Venizia

When we arrived in the train station, we fumbled about for a bit looking into tickets for the bus boats, known here as vaperetto, and ended up at a vodaphone booth buying prepaid sim cards that we could use around italy. Meanwhile I'm keeping my eyes peeled for my Uncle John who I haven't seen for a few years, but, as I found out later, his train left the station before ours arrived so we missed that connection.

As we're standing at the vodaphone booth a familiar face says, 'Jake?' I thought this person may have been somehow related to my finding my uncle, but the freaky ginger (inside joke) quickly introduced herself as Lauren who was part of the same study abroad program as my girlfriend Michelle. Lauren led me outside to where there were sitting and Michelle and I had a bit of a reunion and creeper Livio(also inside joke) documented the occasion.

That group was waiting for their professor and were headed for a museum, so we had a few minutes to hang around, but then they were off leaving the 5 of us (Neha was stuck on a later train with a true creeper who made a move on her 30 minutes into the ride) to buy our vaperetto passes and find our hostel. It was a beautiful ride around venice to the largest of the islands to the south. If you walk outside the front door of our hostel you are greeted with a beautiful expanse of water and a view of the buildings in San Marco square while ferries, vaperetto and even some cruise ships float by. After we checked in we stepped back outside where a rather affordable restaurant awaited us. I FINALLY got a cheeseburger, but I also ordered a Piadini roll which is quite tasty. Marianne had some sea food stuff which made her sick... again. After dinner we... um.... slept. Too much. I woke up around the time Neha was supposed to arrive at the Ferrovia (train station) and I woke up the girls and only Mei and Andrea were willing to go with me. So we hopped on the next vaperetto and headed back to the train station. We got Neha uneventfully and brought her back to the hostel.

The next day we split up. I took a phone and headed out early (well, it felt early) to meet the UT Italy group who had a busy day of museums planned. It was a wonderful day and it was really great getting to spend some time with Michelle. And in Venice! The romantic in me was going nuts. Anywho, it was really fun hanging out with the group. I heard a lot of inside jokes, and I heard A LOT of italian speech, but I'm really grateful for my inclusion in the group. They started the day at la Gallerie dell'Academia which has mostly historical Venetian art including lots of paintings used in churches. We then walked to San Marco square where we saw the bridge of sighs, the Basilica and the Doge's palace (but we didn't go in because we're all total cheap college kids) and the took a vaperetto back towards our starting point to go to the Peggy Guggenheim museum. This was my favorite. And the best museum so far in my opinion. It was small, but it kept the group busy for about and hour and a half. Then the group wandered around for a bit, and we ended up a really great restaurant where I had tortellini, a porkchop and some sort of dessert that resembled ice cream cake in consistency, but tasted waaay better. I walked the group back to the train station and had a quick goodbye with Michelle, then I headed back to the hostel to find the girls drinking wine by the water's edge. Classy. One of the girls will have to tell you about their day in more detail. From what I gathered they went to some islands, did a bunch of shopping (not sad that I missed that), and took some hipster pics.

The following day I took the girls around where I had been. Our first stop was San Marco square, but since it was a Sunday, the church was closed 'til 2, but it was nice to wander around the area for a bit. We then walked to the Guggenheim (I spared them the boredom of la Accademia :P) and Marianne, Shivani and Mei went in while Neha, Andrea and I wandered around and eventually ended up just sitting on some church steps for a while with a great view of the Grand Canal. We then went back to the basilica and had a look around there. The rest of the day was pretty chill: we went back to the hostel, 4 of us went out for dinner (Marianne and Andrea were sleepy heads) and with a couple of bottles of wine in hand we made it back to the hostel where we got classy again in front of our hostel. Inevitably, the group of 5 girls attracted some guys, who added to our wine consumption, but there's nothing eventful to report, except that Mei is a total fun killer and went to bed really early. Now. This ferry business...