Florence Program Days 12-13 (Venice)

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Saturday 09-06-08

A group of about 5 other girls and I got up at 5:10 this morning to catch an early train to Venice. We got to the train station around 6, and found out that our 6:30 train was delayed 85 minutes. So much for waking up early... By 8 we were finally on a train to Bologna, where we then had to get off and wait about 50 minutes for another train headed to Venice. Dana and I got off at the main station and followed the directions to our hostel, which was actually pretty easy to find. After checking in we sat in the main living area and ate our lunch (crackers, cheese, salami, and nectarines). Then we decided to go and do some shopping. *Venice is known for its beautiful glass. I saw everything from basic rings to 10,000 euro chandeliers.* Then we decided to get on a waterbus to Morano, which is where most of the glass is made. Dana and I were waiting in line to buy a ticket, and a nice man came up to us and asked us if we spoke English and then he offered to give us his two tickets which were good until 10pm that night. So then we made the trip over to Morano and looked at numerous glass pieces which neither of us could afford. They were amazing to see though! After that we headed back over to the central part of the city and got some gelato before we walked back to our hostel. We showered and then decided to go for a walk and found a place to get a glass of wine before going back to our hostel for dinner. We had great pasta, and spent the night talking to two others girls. One was from Boston and the other was from Toronto. We ended up going to bed fairly early that night because we had been up since 5 am.

Sunday 09-07-08

We woke up around 8:30. Our room was extremely damp and warm. Venice has an extremely moist climate! I could NEVER live there without air conditioning. We took showers and then waited for breakfast. Afterwards we decided to do some more shopping on the way to the Rialto bridge. The bridge was large, but there were so many people and street vendors on it that it was hard to enjoy being there. I preferred the quieter areas of Venice. Then we decided to go find a pizza place that we had seen the day before for lunch. After that we walked around some more, and even got to see gondola races which were taking place. We had really wanted to ride on a gondola, but the average price was 100 euro! We took pictures in front of one instead. By 2 we started to think about heading home. We bought some candy for the train, picked up our luggage, and were on a train by 3. We got back into Florence around 7. After cleaning up, we went to Oio for dinner. Most of the students who were in Florence for the day went to a wine tasting festival. They showed up around the time Dana and I got back from dinner... pretty sloshed.

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