Venice

We left Rome on Friday morning and headed north to Venice. This was the point that I realized that this trip was much too short. From Rome on, we were slowly making our way back up to London. I was super excited to see Venice but I wanted the bus to start going slower and slower. That wasn’t going to happen so we eventually got to Venice and went on yet again, another walking tour! This guide wasn’t nearly as interesting as some of the others but the city more than made up for it. No one is allowed to build new buildings so it’s much the same as it has been for hundreds and hundreds of years. And obviously, cars are not allowed so it was almost like walking into another time. Crazy cool. I was feeling pretty miserable earlier in the day but once I started exploring I could magically ignore my cold! Look at that, Someone finally found a cure for the common cold. Just go to Venice and walk around. It’s better than Nite-Quil! 

The canals!

After the tour guide left us in a Square, a smaller group of us decided to find a drink and then they wanted to head back. I wasn’t exactly agreeable to this but I ended up with them anyway. We started walking back towards the bus station and found a bar. We grabbed a glass of beer and brought it outside. We then spent two hours drinking this one beer, talking and taking ridiculous pictures. It was probably one of my favorite evenings. We sat there for hours talking, cracking jokes and basically being awesome! 

Well aren't we some cool people!

Finally we decided to continue to the bus station again. But it took us an hour to walk the equivalent of four blocks because we had to take a group picture on every bridge and at every square. There are A LOT of bridges! We were basically being the obnoxious tourist and asking every person we saw to take our pictures. If there wasn’t anyone around we would line up all five of our camera’s somewhere and set the timers. Flash. Flash. Flash. Flash. FLASH! Those were the ones that were the best/worst. The best because we would do the most ridiculous poses that we would be too embarrassed to do in front of other people but worst because most of them didn’t come out okay. 

I don't exactly know why we had to balance on one leg and press our shoes together,
but I am sure there was a reason

A woman with the head of a dog. What is this advertising for again?

We couldn't agree on what exactly this is,
but I am convinced it is a bigger monkey beating a smaller monkey with a sword.
What do you think? 

After a while we were laughing so hard we were crying and couldn’t breath. Then we decided we were hungry after all so we hunted up a restaurant. This was the one time I treated myself to a decent meal instead of street food. I don’t think there was a non Italian in there except for us. We tried to be quiet and respectful but it was almost impossible. Out of the 5 people, four knew enough spanish (it’s close to Italian) to decipher the menu. I ended up with some delicious shrimp ravioli, the two boys ordered pizza, and Lily accidentally ordered . . . something. We’re still not sure what it was. Sham ordered some sort of fish spaghetti which was our downfall in our goal of being respectful of the other guests. When it arrived, we found out that it was just spaghetti noodles covered in squid ink. So when she ate it, the ink dyed her lips and teeth black. Our battle was lost at that moment. We then had to all try it and take pictures of our new ‘lipstick’ and ‘missing’ teeth. This old Italian man egged us on though so I don’t think they minded too much. He didn’t speak English but he gestured to Sham that she shouldn’t put her food on our dishes, she should feed us! Then he came over and asked for kisses (on his cheek) from all the girls. It was great! 

Fish Spaghetti = black ink

Are we sexxy or what?

We finally left for the bus station again but somehow we ended up bartering with this guy for a river cruise. So we took a forty minute boat ride around Venice in the dark instead. Most of the buildings were all lit up and casting reflections on the water. Beautiful. After the boat tour, we finally made it to the bus station. We took the next to last bus at 12:15am. So yes, the group that wanted to go back early stayed out the longest. Works for me!