Venice Day 1

Buongiorno tutti! Today we arrived in Venice! Water! Boats! No real streets! It is amazing!

We started off by getting up at 6:30 this morning so that we could be on the bus and leaving by 8:00. Getting our bags to the bus pickup place wasn’t too bad so I don’t really have much to complain about on that front. But just wait.

So then we headed out of Florence…

                                                               Bye bye!

…and chilled on the bus for about 3 ½ hours. I took some pictures of random landscapes, so please, enjoy.

                                                          Countryside!

                                                      More countryside!

                                                      We're on a bus!

Then we saw Venice! From a distance.

                                                             Oooh, foggy.

Now this is where is became a little bit like walking death. Venice has streets that are pretty flat, so we didn’t have to worry much about cobblestones or the like, but what they do have are bridges. Lots of bridges.

So we had to roll/carry our luggage for about 30 minutes before we reached our hotel, which was extraordinarily uncomfortable. I won’t say painful, but I would rather not have to do that ever again. So I’m really looking forward to that walk when we leave. *sigh* Plus, our hotel is kind of in a sketchy alleyway.

                                            Yeah, red thing is hotel entrance.

Grabbed some lunch at a new and unlikely place. McDonalds. Yep, it was the only place cheap enough and quick enough.

                                                                No shame.

But after a 10 minute break, we dropped off our luggage and went touring! Yay! So we went to a church (Anyone surprised? Anyone?). It’s called the Frari, derived from the word ‘friars’ because its real name is super long and not as fun to say. No pictures allowed inside, but the outside is pretty cool anyway.

                                                               Be in awe.

After that we headed over to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, which used to be a confraternity. It has some cool paintings, so I would definitely recommend looking them up online.

Following this, we came back to the hotel, almost getting lost a couple of times, and I wrote my paper that is due tomorrow morning. So good times.

We had a group dinner (seafood risotto (awesome) and swordfish (okay)) and then some…you guessed it! Gelato!!

                                                               En garde!

Interesting Stories of the Day:

• Professor Duclaux, when realizing, in church, that a painting he was going to show us had been moved, proceeded to loudly exclaim, “Oh S**t!” For shame, Professor. For shame.
• Baby Niels found a playmate outside of the Scuola Grande and they proceeded to be adorable x20. Not even kidding.
• Oh, and we went on that really famous bridge. Here's a picture of me on it.

                                                  Look! A picture of me!

A dopo!