We came, we laughed so hard we cried, we luckily didn't fall in the canals-Venice Part 1

Wow it's been a while. Venice was an awesome trip with our entire program. All 30 of us, including the teachers went. I'm gonna go day by day with this like I did for the Florence blog entry.

Wednesday:
Wednesday morning we all rolled out of bed packed our stuff really quickly, did the dishes, and ran out the door to make it to Stazione Termini on time. We met up with the rest of our program and our teachers at the Nike store in Termini before we all headed to the trains. Ruggero and Claudio were like mother hens the entire trip, making sure we were getting off the train at the right stops and that we were all ok and enjoying ourselves. They were hilarious. On the train I split my time between sleeping (I was so exhausted from the night before) and reading the Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. The book was good and so was my nap. Our group took up almost the entire train car which made for an enjoyable ride. Once we arrived in Venice we met our tour guide, Rita, just outside and she walked us to our hotel which was on the other side of Venice from the train station. If we had all had suitcases, we never would have made it. At the hotel, our room was very nice. I stayed with three girls: Katie Bradner, Irma, Dorantes, and Erin Murray (first and last names are so you can Facebook stalk them if you wish :p). Our teachers gave us a twenty minute break before our first tour so we went and got sandwiches and coffee. I had the most delicious espresso that was called caffe macchiato, which was just milk, espresso, and cocoa powder on top. Delicious. After that Rita came and took us on a tour to Ponte Rialto, which is the big stone bridge that traverses that grand canal. Then we walked over to see San Marco square. They let us loose after that and we decided to walk inside the church San Marco. It was absolutely stunning. The entire ceiling had gorgeous paintings set on top of gold backgrounds so the entire church glowed on the inside. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Totally cool. After that Irma, Katie, and I ended up getting separated from the rest of the group so we decided to go wandering off on our own. We walked along side of Venice that borders on the Ocean which was really cool because there was a storm brewing and you could see it whipping the waves up a couple miles away from us. We then decided to wander through tiny alleyways and streets and we stumbled across la Chiesa di San Zaccharia. This church was much smaller than San Marco, but had a much bigger impact on me. The walls were lined with gorgeous post-renaissance paintings, each of them incredibly intricate. Some of them have gotten so dark over the years you could barely tell what it is now. There was a back room you had to pay 1 euro to get in to which we decided to do. Back there you could see all the items the church was renovating, including a gorgeous all gold triptych altar. We also got to see the crypt back there which was eerily cool and the path through it was surrounded by water. Katie was so engrossed with taking pictures that she accidentally stepped in the crypt water. For days we were making jokes about how her foot is gonna fall off now from gangrene or some other gross disease.
After San Zaccharia we just wandered around Venice, looking at all the really cool mask shops that are almost every other store. Then we walked back to our hotel for a short break before meeting up with the rest of the group for dinner. Dinner with the group was awesome because the program paid for dinner instead of us. Yay! I got pasta, chicken, salad, and the most amazing desert. It was called a Profiterole and consists of a gigantic cream puff that is covered in chocolate. It was the most amazing thing I have ever had in my entire life. I wanted to just eat only Profiteroles forever and ever. After dinner we walked back to the hotel which has a bar right beneath it. During the day they sell smoothies and at night they sell Sangria and other mixed drinks. I had a vodka sour which was just a bunch of blended strawberries with a teeny tiny bit of vodka in it. I liked it because there was so little vodka I couldn't even taste it. Awesome. I still fail at this whole being a college student and "liking alcohol" thing. Oh well, whatever.
Then we all walked back to Rialto bridge to enjoy the view for a little bit. While we were up there a huge group of people came up and asked us if they could take pictures with us. They were a group of turkish tourists in Venice for only 2 hours and naturally they wanted to take pictures with the Americans. Weird, but funny. They took a bunch of ridiculous pictures with us and then went along their merry way. After that we just went back to the hotel and slept.

Thursday:
First morning with the curtain-less shower (see pictures on Facebook). Stupidest invention ever. The bathroom floor had two drains in it, but they didn't seem to accomplish anything. By the end of my shower the entire floor was covered in water. Not helpful for getting ready in the morning. We all got up and got ready and then had a breakfast at a little café by our hotel and had yogurt, a croissant, and a cappuccino. Then we all met up for our tour with Rita. For that day she had decided to show us the non-tourist part of Venice which was really cool. We walked all throughout the Cannareggio region of Venice which is where a lot of the locals that still live in Venice have their homes. It was a much quieter tour than the one the day before, but it was cool seeing the more normal parts of the city. We saw some guys repairing a boat and parents taking their children for walks. It was cool. After our tour, a small group of us decided to walk to the opposite side of Venice from where we were so we walked through San Marco to the Accademia bridge and wandered around over there looking at mask shops and just generally got lost. We saw the Antonio Vivaldi museum of music and helped an old man with directions to get back to his boat. We oggled all the designer stores as we scoped out their crazy expensive window displays. We had pastries and pizza, saw some unique masks and at several points had zero clue as to where we were. Eventually we ended up back at the hotel, but about half an hour later we ventured back to where we had been to eat at a restaurant we had seen in our wanderings. Best. Dinner. Ever. The food wasn't that great. I had lasagna that looked like it had been regurgitated, but the company was fantastic. We laughed so hard we cried for pretty much the entire dinner. Our group of 9 was louder than the group of 20 german tourists that were also eating dinner at that restaurant. It was so much fun. By the time we left, I laughed so hard my stomach muscles hurt. Thursday was also the day I learned to at least partially roll my "R"s finally too! I've had a problem with this ever since I was a kid and I've never been able to figure out how everyone can do it. I'm the only member of my immediate family that can't so it obviously wasn't a genetic thing. One of the girls in our group, Katie, is majoring in Linguistics and she is the one who taught me how to do it. She said that in English 50% of people learn how to say their R's one way (rolling) and 50% learn how to do it another (flat). I just happened to only learn the flat way so my tongue muscles for rolling my r's just never developed. By the end of the day practicing it I could say most of my r's with a roll and after several days of practicing I can roll pretty much all of them. YAY! Katie is my lifesaver so now I don't have to sound like a stupid American with my accent when I talk in Rogliano. My life is now complete.

That's all I'll update you on for now. More to follow tomorrow on Friday-Sunday.