Venezia

Ciao Ragazzi!!! (actually, ragazzi is used to describe people between the ages of about 16 and 26, so many of you are not "ragazzi," but this was a favorite phrase used by one of the hotel receptionists last week whenever he saw us, so I thought it was appropiate). Anyways, Ciao ragazzi!


Obviously it's been a while since I made an entry, but I ended up incredibly busy two weeks ago planning for our trip last week. I saw and experienced so many incredible things, and I naturally took about a million pictures. I actually can't wait to move into my new apartment in Houston as I already have lots of plans for how I'm going to utilize these photos in my place. I already have a few picked out to blow up to a larger size. Since I knew I'd want to remember everything, I made sure to take notes each night on what we saw so I could describe everything to you. There is not enough space or time to explain everything in one blog, so I've decided to divide it up. I'll start with Venezia (Venice) and explain our weekend there. This will still be a long blog, but I hope it's all interesting!

We left Taormina Feb. 22 around 3:30 p.m. to catch the bus to the airport in Catania. I have to pause here and mention that I had my first subconsious Italian moment on the bus ride, which is very important. While on the bus, Clay turned and said something to me in Italian, and I apparently responded. A few minutes later he told me that this man was staring at him, so he spoke to me in Italian to show that he knew Italian. This is a trick we often use, especially when we run into other Americans or English speakers. We try to blend in or pretend we don't speak English, so we'll speak Italian to each other. We're not good enough to fool the Sicilians, but the Americans and English who don't know Italian think we're fluent, even though we're just saying easy, dumb stuff. Anyways, so when Clay told me he was trying to show off for the guy, I looked him and asked him when he spoke Italian as I hadn't heard him speak any of it on the bus ride. He then repeated the sentence in English and asked if I remembered when he said that. I did, and I remembered that I had responded. Turns out that entire exchange happened in Italian, but I didn't even realize it. I had understood what he said and responded all in Italian without even thinking or translating! I was very excited!

Miraculously there were no travel problems to Venezia (or for the whole trip for that matter). We were a bit nervous about the travel, especially since we knew we would arrive in Venezia at dark, and they get around using vaporetti lines (the boats), a transportation system unfamiliar to us. We flew with Windjet, which gave us another interesting transportation experience. When we reached our boarding gate, the plan didn't actually pull up to the gate. Instead it was chilling on the runway, and we had to board a bus and drive out to the plane. So about 2/3s of the people on the plane and all our carryon luggage were shoved into this bus.

We successfully found the right bus - it was actually a long bus with a bendable center, similar to train cars really. So far so good. (This was our motto for the trip. We were pretty sure we'd somehow mess up somewhere or end up on the wrong train, so we always said, so far, so good.) Then we got on the right vaporetto. So far, so good. It was incredibly foggy in Venezia. I'm actually surprised the pilot could see the runway. We took the vaporetto to the Rialto Bridge stop and got off. Our hotel was about 7 minutes away and was very easy to find, even in the dark. So far, so good.

Our room was basically two beds in a hallway with a door, and the water was brown, but compared to our later accomodations, this was fantastic. We also had a really cute view of a canal. Probably anywhere in Venezia has a view of a canal really since the entire city is built on water, but still, we thought it was cool that the gondolas would pass right under our balcony! We were just so proud we had made it to Venice safe and sound!

Saturday was a busy day - really every day all week was busy. After breakfast at the hotel, we headed to Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's square). I don't think we ever realized we were in Venice to be perfectly honest. The square was cool and quite huge. There are pigeons everywhere thanks to the constant feedings they receive from the tourists. If you buy a bag of birdseed, all you have to do it hold out your hands and pigeons will land on you. It's fun to watch from a distance, but I wasn't about to let some gross pigeons come land on me! It's really cute to watch the kids chase the pigeons and then react when a pigeon lands on their head. After walking around and taking in the square, we went into the basilica. It was dark inside and very difficult to see the mosaics on the walls. While I think the basilica was gorgeous, I think the one in Monreale was more impressive. The internet is working better here, so I'm hoping to get all my pictures uploaded this week. Then you can see Monreale for yourself. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures in San Marco, so you have no way to compare the two. There was an impressive golden altar that we saw in the basilica, though.

After the basilica, we went to Palazzo Ducale. It was massive, and I had no idea how big it was before we went in. It was the former palace of the doge of Venice, which is the chief magistrate of the city. Anyways, there were lots of impressive rooms, half of which I can't remember now because I've seen a million and one impressive things in eight days! My favorite part of the Palazzo, though, was crossing the Bridge of Sighs (Ponte dei Sospiri). The bridge connects the palace (more specifically the judicial rooms) to the prisons, and it got its name because prisoners would allegedly moan and sigh as they crossed the bridge because they could look out the windows and see their last view of beautiful Venice and the canal before entering the prisons. The second time we crossed the bridge, a man on the other side re-enacted this a bit and moaned as he crossed. It was quite hilarious! We also got some pictures of the exterior of the bridge. Another thing that was impressive in the Palazzo was how there was so much artwork on the ceilings and high up on the walls. We saw this everywhere really, but it never ceased to amaze me how incredible it is that they could paint things so high up!

One thing I didn't enjoy about Venice is the bitter cold. I was pretty much freezing the entire trip, and unfortunately it was foggy the entire time as well. After lunch where we tried to warm up some, we walked to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. She was an American art collector, and I believe most of the stuff in the museum, she gathered. Anyways, there were two Picasso paintings, which was pretty cool. Unfortunately, I'm not much of an art buff, so I don't really know what I'm looking at, and I often don't know a good painting from a bad one. I just know if I like a painting or not. Maybe I'll do more art research after this trip, though, as I saw loads of artwork and it's a shame I probably don't really appreciate it as much as a real artist would.

After the Guggenheim, we walked to Chiesa di Santa Maria della Salute. It's a huge church (then again most of the churches we saw were huge). The exterior of it was also under renovation. Because we traveled during the off season, many places were under renovation; however, because we traveled during the off season, there were less tourists and shorter lines, so I suppose there is a trade off. This church was the one that allegedly stopped the plague in Venice if I remember correctly. Outside the church was a beggar woman. We encountered lots of poor and homeless on our trips, much like you would see more beggars in larger cities in the States. Usually the ones we saw would have a can in front of them, and have their heads bowed down so you couldn't see them. Some would occasionally try to mumble something, but usually they are quiet. But this woman stood out because we was right at the door and she grabbed at our pants and coats as we walked in.

After the church, we headed back to San Marco to see if sunk in that we were actually in Venice. It hadn't. We then relaxed at the hotel before dinner. Venice was the most expensive city and it was often difficult to find affordable places to eat for both lunch and dinner. In every other city we would grab a quick, cheap lunch, and then actually go to a restaurant for dinner. But the Venice restaurants were more expensive. On Saturday night we crossed the Rialto Bridge and found a place in a back alleyway. We had risotto scampi, which was delicious, and some excellent white wine. We also had shared some meat and tiramisù, both of which were good, but not as good as the risotto. The tiramisù was very different from the kind we eat in Sicilia. This kind was more like a cake really, where as here, there's a lot more cream in it. In fact, Angela's is almost like a pudding.

We were absolutely exhausted and easily crashed at the hotel. So far, so good.

On Sunday we started out by walking around, looking for Ca' d'oro, a palace made of gold. We found it, but decided it wasn't worth going into. We then walked to the other side of the main island where we caught a vaporetto for Murano, one of the little islands. After walking around for two days, we realized how small Venice really is. Murano is the glass-blowing island, and Murano glass is world-famous. We walked around the tiny island and went into some stores. I bought some earrings and wine glasses. I was tempted to buy more (they had these really awesome glass clocks), but decided against it. A good choice in hindsight. We even saw a few furnaces in some of the shops, but we didn't really care to go into the museum as we've seen glass being blown before.

I'll pause here to discuss the vaporetti. It's quite an interesting experience to be on one as it pulls into a dock. There is a sign on each dock that says the boat should not bumb the dock, which is riduculous since every vaporetto bumps the dock as it "parks." Based on how hard and how often they bump, I decided the drunk drivers must be the ones who get jobs at vaporetto drivers. The water in the canals and the grand canal is also very green. It reminds me of the water you would see at Disney World on the It's A Small World ride (and I apologize for now putting that song in your head for the rest of the day. I should also credit that to Clay as it was his observation first. So it's his fault the song is in your head). We walked back to Piazza San Marco as we planned on going up in Campinile (the bell tower) to look down on the square. Unfortunately, it was so foggy that we couldn't even see the top of the tower, and we opted not to go up as it wouldn't be worth our money since we couldn't be able to see the square through all the fog.

We again relaxed some before dinner and found another cute restaurant, although our experience there was quite a bit different. The pasta was really good, but we decided to order cuttlefish to share. I knew that the cuttlefish would be black, although Clay didn't, and he was the one who chose it, so I figured he did. Needless to say when it arrived, it looked like chunky tar. We both laughed really hard and then dug in to try it. It wasn't bad, although it didn't taste like much either. More importantly, it's quite disgusting to eat something that is black. Our teeth looked very gross when we were through. We finished off with some excellent cheesecake, so if you graphed our dinner experience, it would look like an upside down bell curve. To add to the dinner experience, I was sitting under a giant heart painting and in the middle of dinner they played Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," which we decided was about the cheesiest thing we had ever heard (either here or in the States, although I love Celine).

I think Venezia is really more for couples, and we were there to just sight see. But I would love to return one day when I marry rich and can afford the really nice dinners overlooking the Grand Canal, followed by the extremely expensive gondola ride. It was a nice city, and I'm glad I got to see it, but to truly enjoy it, I think you need to be there with someone. It's definitely more of a relaxing city than a sight-seeing city in my opinion. Plus they have lots of expensive shops (Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton), and I imagine those are fun to go in if you look like you might actually buy something in them. The only expensive fashion store I've ever been in was Jimmy Choo in New York.

Sunday evening we also saw/heard a boat with a "system" blaring some "Golddigger" by Kanye West (I'm sorry to my older "readers" who had absolutely no idea who Kanye West is. He's a rapper, and Golddigger is a recent hit of us. And on the canal in Venice is about the last place you expect to hear this).

As far as general things about Venice:

The street vendors were also interesting. There are lots of people out selling crappy little things - from purses to prints to dancing tweety-birds. The gondola captains (not sure what you call them) were also out trying to drum up business. What cracked me up about all of them is that they would try to speak in English, but most of them have only learned about 3 phrases in English. They actually seem to have learned the same three phrases in about 8 languages, so if you don't respond at first to Italian or English, they'll try another language until they get your attention. What was so funny is that in English, they translated "buon giorno signore/signora" (which is more like hello sir/mam) to "hey guys," which is pretty informal. It was quite hilarious, and I really wonder who taught them the translation because I don't think I've ever heard an American street vendor yell "hey guys!"

There are about 400 bridges in Venice (according to my guidebook), and I'm quite sure we crossed 200 of them, and I probably snapped photos of the other 200.

We tried very hard to use our Italian, but most people there spoke English. This was actually a common theme throughout our trip. Everyone spoke English. Before we left, though, we had decided to make a conscious effort to respond only in Italian. Typically when we did this, the person speaking to us would switch to Italian after a few minutes, which excited us. In fact, most people were actually impressed with our Italian, or at least with the fact that we were trying, which is 100 times better than the majority of the tourists (especially the English-speaking ones), who make absolutely no effort to speak Italian. On the other hand, I don't know how the Italians expect people to learn the language if they never speak to Americans in Italian. If you only speak to someone in English, how do you expect them to learn? I suppose the tourist cities have decided they must cater to the tourists to keep them coming. Pretty much everyone we encountered, though, would immediately start speaking to us in English. I'll share more stories as we go along, but we do have a cool one that happened in Florence when we spoke in Italian, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

So that was a really long blog, but that was our weekend in Venice in a nutshell. Tomorrow I'll cover Firenze (Florence), which was easily my favorite city! Ciao ragazzi!