Venice

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Hello from Venice! So far, this is one of the most incredible cities I've ever been to. It's hard to believe that people actually get around here the way they do. The canals are unreal. We took a ride on a gondola last night, which was wonderful, and Venice doesn't smell as bad as I'd heard.

However, a lot of the people are jerks. I got chewed out by an accordian player last night for being too loud, told to move out of the way in an empty line, sent out of a store when it was closing, which is fine, but the guy was a jerk. Oh well, no big deal.

The weather is incredibly hot, but not too much different from home. My two years of Italian are actually paying off - I know an impressive amount! While most people here speak English, I'm not really having any trouble talking with the people who only speak Italian.

We're all having a blast and the food is great. Our hotel room gets FREEZING cold, which made for an incredible night's sleep last night. I'm going to keep exploring the city today, but tomorrow morning we head out on train to Cinque Terre, which is on the western coast of the country. Thank God there are some places to swim there because it's hotter than the blazes, and all of the water here is DISGUSTING and I wouldn't throw my worst enemy into it.

Things are more expensive here than anywhere I've ever been. With the price of the euro combined with the fact that everything has to be brought here by boat, the prices are outrageous, like five euros for a large Coke. Luckily though, they have Coke Zero, or Coca-Cola Zucchero, and it tastes just as delicious as ever!

Tonight we are going to hit a casino. Hopefully Jared and the guys we're with can find some nice clothes to wear - I know that a jacket is required, but apparently they have them available for rental.

Today, we visited the Murano glass factory, which was pretty incredible. I saw a three piece glass statue of Poseidon riding behind two horses that cost 90,000 euros, which is like $150,000. It was pretty incredible though!

Well, I'm off to do some more exploring. As expensive as stuff like Coke is, gelato is relatively cheap and absolutely delicious! I had some banana and kiwi gelato yesterday that was phenomenal - so much flavor! Maybe I'll get some! Check in again soon to hear more!


Weston

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