Friday, June 17, 2011

Venezia! The City on the Water

6-16-11

Today marks one week since I began my crazy European adventure. Time is FLYING! Everyone always says time flies faster and faster as you get older, but I can’t believe how quickly it is going by during this trip. 
Venice, Italy. I think this city might be the most interesting we have seen so far. There are no roads for driving here, only canals, and no cars, just boats (and gondolas). There are also MANY, MANY tourists walking around the city mixed in with the locals. The buildings are all right on the water, and many even have entrances from the water, which I found extremely intriguing. The roads were all connected by a system of bridges, which usually involved stairs. The bigger the bridge, the more stairs. There are a lot of stairs and hills in Europe. The lower part of my body is getting more and more toned with each day, Praise the Lord! LOL! Anyways...the biggest walk-over bridge in Venice is called Rialto. It is a gorgeous white stone bridge that crosses the Canal Grande, which is the large main canal (almost like a main street) in Venice. 
We took the train from the city of Mestre into Venice by way of a very long bridge which connects Venice to the rest of Italia. The bridge went over the waters of the Adriatic Sea, and my first impressions of this sea are not so good. There was seaweed floating everywhere and the water was incredibly murky. Even the fish were trying to escape the nasty water; I know this because I kept seeing them jump. Poor things. Anywho, so once we got into the city, we wandered around for a while, taking back streets and alleys and seeing the parts of Venice that most tourists don’t take the time to see. After a while of this we decided to re-join “our people” and see the touristy parts of the city, including the Rialto bridge and la Piazza di San Marco. Along the way we met a guy from Texas. I think he heard us speaking and was bored enough to stop us and ask us where we are from. We never caught his name, but he was in Italy with his parents, and to day was their last day before heading home. It was neat to talk to him for a few minutes. Did I mention he was quite attractive, too? I’m still kicking myself for not getting his name. Oh well, moving on...
For most of the day we just walked around and looked at the lovely architecture and window shopped. When it came time to eat dinner, we found a nicely priced little restaurant on one of the side streets in the inner part of the city, and I had myself some tagilurette bolognese (a long flat noodle with meat sauce) and Iva had some lasagna. YUM Italian food is quite delicious! Earlier in the day I had my first gelato too. I’m hoping that the gelato in Roma is better, because I wasn’t terribly impressed. Maybe I had too high of expectations for gelato. Or, I could have gotten the wrong flavor. We’ll see as this week in Italy progresses if gelato can live up to its reputation. 

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