So here is a pathetic recap, lacking detail and time!:
First, Nic visited for my birthday weekend and he took me on a surprise trip to Venice! It was incredible. The entire city is amazingly peaceful and ancient. There are no motorized vehicles on land there, not even bikes! The whole city is made up of tiny islands connected by walking bridges and the only vehicles they use are boats. Taxis, ambulances and buses are all boats! The first night we got there, we walked around for hours looking for our hotel (as soon as we got off the train, everyone warned us that there is no labeled street names OR logically numbered buildings.) Navigating around the city is an adventure to say the least!
We finally found our hotel after hours of searching, checked in and were shocked by how nice it was. we then went out for an amazing dinner of delicious wine, pizza and pasta. We came back to our hotel around 2am and were welcomed back by the hotel attendant shouting at us in Italian. After being thoroughly confused for about 15 minutes, we realized that all of our belongings were outside of our room's door. Apparently, there are three hotels with the same name in Venice and he hadn't checked our name when we checked in. We were in the wrong hotel.
Confused and stressed, we gathered our belongings and were faced with the daunting task of finding our REAL hotel. After another hour of searching, we called and struggled to explain in Italian our situation. The woman on the other line managed to tell us that she was sending her husband to get us. He arrived enraged, screaming at us in half-english, half-italian, calling us "irresponsible young Americans...."uncomfortable and mortifying, to say the least. He finally led us to our hotel where we slept for about 4 hours before we woke to him bringing us breakfast...slightly awkward.
We spent the next day soaking up the city's beautiful sights, going to markets and to Piazza San Marco (an enormous square with amazing byzantine-styled basilica, overlooking the beautiful green-blue water.)
Things got a little rough again when we discovered that every single hostel, hotel, bed and breakfast was completely booked that weekend and there were no trains back to florence until the following morning. We may or may not have had to stay out all night, without sleeping, but roaming around the beautiful city and eating wine and cheese on the water wasn't exactly a punishment. Since we had all night, we went out to a few restaurants and an adorable little wine bar. The city is completely unlike anywhere else in the world. There are no words for the sights, so here are some pics!
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