Venice

Venice day 1 I hope God forgives me for using his name in vane so much, because I think I said "Oh my God" my first day inVenice than I've ever said it in my life. Our hotel was off of the main island, which was kind of annoying, but we took a bus to the main part of Venice, and it was seriously beautiful. It was sunny and beautiful. It was just so cool. I knew I always wanted to see Venice but I didn't really know what to expect. It was so cool how it was like a normal city, with buildings and sidewalks, but then there were just water instead of road. And so many bridges (I guess that's necessary), but I loved them all!  They were all unique and cute. It was also cool how there were taxis and buses, just like any city, except on boats. We sat by the water and got our first Italian meal! So exciting. We shared gnocchi and margarita pizza, which unfortunately at most places in Italy is just sauce and cheese. But it was still amazing. We walked along and just kind of let ourselves get lost in the city. We went to Piazza San Marco which was cool.  I saw some people feeding pigeons out of their hands, so I decided I wanted to try it.  I had nothing to feed them but I put out my hand and one flew up onto it.  So naturally I screamed and squirmed away.  It's little claw things felt so weird!  But I didn't give up and tried again.  Held a few pigeons and was entertained for a good 20 minutes.  What is thought of as a strange activity for weird homeless ladies is apparently popular in Italy.  It rained  a tiny bit, but stopped pretty quickly. It was still cloudy most of the afternoon. We saw a gondola guy standing on one of the bridges texting, and we were taking pictures of him because he looked cool in his little striped shirt and gondola hat. I asked him how much it cost, just out of curiosity. He ended up chasing us down and bargaining with us. I wanted to wait until the next day in case it was nicer, but Kirsten really wanted to do it. So we did. And it rained. We stopped under a lot if bridges. It wasn't bad though. It sprinkled a little and when it rained a little harder we stopped under the bridges and it was fine. It was fun. I enjoyed listening to the gondola guy sing about spaghetti and mozzarella. It was fun to watch. I don't know how they street those things. Afterwards we got gelato - now that I've been to Rome I don't even remember what kind I got here. Doesn't even compare. We stopped by a bakery on the way back to the hotel. They had the most amazing looking macaroons! They were sparkly and pretty and they had so many colors. I tried three - and sadly they weren't as good as they looked. We got some pizza with veggies too. It had carrots and zucchini which seemed weird but it was really good. Went back to the hotel and tried to sleep. Key word being tried. There were Spanish people - sounded like about 8 of them - staying in the room next to us. They may have well shared our room because they were soo loud! Spanish people always talk loud, but when we knock on the wall (which was squishy) and ask you to be quiet- shut up!! They were obnoxious.  Not fun.  Venice day 2 Day 2 we had a little more of a plan. The first thing we went to see was the Rialto Bridge. We stopped in a few stores on the way. One particularly memorable was the makeup store we went in. I was just looking around and Kirsten was about to buy some mascara. The place smelled horrible because there were a bunch of preteens in there and one had just spilt nail polish, so the lady who worked there used nail polish remover to clean it up. I was looking at the kids wondering how dumb and annoying they must be to have dropped the nail polish. Of all the beauty shops I've ever been I've never seen someone spill nail polish. Well, when Kirsten was about to pay she commented on how pretty the nail polish was. I picked one up to look at it, and it slipped out of my hands. I fumbled with it for a second then next thing I know it's laying on the ground, shattered, with purple paint every where. I stood there and looked at it. I really didn't believe that just happened. I'd never even seen that happen, never mind twice in five minutes! The lady was soooo mad. She yelled in Italian than was like "Excuseeee me!!" in my face. I didn't know what to do, so I snuck out of there as fast as possible. If they wanted to find me they could've just followed the trail of purple nail polish that was all over my pants and shoes. We decided to eat somewhere so that I could wash up. It actually came off pretty easily. We got spaghetti and pizza. So good. We went over to the island of Murano because we wanted to see glass blowing. Unfortunately, those places don't do it on weekends. Everyone over there was rude. Except some really nice old man that worked in one of the shops. He talked to us about politics in America, of which he knew way more than us. And he told us how much we were going to love Rome and how it's the best city in the world. I bought a glass perfume bottle with one of those little puff things. So excited to use it! Went back to the main island. Saint Mark's basilica was pretty. Oh and we did end up making it to the Rialto bridge which was cool. We really didn't do much else. Just kind of enjoyed the beautiful city. We got gelato where our gondola guy said was the best place. It was really good. Got banana and dark chocolate. We shared a piece of pizza for dinner, then had to deal with the Spanish people at the hotel again. Luckily they shut up this time.