Sunday, July 31, 2011

Venetian Dreams...


I still can’t believe we are where we are so let me restate what I’ve been saying all day today: We’re in Venice guys! I can’t believe we’re in VENICE! It felt nothing short of some sort of magical dream to wake up in this morning knowing that we were in Italy. Since it was our first and last official whole day in Venice, we had to make haste and use our time and money efficiently haha. For starters, while Jinah went to find some pizza to eat for brunch, Edgar, Lu, Sherry, and I found the nearest grocery store to buy some inexpensive snacks that would last us throughout the day. I ended up grabbing a bottle of water, pear juice, strawberry yogurt, and a pack of “Plum Cake.” We decided to let our ghetto sides shine and eat our cheap snacks on the ground behind the market next to one of the canals. The food we bought was surprisingly filling; this was a very good thing.

As soon as we finished eating, we picked up all of our trash and headed out on one of the main streets again. Remember how I said that we were surprised to find not many people out last night? Well, scratch that. There were so many people out and about today it’s not even funny! I guess people only come out during the daytime. But anyway, while we were walking along one of the main streets, we stumbled upon a Gondola service station… where we were drawn in by the beautiful Gondolas and breathtaking Venetian scenery. We didn’t plan on it and we definitely didn’t expect to pay 20 euros each, but… it happened anyway haha. Yes, we got to ride in a Gondola boat today! The ride was about thirty minutes long and we were given a tour of some of the highlights of Venice… I really enjoyed the ride! My goodness, I have no idea how to put Venice into words… everything about this place is so wonderfully beautiful. The water and canals are one thing, but the boating arrangement for transportation, the food, the music… everything is full of their own “beautiful, specific details,” that it cannot be replaced nor taken granted for. I cannot find any word that is nearly close enough to describe the awe-inspiring nature of Venice… other than, “Now I know why this is Mom’s favorite place in Europe.”



After our Gondola ride, we found our way to San Marco Square where we ended up staying for a good two to three hours haha. We took about a billion and a half pictures of everything! The church, the (original) Campanile, the pigeons... everything! Speaking of pigeons, I had THEE best time taking pictures with them haha. I took some of the bread I had bought earlier to feed them; once I threw down the first few crumbs a whole flock of pigeons began swarming me! The pigeons are not afraid of people at all; they’re seriously savages! Haha. They just came swooping down towards and passed you like bomber jets trying so hard to snag just one more bread crumb. Mom took a similar picture feeding these pigeons when she was in Venice many years ago… so I really wanted to recreate that photograph stuck in time.

After bonding with all the pigeons, we realized that Jinah was no where in sight! She must have walked off somewhere and unknowingly got separated from the rest of us. We waited around in the Square to see if we could find her, but… we had no luck. Since she had the map, we knew she would be okay. Along our mini journey through Venice, we stopped to eat some of the most delicious gelato in the world (of course, I’ve been saying that every time I ate gelato here in Italy), we tried on various authentic Venetian masks and took pictures with them, we browsed around a bunch of souvenir shops, and continued to take a plethora of pictures.

The rest of the evening was awesome. I mean, all we did was walk around as much of Venice as possible without a map haha… but that was all I needed. Venice is beautiful from every and any angle… Lu and Edgar surprisingly ran into one of their friends from Berkeley who is studying abroad and traveling this summer as well! Haha talk about a small world… ah! After they chatted for a bit, we continued to walk and we walked as far as we could until we reached the water’s edge! It was a beautiful site to see… Once the sun went down, we thought it would be best to head back to the hostel. We were a bit worried when we found out that Jinah wasn’t at the hostel waiting for us but just when we were about to leave to eat dinner, we see her coming up the stairs! Haha yes, reunited! We all ate dinner together at one of the only Italian restaurants that were still open near midnight.

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