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Published: October 26th 2009
Aqua alta hit Venice for the first time during our stay last week and the city went underwater!!! (well, kind of!) We got rain for the second time since we've been here (who said Venice always rains???) and the city flooded a few inches. We went over during the afternoon to hit up the Museo Correr and the water had pretty much receded, but the lowest part of the city, the Piazza San Marco, was still a little flooded and we got to splash around in our rainboots for the first time! It was definately an experience! At some parts of the square the water was almost to the top of our rainboots. I never realized how organized the whole high water thing is over here! They set up platforms all around the city for people to walk on and the police are everywhere monitoring the pedestrian traffic on the platforms. It was really cool because most people didn't have rainboots so there weren't many people actually down in the Piazza, most were up on the platforms. The back alleys near the sqaure are all dark and flooded- total Titantic moment!
This past weekend Elyse and I headed off to
Milano!!! Another Communication major from Purdue that I know is studying there for the semester so we got free accomadations and an awesome Milan tour guide! Since Milan doesn't have as many touristy things, we spent the day basically shopping. It was a great change of pace from the crazy tourist scene in Venice and from having to run around sightseeing constantly on our weekends. We each picked up some awesome Milan fashion pieces (being the fashion capital of the world and all, we pretty much had to!) We also further expanded our shot glass collection and had our first experience at an Italian apertivo! Apertivos are basically where you go in and they have delicious drinks, but they are pretty steep (like 8 or 9 euros). BUT...when you order a drink you get free unlimited appetizers, and there is an endless buffett of delicious Italian appetizers that you can just keep stocking up on! It was awesome! We also had our first experience at an Italian nightclub, or discoteca! Milan has great nightlife (something Venice is seriously lacking!) The club was HUGE and there were all sorts of people there, it was awesome and hilarious all at the same
time! When we arrived there was this crazy heavy metal screemer band (not really our scene), but they left right after we got there and the DJ came on. They played some crazy European songs, included an Irish jig that everybody in the club except us seemed to know, and a crazy Italian song that everyone starting jumping up and down Sandstorm-style to! The majority of the music though was from America and about 30% was modern hits while 70% was random songs from the 90's. Mamba #5 is a big one over there. All the Italians don't really know any of the words except the chorus, so Sam, Elyse and I were belting them out and loving it. Seeing an Italian guy yelling "Jai Ho!!!" at the top of his lungs was a highlight 😊
Our weekend was AMAZING (like always) and we revamped our travel schedule a bit for the next few weeks. We are officially traveling every single weekend, which is kind of a bummer since we wont get too much free time in Venice but also awesome because we'll get a taste of all these different places! We had to nix Prague due to how
expensive and far it was, but we added Munich, Zurich and Dublin to our itinerary! We had to change a few things around but it should work out great- and we are traveling to all three with Samantha now!! Travel buddy!
That's it for now...London this weekend!!! I have to say this is the trip I've been waiting for...I'm SOOOO excited! Our Halloween weekend includes: cherry beer (heard its delicious!!!), tons of sightseeing (naturally!), Wicked (basically from what I hear the greatest musical ever!), our first hostel experience, Blood and Tears haunted tour of London by night (should be fun!) and a Halloween night of pub crawling in our sweet costumes (Venice Carnivale masks!) Life is good 😊
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Mom
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As always.....loved the blog!
Hi Steph, Enjoyed this latest installment of "Stephanie's European Adventure"! It sounds like Milan was just what you needed after a busy week of classes. The pix of the aqua alta were facinating....especially those creepy looking alleys. They reminded me of Titanic, too. It seemed like Jack and Rose should be wading through them at any moment! Hopefully, the water in Venice was a little warmer than the North Atlantic......and no icebergs! Hope you're staying warm and dry! Love, Mom