venice

Turns out I fell asleep for a little while, and waking up early to catch this train was not the best feeling in the world. Goba and I finally got our asses up and set out on our epic fail of a morning. First, halfway to the train station, goba realizes she forgot her phone, but we decide its too late to go back. Next, we wait in line at the train station to grab a ticket only to find out they are all sold out except for first class which is way more expensive, not to mention these high speed trains already cost an arm and a leg. So we get tickets for a later train in an hour or two. Then, we walk all the way back to gobas apartment to get her phone and decide to have some cereal, only to take a bite into very old and sour milk, yum. We ditch that breakfast and start walking back towards the train station. We stop at a café to get chocolate croissants and as we are walking out and along the street, goba gets yelled at by an Italian man. We turn around and see him pointing at a napkin on the ground. I safely assume it came from the bag since goba had just taken her treat out of it. Goba goes to the napkin and kicks it with her foot, and seeing it is nothing important starts walking back away from it. The guy gets really mad saying, ‘this it Italia! We are clean!’ and goba is utterly flustered not knowing what to do, thinking it wasn’t hers and the guy just wanted her to pick up a random napkin, even though I was on the side like, goba you dropped it. She stands there in complete confusion with the guy yelling at her, now, ‘where are you from!’ goba refuses to answer, finally picks up the napkin and walks away.
We finally make it safe to the train station. Overall, hysterical morning. The entire train ride over to Venice, I am trying to fall asleep and recover a little for the rest of the day, but one man makes it completely impossible because he is yelling into his cell phone so loud, im pretty sure asia fuckin heard him. I am seriously surprised not one person turned around and told him to shut the fuck up. Or even better yet, someone should have started an even louder phone conversation right next to him so he would fuckin quiet down. After sleeping for a possibly 17 seconds, I opened my eyes to crazily see water in every direction. I had forgotten we were going to Venice for a second. As goba and I were getting off the train, the older men who we had been sitting next to for the entire duration of the trip start asking us questions in Italian. Im sorry but we have been here the entire time and you pick now, the time when we are all leaving and going into different directions, to start a conversation and confuse us with your strange language? Similarly, we were Italian-verbally attacked by a restaurant greeter while looking for our hostel. As we were walking towards our hostel, which was conveniently located right across the grand canal across from the train station, we were walking down the road looking at the numbers on the doors but it was hidden at first and we didn’t see it so we were looking around near this restaurant and the greeter of this place, who are always really intense by the way, just starts yelling at us and pointing at a hotel a couple doors over, and we try to say, no thats not the number, and he just keeps yelling loudly and pointing at the place and walking over to us to walk us to the hotel as if we cant fucking see it. We get so harassed we end up walking in there just to get away from him. Seriously, this trip just keeps getting more and more hilarious. After a couple minutes, we dip out and find the actual place we are looking for. We get our keys and get settled in- it was a one bedroom with a big bed and a bathroom, so pretty simply but it does the job.
Armed with a map of Venice and directions given by our hostel lady, we immediately set out to explore the ‘sinking city.’ We walked along the main road up one way towards Plaza San Marco, the main plaza, where Dodge’s Palace and Accademia are, among other beautiful buildings and libraries. Along the way, we walked into a bunch of little churches and shops and even befriended a couple of the gondola people. Plaza San Marco was absolutely beautiful, with the San Marco Church absolutely breathtaking. It looks Indianish with all its points and its completely covered in gold. We went inside and that is even more beautiful. Definitely one of the most beautiful buildings ive ever seen; that alone was probably worth the trip. Next, goba and I walked through the entirety of the Dodges Palace which is the place of the government. That too was extremely lavish and gorgeous with all types of carvings and paintings, and everything so detailed. There were so many rooms for all different types of purchases with silk walls and carved ceilings and statues and everything is made of all different types of materials- silk, marble, wood, etc. After exploring this plaza quite thoroughly, goba and I headed over to Ponte Rialto, the bridge that has the Rialto Market. This was very busy and it had all types of goodies- so much glass jewelry, crazy masks, etc. after walking around some more, we made our way back to the hotel, figuring it was time to start getting ready.
We showered, chilled a little, watched some music videos, I learned goba loves that new black eyed peas song ‘ill meet you halfway’ which now get constantly stuck in my head, and then we headed out. We figured the best way to find the good restaurants and bars were to follow the crowd. However, we quickly realized there were no crowds. Hardly even any people at that! We were a little lost, hello Venice? We came to party! We asked a couple people and they led us to a plaza which was supposed to be one of the best- I think it had 5 restaurants and maybe 2 bars. There were people just botteloning in the middle and chillin, but not many. We decided it was just because it was early so we went to grab dinner at Campo Margherita, where I had the absolute best pasta of my life. It was tortellini in a white cream sauce with mushrooms and ham, yum! We got a bottle of wine too, of course, and ate slowly, waiting to see if the nightlife would pick up at all. To add to our awkward and confusing moments that encapsulated our life’s on our way to Venice, when a table of 4 people next to us were leaving, on of the older guys from it randomly asks ‘are you coming to the soccer game with us!’ looking in my direction. I was super confused and so did a complete turnaround, assured there must be someone behind me hes talking to because.. who is this guy?? But he was indeed talking to me, wanting to know if we were joining them tomorrow. I told him we were leaving tomorrow, sorry, and then goba and I burst into hysterical laughter as they walked away wondering where the fuck this random invitation came from. We finished our wine and on our way out asked our waiter where the discotecas were. He informed us there was only one, ONE!, discoteca in Venice called Piccolo Mundo, not giving us much to work with. Walking out of the restaurant, I saw a huge crowd of people with one guy singing and playing a guitar around a girl wanting her to kiss another older guy with a beard that probably housed a family of birds with all the crumbs he was packing. As soon as they saw us, the group immediately took after us, circling us, playing and singing, urging us that we kiss the guy. I quickly understand after realizing that this guy is dressed up as a baby with a bib and all that he is getting married and this is his party. I think ive already talked about bachelor and bachelorette parties and how they get all dressed up like the Duff man from Granada; well this was the same thing. I gave the man a kiss on the cheek while goba stood next to me horrified wishing she could hide into a hole. After minutes of unsuccessful harassing to get goba to kiss him, they walk off to their next victim. Walking away from this situation, goba exclaims, ‘weird shit always happens when im with you,’ to which I could only nod and agree- I have to admit its true. We headed over to the one open bar in the plaza which attracted us, and probably every else, with their bright lights. We got ourselves some drinks and then met these British guys, who I immediately informed that they would be able to get any girl just with their accent. They seemed pretty pleased with that but I doubt its anything new. We ended up hanging out with them the entire night, drinking, laughing, visiting the one other bar right next door which served sex on a gondola shots, taking absinthe shots, and also walking all the way to Piccolo Mundo to find a $10 euro entrance fee which we denied and so walked all the way back to the first bar. I forget their names but they were cute and quite entertaining. Overall, the best possible night we could have had to rock venice’s socks off with only 2 bars.

The next morning, we woke up slightly early, so that we could explore again. There were high waters which were quite inconvenient because the city was overflowing. Thankfully, it wasn’t so terrible that the whole city was underwater so I was somewhat able to keep my feet dry. Goba and I got our water boat tickets and jetted off to Murano island, the glass blowing island not far away from Venice. Several years ago, all the glass blowers were transferred to this island in fear that they would start a fire in Venice and now murano is overflowing with crazy glass art. They really make everything and anything- all types of jewelry, animals, lamps, tables, wine stoppers, anything! And everything is so wildly colorful I seriously almost couldn’t even handle it. I would said murano is like art on acid. There is no other way to explain it. I got my dad a sweet glass blown wine stopper, and some jewelry for myself and family members, and then we headed back to Venice on the water boat. We stopped off at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum which was pretty cool. It had a lot of sweet paintings and some statues, even with a little garden. We tried to see Santa Maria Salute church which was supposed to be awesome but of course we went to go visit it during its closed hours, no big deal. At least we got to see the outside. Then, we walked around the city more, walking past those guys who sell the fake purses. One time, I glanced at one and the guy goes ‘free for you’. I was like oh, no way, really? To which he says ‘free price’… of course, bastard. I was ready to walk away with it for free but hey, whatever. Later on, another guy offers me a ‘free’ bag. This encounter was much more interesting however. He then asks me if I want to be his ‘homie’. I say, umm, sure, I guess ill be your homie, like your friend, your pal, right?’ to this, he gets the absolute biggest grin on his face, looking back between goba and me, saying, ya my homie, youll be my homie! Then he says, ‘lets go!’. Ummm, where we going? What do I have to do? Whats going on?.. and here is his response: ‘hotel?’…. ya, no thanksss. I guess I don’t want to be your homie so much anymore, considering you have a grand total of 4 teeth in that mouth of yours and live on the street, you dirty rat. Goba and I then ended our Venice trip with a glass of white wine by the river before stepping onto our train back to Florence. This train ride was another disaster because since Venice was the first stop, all the seats were open so we just sat wherever, but throughout the trip, it started to get filled and goba and I kept getting kicked out of our seats and then going back into more wrong seats. Every time the same guy would say, those seats are wrong!, but I would just not care enough to find my right seat. I preferred waiting to get kicked out again. Seriously though, would it really have been that hard to find the right seats from the beginning? Apparently so.