y a trop de traffic!” (There is too much traffic) which was true for only part of the way. And maybe most irritatingly, he had a bad sinus problem. He sniffed repeatedly the whole way to the airport. Disgusting. So we ended up missing our flight. To top it all off, we watched our flight taking off as we drove up to the airport AN HOUR LATE!!!. So we were pretty angry and it also cost us 135 euro! But he couldn’t count so he gave us back 10 extra euro in change- and yes, we kept it because our taxi should have only cost about 80 euro. If he took the right road, that is!
We switched our plane tickets to Friday morning, and we were on a standby list, so we had Chinese food in Beauvais for dinner and then took a shuttle back to Paris. Got back on the shuttle to Beauvais at 7 am the next morning and luckily got on the flight to Venice.
We had lunch along a canal in Venice and then went to our hostel. Very interesting hostel- it is a campground. We stayed in a little trailer but it was so incredibly clean and cozy and we even had our own bathroom! It was a little far from the city but totally worth it since it was so cheap. Our Venice experience basically consisted of walking and shopping, and it was so enjoyable to not have a schedule or any obligations. Venice is amazing- it is a series of islands connected by bridges with canals running in between (the chase scene in Italian Job, yes!). While there are tourists everywhere, it is still very traditional and some of the buildings are hundreds of years old. Everyone spoke English or French, though, so it was extremely easy to get around. We definitely got lost for hours at a time though, which was why we did no sightseeing- we couldn’t find Piazza San Marco with the big cathedral and the Doge’s Palace until pretty late in the afternoon (some shopping along the way as well ) so we didn’t get to go in. So we walked around a little more and then took a gondola ride! By this time it was dark and there were not many people out since it was still before dinner, so the town was quiet and so peaceful along the small canals. We went past Marco Polo’s house, which was pretty cool and got to see a palace built in the first century AD! How amazing is that? It’s closed now because it’s rotten inside, but it’s still standing there! The gondola ride was a great way to see the water side of Venice because it is different from the street side. There are doors on the canals just like front doors, so it’s pretty cool to see speed boats parked along the houses instead of cars. The gondolier sang for us a little but didn’t try to make nervous chatter, so we just sat quietly and watched everything. One of the nicest experiences of my life, and I think I enjoyed and appreciated it even more after all the hassle of getting there. Oh, I forgot that we also went to the Peggy Guggenheim collection to see her art work- several Picasso, Bracques, Dali, and other cubist/ surreal artists.

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