Venice

Well last week I traveled back to Italy with my roommate to Venice.  There’s not really much to say except that it was as beautiful as they present it in movies.  I’m not going to do a day-by-day account of what I did because it was literally just walking around the city (which was fine by me); instead, I’m just going to give you some bullet points on what Venice was like.

• Canal galore:  The city is composed of about 117 different islands divided by canals; literally every block was its own island.  Each canal was uniquely different from the one you saw five minutes ago so I was pretty much obligated to take a million pictures, haha.
• Gondolas: As to be expected, they were everywhere in the city and they looked a lot more luxurious than I expected (lush carpet and comfy armchairs); no wonder why they cost 80€ for a half hour ride (obviously I didn’t go).  They all wear the traditional striped shirt, but I didn’t hear a single one sing loudly in Italian :(
• Maze: Getting lost in Venice is incredibly easy to do as it is a city of numerous canals and narrow streets.  Besides this, the street signs are painted on the buildings so if one is faded then you’re shit out of luck trying to find out where you are.  Because of these three things, John and I got lost on the way back to the hostel on Friday night, somehow ending up in a residential area with a basketball court.  It was completely deserted, very dark and all we kept of hearing were the meows of some street cat.  It was very creepy to say the least.
• Food: I don’t know why, but the food in Venice sucked.  The portions were small and expensive.  The best meal I had there was a 4€ toasted wrap with a coke for lunch.  This is going to sound bad but the food at the Olive Garden was better the food in Italy…
• Masks and Glass: I didn’t know this before hand, but Venice is well known for their Carnival masks.  During Carnival, the people of Venice would wear them to hide their social status so that they could do whatever they wanted to do.  These shops were all over the city, literally there was like 5 of them on one street.  Another famous product of Venice is their Murano glass.  I don’t know what separates it from regular glass, but it’s very colorful and let’s just say that they make for good gifts…

I really liked Venice, and unfortunately for you guys it's really hard for me to describe it.  It's unlike any other city in the world and there's no way that you could compare it to anything.  So instead of me describing every detail of the city you should be looking at my pictures!