Viva Venezia!

Sunday, 15 February
It is ridiculous to get to the different gates at Stansted- it took like five minutes of mostly jogging to get to our gate, just to have to wait a while.

We flew over the Alps on the airplane, and it was gorgeous. I took several photos out the window, then Vanessa and I listened to my Lord of the Dance music and pretended to Irish jig in our seats.

Customs at the airport was fantastic- the signs for 'things to claim' and 'nothing to claim' pointed through the same door... the exit. I had a realization that made me very excited, and that realization's name is GELATO.

We got off of the bus from the airport and stepped into a sea of masks and costumes, and stands selling 'helLOVEnezia' teeshirts and Carnival masks. Also, Haider got really excited about the sun, and started rummaging in his bag for a mysterious something. We were guessing sunglasses/sunscreen/hats, etc, but what he finally pulled out was... a meter to measure the wattage of the sun.

Hilary and Caitlin ended up catching up with us while we were waiting for the bus to get to the hostel, which worked out well. We found the area pretty easily, but had some issues with finding the check-in area. First, Haider talked to a German kid (who for some reason said 'cheers!' as he was walking off, so I think he was just messing with everyone). We also had this beautifully executed moment when we were looking for the entrance, and two of us went to the left of this large dome on the ground, and two to the right, and one stayed behind, and then from there we went in different directions each. It was cool, okay? After that we were yelling, 'scusi!' down the small dome (there was like a walkway under the sidewalk, I don't know) but the guy down there was doing construction so that didn't work.

There were two dogs (or "PUUUUUUUUUUUPPIES!" as Kevin would say) in the small place near our hostel we ate dinner. Quotes of the meal: Kevin- 'Your ears are so soft, I want to cut them off and take them with me!'
Haider- 'Coca s'il vous plait!'

I quickly became obsessed with Carnival masks when we went back in to the city, the displays on the carts and in the stores were so pretty! I got two scoops of gelato (yuuuuum) and some tiramisu while we wandered around. We were trying to find the places where music would be playing; the first square was supposedly jazz music, which is apparently messed up techno? Not quite what I wanted, man. We decided to try to find the other location, but got lost down some back alleyways, which was actually really fun and a good way to get a feel for Venezia. I also loved how we would turn a corner and be like 'woah!' since we'd suddenly be in a plaza with some random, huge, gorgeous buildings. It was fabulous.

So was the guy peeing in the canal. I felt bad, but it made me laugh when Vanessa was talking about some housing trouble she's having back at USC.

We got unlost really quickly, and hopped on the 12/ instead of the 12, so we didn't know that it ended at a slightly different place and didn't quite go to our hostel.

Monday, 16 February
The hostel was really nice, albeit really cold at night- we had three double rooms, each with its own toilet and shower, and a shared kitchen (with pots, pans, and whatnot included). That worked out well so that we could get up early Monday morning and go buy eggs and breakfast things, and also cold cuts and snacks for lunch. It worked out to be eight euros each for breakfast and lunch for two days, which meant more money for gelato!!

We took a gondola ride in the morning- since it wasn't busy, we bartered them down to ten euros each, rather than fourteen. It was so cool, and fun! Our gondolier didn't sing, but he was pretty chatty and seemed to enjoy the questions asked. It was a really nice, sunny morning, so it worked out really well for our gondola-ing.

After the gondola, we meandered down to San Marco, mask shopping. We all succesfully found masks that suited us very well- mine had bells on it and was sort've like a jester's hat, which served well to alert my friends to when I would be making a break to the gelato stand. It was called 'Emily's gelato jingle,' since my sashaying to the stand had a distinct frolicksome tone to it.

When we sat down to lunch, we started talking to a nice couple on the bench across from us, thanks to Haider's sun meter. When they asked what Italian we knew, Kevin responded, 'buon giorno, Principessa!' which made the woman laugh. Apparently she also likes the movie Life is Beautiful. I also enjoyed watching the pigeons- one of the males was unsuccessfully trying to woo a female; he was all fluffed up and chasing her around.

San Marco was fantastic. The area is gorgeous and busy to look at in general, but the plaza was packed, with people in fabulous costumes all over. We hit it up a few hours before sunset, so there were lots of gorgeous views with the late afternoon light over the water and cathedral. Also, there were these really cool silvery gray raptors (well, men on stilts, really) wandering around to sort've primitive music, pretending to eat people (apparently Kevin got attacked). It was such a surreal moment, especially when I snapped a picture of one of them right in front of St Mark's. I literally was speechless. That's saying something. We chased them down to get some video, which I'll be posting up on facebook once my laptop is working again.

While near St Mark's, I bought two bags of confetti for a euro. We determined that whenever we threw some, we had to shout 'Viva Venezia!' It was really fun, especially targeting small children and tour groups, who seemed (aside from my friends of course) to get the most joy out of it.

The inside of St Mark's was pretty gorgeous, and I snuck some photos on Vanessa's camera (my battery had died :-( ). We're going to maybe incorporate one or two into our papers on Westminster Cathedral, since Bentley spent a lot of time at St Mark's when he was getting ideas to design it.

We wandered over to the Ponto Rialto and had some fun taking sunset and confetti pictures there. After gazing at the sun setting over the Grand Canal, we slipped into a pizza and gelato shop to warm up and use the bathrooms and snack. After that, we went and met Keener back in San Marco... I wanted to sneak up on him, but he was up a little high so he could have a clear view and saw us coming, and was able to recognize me even with my mask on (hey, I wore it for two days solid).

After introductions, we went and checked out the tango exhibition on the other side of the plaza, then traipsed over to the Rialto again to find some food. There were some very Brick Lane moments there- Haider was literally restraining himself from haggling by using me as a shield whilst doormen offered us extra wine to eat there. We found a place (I don't know the name, sadly), toasted Venezia with vino, and ate yummy Italian food (lasagne and fish, yesplease). While we were waiting for the bill, Vanessa and I were cracking up at the juxtaposition of the cross conversations happening down the table a bit- Kev and Caitlin were discussing which movies had won Oscars in which years, and Hilary and Haider were talking about Pokemon.

After paying, we meandered a bit mroe and got gelato, and then Keener had to leave us to get back to his dorm. He never did get to see Haider's face... at any rate, my friends really liked Keens, and Keens seemed to enjoy them as well, so that was really fun.

Hilary fell asleep on her computer cord when Vanessa was using it, then half woke up a little while later and happily said she didn't want to put it away when I asked, so then I just straight-up told her mostly asleep self to do it. It was pretty funny.

Tuesday, 17 February
We were able to check our bags at the train station, which was really good (we got nervous when the lockers were out of order, but there was an alternative place). After booking our trains for later that day, we headed back to San Marco (just stopping at an artist's stand on the way), and went up the campanile. We'd been nervous there wouldn't be enough time, but luckily there was, since it was a gorgeous, panoramic view of Venice. Then we got pizza on the way back to the train station (and gelato, of course) to supplement our sandwiches so we could stretch out our packed lunches to cover dinner as well.

I really want to go back to Venice someday for Carnival, and dress up in some of those gorgeous costumes.
Also, 'Il maximus de circo ha rubato Hilary!' Haider put that in our Italian language packets, so we started saying it to Hilary without telling her what it meant (she and Caitling left before getting the phrase packs he made up). She appreciated it a lot more when she discovered it meant 'The Circus Maximus has kidnapped Hilary!' She might not have enjoyed the, 'eh, that's a shame,' response Kevin and I decided on, though.

I limited myself to thirteen scoops of gelato my entire thirty-six-ish hours in Venice.