Thanks to Vance and Adrienn for the pics...I might put up some of Richard's and Bernard's soon too, so check back.
The Venice crewback: Richard, Mike, Travis, Bernard, Tommy, Kevin
front: Vance, me, Adrienn, Lindsey, Tyler
Adrienn and I arrived in Venice on friday afternoon, after a much-needed sleep on the train over (we had been up all night the night before, after the Canada-Germany hockey game). The hostel we were staying at wasn't in the main Venice area, but was very close to another main Venice train station, so we had easy access to Venice all weekend. This was amplified by the fact that when we checked in to our hostel the lady gave us a very comprehensive rundown of the various transportation, including times, locations and costs. It was awesome. Also awesome was our hostel room, well I guess it was a hotel, but it was still awesome. I said awesome a lot in those last few paragraphs (I should add at this point that I'm really tired as I write this post, see the upcoming Carnival in Basel post for more details).
So we checked into our hostel and mustered up the energy to go into main Venice. Carnival wasn't starting until the next day, but already various mask and souvineer vendors were scattered about the streets. Adrienn and I spent the evening wandering around, enjoying the intricate network of back streets and bridges over canals. It was cool because with all the crazy zigs and zags you would expect to get lost easily...actually it was a fairly easy city to navigate, you just had to keep a sense of the general direction you were headed. Also, major locations we really well marked with signs (this was actually probably the main factor in the easy navigation, lol).
Me outside the Venice train station, you can see the canal and some significant looking building in the background.
Adrienn in Venice
Mmmmm, piiiiiizzzza.
After a bit of searching we found a nice looking, reasonably priced restaurant (a constant battle for the praktikant traveller...). We shared some wine and each had pasta, it was a really nice meal. Afterwards we walked over to Piazza San Marco, where they seemed to be setting up a big stage. We asked around, and found out that these was a show planned for the next night...we made a mental note to return with everyone else tomorrow. The square was pretty, and dominated by a big Basilica that looked neat in the dark (but cooler in the day, we discovered).
By then we had satisfied our initial Venice curiosity, as well as the nagging feeling that we couldn't just stay home all evening. Pleased with our day, we caught the train back to the hostel and and gave in to the call of sleep. It was the first decent sleep we had gotten since well before Torino and was awesome.
The next morning we woke up at a decent hour and got ready to meet everyone else (Vance, Tommy, Lindsey, Richard, Bernard, Travis, Kevin, Mike, Tyler) who was arriving that morning after a night of minimal sleep for the purpose of train cheapness. Some of them were staying at the same place as us, other's weren't so fortunate and we staying at a hostel just down the street (we totally won the booking-the-best-place contest, oh ya!). We met up with everyone without trouble...except that Bernard had managed to not get off the train at the right stop, and was currently missing.
Lindsey and Richard, sleeping in the Chiasso train station on the way to Venice(I wasn't here for this, I was warm and happy in a bed, mwah ha ha)
Kevin, me, Travis and Tyler at a cafe. You can't see in this picture, but Travis's hair is dyed bright red for Olympics (Tommy did his too...cept it ended up more pinkish, lol, still looked cool)After grabbing some food everyone dropped off their stuff and we took the train to Venice. There we ran into Bernard, who was smart enough to stay put when he got off the train, figuring that we would show up eventually.
As predicted, 3 seconds after stepping into the street everyone had scattered to look at all the cool masks for sale, purchase novelty hats, and get their faces painted (the latter too were only Vance and Tommy actually). It was cool though, we weren't in any rush and it was neat to look at all the carnival stuff going on. We stopped often for pictures and coffee breaks and gelato (yes, even though it was cold out, who can resist gelato!??!)
Tommy and Vance in their new hats and face paint
One of many, many mask stores. They were cool though, so many really fancy (expensive) masks
This pic was taken to accompany a casual Tommy quote:"Wow, it kinda makes you feel like a kid again"
Really, what part made you feel like that Tommy? Haha..
The streets of Venice
The canals of Venice
Adrienn and I contributed to the group disorganization by breaking off to buy cool stockings at one of the numerous stocking shops. They are so awesome! And on sale! We annoyed the shopkeeper by trying on the stockings in the store, she wasn't impressed, haha. I bought 4 pairs though, awesomeness...
Adrienn and me with our head bobbles
Nice canal pic from the Rialto Bridge
Eventually we made it to Piazza San Marco, and lined up to go inside the Basilica. It was pretty cool and Basilicay...I didn't bother going up to the top though. While waiting outside for the others, I took advantage of the free time and totally jazzed up my homemade carnival mask. Oh ya, Adrienn and I made masks prior to coming (and they actually survived through the first half of the trip!). We continuted with the Canada theme, and they looked pretty cool, though I decided that they needed an extra coating of glitter for super glittery awesomeness. We put on the masks, and our discount Coop head bobblies and were all carnivaled up.
Basilica at Piazza San Marco
Another view
Piazza San Marco from up inside the Basilica
Some people dressed up more fancily than we were (there were lots...)
By this point everyone was hungry, so we found a pizza place and had a pretty tastey meal (noticed I didn't comment on the cheapness this time? Grr...stupid Europe and sur-charges for everything). Next stop was mask purchasing for everyone that didn't have one. Hehe, it was cool how everybody's mask seemed to suit them so well.
Mike eating some yummy pizza (with an egg on it, crazy!)
After dinner we scouted around until we found a supermarket and proceeded to buy drinks for the night. We were momentarily slowed down when everybody stopped to ooo and ahh at a chocolate fountain in a window, but managed to buy everything we needed without too much trouble. We stationed ourselves at some fountainish thing, that appeared to be more popular as a garbage heap, and pretty much took it over for a drink mixing station. We stayed here for awhile, and talked to some teenage Americans who were everything you expect out of drunk American teenagers.
Us in our Carnival masks! (Bernard bought one later)back: Vance, Tyler, Kevin
middle: Richard, Mike, Travis
front: me, Adrienn, Lindsey, Tommy
Pre-drinking at the fountain
Somewhere around this point it started raining, so we clustered under a covered area with all the rest of the crowds. I should point out that it was about 9pm, and due to our enthusiasm for drinking right away we were all well on our ways to really drunk. We hung around there until the rain stopped, then went back into the square where we mingled with some people and all sorts of hat and mask abuse took place.
After a bit of time we noticed a band has appeared nearby and was starting to play. We joined the crowd around them, and soon were part of a big mob, dancing excitedly to what we found out was a Swiss band. The band started marching around the square, and the crowd turned into a huge parade procession, all yelling and shouting to the music. It was amazingly fun, and everybody was so into it.
The awesome Swiss band
Adrienn made friends with some of the band members (they let her play their drums!)
Vance and I got lost from the group, but it was alright because we had all planned to meet up at the fountain at 11. Or so we thought...apparently this was one of those "suggested meeting times
"...in other words, nobody cares about us and I'm sad.
Tyler, Tommy, Lindsey, Travis and Kevin at the club they went to (after NOT meeting at the meeting spot)
Vance and I stopped in a bar for a little while, and then decided to start making our way home. This was the one time the Venice signs failed me...I think we had veered too far off the main path for signs to the train station to exist. Anyways, we ended up wandering around trying to get our barings for some time, but eventually ended up back at the bus stop where we caught a night bus back to the hostel (thanks again hostel lady for the heads up on the night buses!).
It was at this point that I realized that Adrienn had our room key...man, I should really stop leaving things in her hands when we go out drinking...lol, jk Adrienn, you are awesome :) Luckily the night manager found me camped out in the lobby and offered to let me into our room, yay! Adrienn showed up not too much later, and apoligized for not meeting up with us, which was good of her. (In case you haven't noticed, I'm bitter about this...I hate when people don't do somthing they already agreed too, arg...)
The next day we awoke and packed up our room. We also watched in amusement as Travis, Tyler and Kevin woke up 4 hours late and rushed and panicked to try and get out of there, since they were supposed to meet up with Nate in Torino. I think it all worked out in the end, but I imagine Nate wasn't too happy with the situation.
It didn't take me too long into this day to realize all the partying and non-sleeping had caught up with me, as I was feeling pretty crappy and sick. I made it through the day by relying on medication, but I was still feeling super lazy all day. This worked out pretty well actually, since the plan for the day was to ride on the boats in Venice (not the gondola's unfortuantly...a ride on one of those was a bit more pricy than our praktikant wallets could handle).
A boat like the one we road on...too big to travel down the little canals unfortunatly
A boat that we didn't ride on (gondola, to be more specific)
Rialto Bridge (from the boat)
Bernard and Mike on the boat
We cruised a bit on the boat, and then most of us opted for taking the boat ride to Murano island, where they have demonstrations of glass blowing. I was impressed with the ease of the visit, we just got off the boat and they pointed us to the factory and we got to watch everything for free! I guess they get you after the tour when they usher you into the store section and all the being impressed is focused into purchasing power. I bought myself a glass ring which I was happy with, it was worth it for the demo.
Afterwards we walked around a bit and then took the boat back. The boat ride was about an hour long, which was awesome because I slept both ways.
Me and Vance at Murano
Murano island, pretty place
Richard, Vance, Mike, Adrienn, Bernard and me, after checking out the glass-blowing
Bernard and Mike on a bridge
Adrienn and Vance against a cool sky
We split up for some shopping (or cafe sitting, in Adrienn and my's case) and then got together to find somewhere to eat. After being unimpressed with all the expensive resturants, Adrienn and I discussed just trying to find the place we had had dinner on our first night. After deciding that it was too much effort to find out where it was, we somehow randomly ended up in front of the exact resturant, it was crazy!
Everybody liked the place, and we were so happy to be sitting out of the cold that we milked it for all it was worth, and ended up lingering longer than the staff liked, lol. It was nice though, because we got to have full meals, complete with dessert. I had a frozon yogurty fruit thing, it was awesome.
At this point Adrienn and I said by to everyone and headed to the train station to catch our night train back to Switzerland (everyone else was leaving the next day, so they went to go party for their last night in Venice). We arrived very early for our train, but since were both feeling sick and energyless, we opted for sneaking into a random hotel lobby and relaxing in the warmth for an hour. It was pretty entertaining actually, since the lobby was also the meeting point for a group of students that were travelling from the States I think, and they were amusing to watch.
Finally it was train time...we crawled into our beds and greatfully slept until arriving in Zurich. I was at work for half a day before realizing I was way to sick to be there, so headed home to sleep. Worst thing about this: Adrienn and I had tickets to Death Cab for Cutie that night, and we both were too sick to go. Unfortunatly it was too short notice for anybody to take the tickets so they went to waste, sigh....it's the ultimite emo situation, lol.
Despite getting sick, Venice was a fun time and a great conclusion to the Italy Olympics trip. Venice is definitely up there with my favorite Italian cities, I really like the maze of little paths you take around the city. I think it would have been really nice to go there in the summer, but being able to be there for carnival was also really cool.
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