1. Get on the Vaporetto- It's a boat. It's a bus. It's a VAPORETTO! Woot! It is indeed the best way to get around. The best place to be is sitting on the front in the seats...you get to see
more and it's more fun that way. :)2. Pretend to Feed the Pigeons in Saint Mark's Square- Pigeons are not all that bright. They will come to you whether you have food or not. And seeing as it is illegal to actually feed them...pretending is great. They do like hand sanitizer though...
3. Go to an event particular to the time you are there- Saint Martin's Day (like Halloween) where the kids go shop to shop looking for gold or treats, The International Art Exhibitions (Every other year countries display commissioned art), and The Funeral of Venice were all going on this week...look on some of the Venetian websites for info...if they aren't in a language you can read...translate them (hellovenezia.it)
4. Watch Murano glass being made- It's insane. They have 1500 degree molten glass on a stick in their bare hands and have their unprotected legs in shorts. Brave men. Some want to be in that trade others were born into it and wanted to be dentists....oddly enough the guy looked like an Italian version of that elf...(some of you have no clue what I'm talking about...rewatch the Christmas classics...Jake, you are exempt.)
5. Go to Burano- The shops are filled with stuff (that part gets dull) but the buildings are so colorful that it makes up for it (take pictures with a color sensitive camera). There is also a leaning bell tower at the same angle of the tower in Pisa
So. My weekend started Wednesday. It was a short week. No school on Monday because of a lack of power and standardized testing on Tuesday, so a lack of student body. But ANYWAYS. My weekend started on Wednesday. We woke up and flew to
Venice.
It was a beautiful day so after we dropped our stuff off at the hotel we traveled on the Vapporetto to St. Mark's square to look at the basilica (full of mosaics and Sheeps?) and the touristy stuff like the Bridge of Sighs (covered in advertisements, I think they may be doing work on it's foundations). Near the square there was an advertisement for a Taiwanese art exhibition so we went inside. There were photos and videos but some of the most interesting ones were of people talking about themselves and translators were used to convert the phrases ("exchange student" became "covered in garlic"). It was a good experience and I liked the fact I could understand a bit of the Chinese.
The next morning I got up, had a wonderful breakfast with hot chocolate and cappuccino, promptly bought a hat to save my freezing ears and headed to Murano. In Murano we met a glass man who has always wanted to be a dentist and watched them blow and shape the colored glass of a future chandelier. We looked around for a LONG time before heading back to Venice Venice for a pizza. After I attempted to do my Calculus we headed back out to the Rialto Bridge and then back for hot chocolate. On the way we saw the Iceland art exhibit. One guy painting another model over and over for 6 months with videos of him harmonizing with himself in different places...Iceland must be AWESOME
Friday morning we headed to Burano, where they make lace, they have colorful houses and some shops had cool masks but that was a day I just walked around and took random pictures... That night Steph and I went back out with my computer to try and get internet at the hot chocolate place. It worked. A family kept staring at us though...it started with the teenage son, then the daughter, then the parents...you would have thought we were monkeys typing or something....well, it was good. We drank 3 hot chocolates between the 2 of us....SUGAR! When we got back I tried to write another letter but ended up taking pictures with Steph instead...
This morning we took the busboat to Saint Mark's square and looked around, got gelato, walked back, stopped at the Funeral for Venice, walked some more, caught a bus, took a plane and VOILA! We are home!
:)
Now onto Calculus...that I don't understand...
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