Vive Venezia

Don't kill me if the title isn't correct... I'm good at ciao and gratzi and that's about it, haha!
BUT. Venice is lovely!

Definitely by far my favorite and I've only been here one day. We've wandered the streets and canals and definitely gotten lost and it's been great.

We came in early last night and just spent some time looking around before settling in for some Italian pasta, followed, of course, by gelato. It was delicious. We did some more wandering afterwards, just enjoying the lights along the canal before turning in early.

This morning we had to be up early, but it was worth it because the breakfast in this hotel is wonderful. Sadly it was cut short because a lot of us had to change to accommodate a visit to St. Mark's Cathedral, where we needed to have our shoulders and knees covered. I ended up wearing leggings under my dress for that portion of the morning - real cute, promise. The visit was great though. The inside of the cathedral is beyond elaborate, and the intense amounts of detail are yet again, breath taking. I do still love Chartes more, but Chartes and I have a once in a lifetime kind of love. After St. Mark's, we walked through the Doges Palace next door. It was an incredibly different sort of wonderful, one I think I liked more than the cathedral. There was a lot more openness. Can't say much for the simpleness, though because both places were covered in gold leaf. We did get to cross the Bridge of Sighs - which I was unaware lead from the Palace to the prison. And it was actually deemed the Bridge of Sighs because of the prisoners sighing as they walked across it to the chopping block. Terribly depressing if you ask me! But still really cool to see and learn.

After the square, we followed our crazy tour guide all over Venice. It was kind of ridiculous how fast he expected all of us to follow him when it's a group of over 40 down narrow streets, filled with cute shops which distracted all the girls in the group - which is about 90% of our group. It definitely sparked ideas for our free time after the tour! We did see some other places with our tour guide - primarily the Basilica dei Frari. There was a lot more sculpture inside of this cathedral, which I really enjoyed. The unfortunate thing about having a tour guide, though, is that they tend to rush you through some of the nicer things so that you see everything. So we saw and heard a lot, but mildly briefly. Still enjoyable though!

After the tour finished, they took us to the canal where we could take a very short gondola ride across the canal to make our trip back shorter. It was fun to experience and photo graph, as well as very telling that I could not handle a full gondola ride all across the canals. I was way too nervous I was going to fall out at any second - not very relaxing.

This afternoon we had a brief lecture, followed by shopping. The shopping was not a class requirement, but I'm pretty sure the whole class did some shopping of some sort. The few I was with definitely ran into other groups throughout the afternoon, in various states of purchases. It was great. Don't worry, I'm not broke, yet! I did come home feeling like the picture of an Italian vacation in a summer dress, Venetian hat, and a spring in my step. The spring possibly due to the visit at a local wine bar with our professor, but either way, I had fun!

It was a delightful day, and there is more to happen tomorrow! It's crazy I'm down to only ten days left - how times flies!
Need to go make the most of what I have left!
Lucy