Venice
Venice is a beautiful little city in north eastern Italy that is actually an island. It is separated by canals and linked by bridges. There are no cars in the entire city. You take a train to the main station, and then that is the last area that taxis, busses, or trains go. Then you walk into the rest of the city and it is all walking. Again, we had bad weather and it poured on us the entire time- still, we loved it.
The picture to the left is the door to our hostel. WHAT? So crazy. Most of the hotels and hostels in Venice actually don't have any rooms on the first floor. We walked up to the door and tried to buzz in, but soon after a guy shouted down from a window above us asking if we wanted to check-in. Funny security system. You walk through the door and it looks like any unfinished basement would, but then you walk up a flight of stairs to where the actual hostel is. This is because Venice is actually being covered with water. Near the bridges, you can see stones where you used to be able to get into the boats, but now they are covered with water. I think the rumor is that within 15 years, Venice will be uninhabitable. It is such a charming city and the water taxis, gondolas, and boats really give it the true feel of Italy. The food was pretty expensive, but we were able to get a decent meal for $10 euro. The problem is that the restaurants on the island charge for table service and then a tax on top of that. So, you can pay anywhere from $5-$30 euro per person to just sit at a table.
Venice is known as wealthy city and has been for most of its history. Venice is said to be found in the year 421 because of the San Giacomo church at the Rivoalto. The original population of Venice consisted of refugees from Roman cities and the undefended countryside fleeing Germanic and Hun invasions. Nowadays, the population consists of about 272,000 residents. Honestly, most of the people we have run into seemed like tourists. I think all of the locals are the ones working the stores and the restaurants.
The first night we were here, our hostel was a 6 bedroom one. The other people in our room ended up being from Texas and studying at Notre Dame's campus in London. Cool thing with that study abroad program- Notre Dame tells the professors in London that they can't give out anything lower than a B to students returning to Notre Dame in South Bend. This is because English professors grade notoriously hard and Notre Dame doesn't want to discourage students from going abroad. So, they basically are guaranteed no big drop in GPA- awesome. The other person in our hostel was a little Taiwanese boy, named Hong. We started to talk to him and he is actually studying in Bonn, Germany for the year. We had some good conversations about the German people, which was great. More interestingly, we talked to him about Chinese-Taiwanese relations and other political/economic issues. Like I have said before, this is the best way to learn. The news can spin a story any way they want, but speaking to someone who actually lives there is probably a more realistic perspective. He was so awesome to talk to. He said he was traveling alone, so we invited him out to dinner. He said Italian food is hard for him to eat because it is too rich. We laughed, because European food is much more bland than American food. In Italy, the flavors are so naturally rich you don't notice it as much. But, you can still taste that Italian pizza has less artificial flavoring. We warned him that if he ever goes to the US, he should be careful of what he orders because if he thinks Italian food is rich, Americans multiply that by 10.
My absolute favorite part of Venice was the Morano glass they are famous for. We stumbled across this cute store of all glass and decided to walk in. I don't think I will be able to explain how beautiful it all really was, but I will try. It was a small little store with every thing you guys ever want- made out of hand-made glass. The girl working in the store explained to us that her father is the one who makes all of the glass and she said she had to explain to us what everything was, so that we would know what we were looking at. He uses the silver from a special flower and blows it into the glass. Every piece has silver woven throughout it and then small flowers inside. There are blues, greens, blacks, whites, purples, reds, and a combination of all of the colors. All of them are different from each other because the flowers always change and the process is always different. The store had lamps, candles, vases, cups, bracelets, jewelry dishes, rings, perfume holders and so many other cool things. I honestly would have walked out with the entire store if I was a millionaire..... but this is not the case, so I settled on a wine-stopper. If you are ever in Venice, go to one of these stores! So beautiful.
During our last dinner in Venice, we actually got asked to leave the restaurant because the "high waters" were coming. This freaked us out a little bit, but the waiter seemed like it was perfectly normal. When we left the restaurant we checked by the bridge and the water really was spilling over onto the walkways! We were actually afraid that the next morning the streets would be flooded and we wouldn't be able to walk to the train station!
The picture to the left is the door to our hostel. WHAT? So crazy. Most of the hotels and hostels in Venice actually don't have any rooms on the first floor. We walked up to the door and tried to buzz in, but soon after a guy shouted down from a window above us asking if we wanted to check-in. Funny security system. You walk through the door and it looks like any unfinished basement would, but then you walk up a flight of stairs to where the actual hostel is. This is because Venice is actually being covered with water. Near the bridges, you can see stones where you used to be able to get into the boats, but now they are covered with water. I think the rumor is that within 15 years, Venice will be uninhabitable. It is such a charming city and the water taxis, gondolas, and boats really give it the true feel of Italy. The food was pretty expensive, but we were able to get a decent meal for $10 euro. The problem is that the restaurants on the island charge for table service and then a tax on top of that. So, you can pay anywhere from $5-$30 euro per person to just sit at a table.
Venice is known as wealthy city and has been for most of its history. Venice is said to be found in the year 421 because of the San Giacomo church at the Rivoalto. The original population of Venice consisted of refugees from Roman cities and the undefended countryside fleeing Germanic and Hun invasions. Nowadays, the population consists of about 272,000 residents. Honestly, most of the people we have run into seemed like tourists. I think all of the locals are the ones working the stores and the restaurants.
The first night we were here, our hostel was a 6 bedroom one. The other people in our room ended up being from Texas and studying at Notre Dame's campus in London. Cool thing with that study abroad program- Notre Dame tells the professors in London that they can't give out anything lower than a B to students returning to Notre Dame in South Bend. This is because English professors grade notoriously hard and Notre Dame doesn't want to discourage students from going abroad. So, they basically are guaranteed no big drop in GPA- awesome. The other person in our hostel was a little Taiwanese boy, named Hong. We started to talk to him and he is actually studying in Bonn, Germany for the year. We had some good conversations about the German people, which was great. More interestingly, we talked to him about Chinese-Taiwanese relations and other political/economic issues. Like I have said before, this is the best way to learn. The news can spin a story any way they want, but speaking to someone who actually lives there is probably a more realistic perspective. He was so awesome to talk to. He said he was traveling alone, so we invited him out to dinner. He said Italian food is hard for him to eat because it is too rich. We laughed, because European food is much more bland than American food. In Italy, the flavors are so naturally rich you don't notice it as much. But, you can still taste that Italian pizza has less artificial flavoring. We warned him that if he ever goes to the US, he should be careful of what he orders because if he thinks Italian food is rich, Americans multiply that by 10.
My absolute favorite part of Venice was the Morano glass they are famous for. We stumbled across this cute store of all glass and decided to walk in. I don't think I will be able to explain how beautiful it all really was, but I will try. It was a small little store with every thing you guys ever want- made out of hand-made glass. The girl working in the store explained to us that her father is the one who makes all of the glass and she said she had to explain to us what everything was, so that we would know what we were looking at. He uses the silver from a special flower and blows it into the glass. Every piece has silver woven throughout it and then small flowers inside. There are blues, greens, blacks, whites, purples, reds, and a combination of all of the colors. All of them are different from each other because the flowers always change and the process is always different. The store had lamps, candles, vases, cups, bracelets, jewelry dishes, rings, perfume holders and so many other cool things. I honestly would have walked out with the entire store if I was a millionaire..... but this is not the case, so I settled on a wine-stopper. If you are ever in Venice, go to one of these stores! So beautiful.
During our last dinner in Venice, we actually got asked to leave the restaurant because the "high waters" were coming. This freaked us out a little bit, but the waiter seemed like it was perfectly normal. When we left the restaurant we checked by the bridge and the water really was spilling over onto the walkways! We were actually afraid that the next morning the streets would be flooded and we wouldn't be able to walk to the train station!