Hey all,
So my latest adventure... VENICE! Let me tell you, I think this might be my favorite city so far. Now, I know that during the summer it's touristy and the canals smell bad, etc. etc., but believe me, Venice for Carnivale is the most AMAZING place ever. I flew into Bologna to meet my valentine (haha) Siena, who is one of my best friends from home. She's going to the University of Bologna through Wesleyan's program (she goes to Wesleyan). Anyways, Siena met me at the airport and we went straight to the train to Venice! It was a beautiful 2 hour train ride through the Italian country-side and we got to see the sunset, which was amazing. When we arrived, Siena, my tourguide extraordinaire, decided that we should take the boat (the Venician version of a bus) from the train station to San Marco so that I could get my first proper view of Venice - and let me tell you, this was only the beginning of a weekend full of breathtakes views. Seeing Venice for the first time at night was absolutely amazing - it was love at first sight. We walked around, found our hotel (which was ADORABLE, again major kudos to Siena for finding it online - very reasonably priced and the next morning we got free breakfast!). Then we grabbed some dinner (delicious Italian food) and wandered around a little more.
We got up nice and early Saturday morning to fully apprecaite the day. We found a reasonable gondola pretty much first thing and had a wonderful trip around the canals - the gondoleir (spelling?) spoke English so we got a really nice narration to our tour - we even saw Marco Polo's house! Then we walked and walked and saw so much of Venice - it was WONDERFUL. We went into a lot of shops looking for gifts for friends and admiring the beautiful Venician glass. Then we went to the Piazza, which was VERY crowded but filled with people dressed in gorgeous Carnivale costumes. I'll leave you to check out my photo album - it was so near getting to see everyone, plus Siena had planned ahead and gotten me the PERFECT mask in Verona for my birthday, and she had one as well, so we got to be cool and wear our masks as well!
While we were at the Piazza we went into San Marco's Basilica, which was amazing - I wish I could have taken photos. There are tile mosaics all over the ceiling - the extent of the tiling was truly magnificent. We also got a great view of the Piazza and a wedding (they must have been important to be married at the Basilica!) from the top of the Basilica. Then we went on an absolutely worth-while hunt for the best gelatto in the city - and oh my word was it good. I think my life ended when I had the cinnamon gelatto - I'm not even kidding, the world stopped turning for a minute. Then we grabbed some lunch and slowly made our way back to the train station.
That night we went back to Bologna, grabbed some dinner (more delicious Italian food) and then hung out with some of Siena's friends from her program, who are absolutely awesome, especially her friend Jessie! It was great to spend a weekend with Siena, who is the perfect travel buddy and who I can't wait to drag all over London in return for her excellent Italian translation and navigation skills! I actually picked up a little Italian even though I was only there a while - it's very similar to Spanish and I found that if I really paid attention, I could often pick out small bits of meaning from conversations. Hopefully when I go back in April I'll pick up some more of the language! It's such a beautiful language!
Anyways, that's all for now, I'm going to do a little homework before going to bed nice and early to prepare for my next trip, which starts tomorrow - Dublin! It's reading week so I'm taking full advantage of the opportunity to travel!
I hope everyone is doing really well and is happy, healthy, and having fun wherever you are in the world! I love and miss you all and can't wait to see you - drop me a line via e-mail sometime and let me know how you all are - jordyn.sims@gmail.com
And don't forget... photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/Jordyn.Sims
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