4.12 Venice/Venizia

Italia! Italia!

In Venice, we paid another euro to use the bathroom at the train station and change. No shower but we wiped ourselves down with handy little facewipe and we were on our way, exhausted. At this point, I am so tired of tourists. Tons of people taking tons of pictures. You do not need to take a photo of every single thing! Venice was a very romantic city. Couples making out (again) and feeding each other gelato. Most of the shop owners spoke English and Italian, but preferred Italian.

Everyone there had a tiny dog. The dog went poop on the sidewalk, because that's all there is, and then tried to cover it up by scooping up fake dirt. It was so funny to watch. No one cleans up their dog poop either, so you have to watch where you walk. It's gross. There isn't a lot to do in Venice, that's why it's a day trip. We thought a gondola ride would be really expensive, so we didn't take one, but actually it wasn't. We didn't use a map, we just walked, took in the scenery, ate gelato and pizza. It is a really beautiful city and there are no cars. There are no roads, everyone just has boats. It is literally built on water. Even the ambulance is an ambu-boat. There are bridges everywhere with no handicap access. The biggest problem seemed to be for moms with strollers, they had to carry the stroller up and over each bridge. Imagine if you had to carry a stroller over every single cross street. They are either sorry they moved to Venice or they are in very good shape, or both.

Here was the beginning of my gelato sampling. By the time I left Italy, I had tried over 10 flavors of gelato. For a girl that only likes vanilla ice cream, I was proud of myself. If there are only two things I've learned from studying abroad, it would be that I am fine on my own because I can figure out how to navigate and that I like a lot more foods than I thought.