June 26, 2011
Happy birthday, Emily! What better way than to spend your birthday in Venice? Someone kindly relinquished their seat so that Emily could go, and she was there before any of us waiting for a seat on the bus. I got to the piazza around 6:45am, mostly because I didn’t get to sleep easily and slept through my alarm (I had wanted to get in line by 6:15 or 6:30 at latest.). I don’t know why I rushed; now looking back on it. The bus was supposed to leave at 7, but we ended up waiting an extra half hour for people to trickle in. Gr.
When we finally did get moving, we drove for over three hours, with a potty/food break in between. I slept most of the ride, again thanks to the lack of sleep the night before due to nightmares…no spiders this time, but I think I am just uncomfortable being so utterly alone in my little apartment. On the one hand I have a lot of freedom, but on the other, I don’t really feel that safe living alone in a foreign country—no matter how little crime there is here.
We drove through modern Venice, the industrial city that has spread over the mainland where almost all Venice’s inhabitants live—very few actually live in the floating city of Venice. After being dropped off at a sketchy parking lot, we walked through what looked to be a shanty town that was filled with Italian memorabilia shops and smelled of urine. On the other side, we found the docks to board the water taxi. The water here is green and opaque, the only living thing visible in it being the long seaweed-like algea that clung to the bottom of the docks and arced out, lazily dancing in the currents as the boats trudged by.
I had forgotten how much I enjoy boating. The feeling of the air whipping your hair and caressing your face is one of the most pleasing feelings I have felt, and I think I would live on a house boat if I could to prolong that feeling. We were in a boat which fit the 52 LML people along with another tour bus of people. I thought that the boat was fairly large at first, until we passed two cruise liners that rose a couple hundred feet above us and stretched a football field or more in length. Jebus. We were tiny in comparison.
It took us about twenty minutes to finally reach Old Venice, and at first I wasn’t sure that we were actually there. We were surrounded by cramped buildings dotted with large, domed churches, all about a foot higher than the ocean. I can see why it’s in danger of being submerged—the slightest change in water depth could devastate the city. As the buildings seemed like a more ornate version of the buildings in Novafeltria, I was surprised to hear that this was Venice. I guess I was expecting more ancient looking structures, but I have to remember that Venice was a thriving, highly wealthy city that was still inhabited up into the twentieth century. Now it is mostly filled with shops, cafés, hotels, and entertainment. The only people that live there are the ones who own the hotels and things.
Having Jeffery around is like having a tour guide to life. The man knows something about basically everything, and hanging out with him is like having an ever-present encyclopedia. Jeffery took on his tour guide roll the moment we spotted Venice, giving us tidbits about this church and that. On “solid” ground (Venice is built upon logs that were driven down into the mud until they hit rock, so it’s not actually solid ground, I guess.), Jeffery took us through every creepy back alleyway he could find, taking us away from the masses of tourists and into the heart of the city. We saw San Marco, the beautifully ornate cathedral of Venice, but weren’t able to go in as the line was FAR too long for the short time we had in the city. We visited the smaller churches, such as San Mose, where I took a ton of photos before I saw the “No Foto” sign…Woops!!! It was gorgeous inside, and I’ll post the pictures as soon as I can so that you can see. One of the other tiny churches, unused as most of the churches in Venice, housed a gigantic renaissance-styled portrait made completely of painted eggs.
We attempted to go into the Opera house, but were restricted entrance as a concert was being performed. It is amazing to me that the opera house is still in use, but from the look of the area we DID get to see, it has been well cared for. One day, maybe…one day.
We had lunch at the most amazing little place in the center of the city. As I have learned from my dear friends, don’t go to the restaurants that have things in English as they are pricey and crap. We paid a little more for our meal than we would in Novafeltria, but the Italian menu was far cheaper than the one for tourists and was really authentic. YUM.
We shopped around a little bit at this point, marveling at the hand-blown glass, masks, costumes and other things that lined the shops, and I ended up buying some gifts (can’t tell you what or it won’t be a surprise.) :-P After shopping, we headed for the dock, our short time in Venice coming to an end. On the way back we partially crossed the largest bridge in Venice which crosses the largest canal, the Grand. On this wide bridge is now a multitude of shops and I would assume it was very much the same in its hay day, although I would imagine the wares were different.
Our time running out, we made it back to the dock and waited with the group for the water taxi. However, two people from our group were missing. We waited for them as long as the water taxi would allow, but ended up leaving to wait another hour on the bus. At that point we made our way home, hoping that the two missing heard when the faculty gave directions on what to do if they missed the water taxi. We didn’t hear from them all evening.
Fortunately, the two left behind remembered to take the train to Rimini, where they spent the night, taking a train in to where our director went and grabbed them. They are very very lucky, and a good example of why we should be prompt.
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