Venice: The (Expensive) City of Honeymooners

Since our flight was so ungodly early, we got into Venice at 8:00am. However, the airport really wasn't in Venice, but in a nearby city called Treviso so we had to load onto yet another bus and endure another hour ride into the city. Once we got into Venice for real we were all tired, hungry, and homeless. Mindy parted ways with us to meet up with her boyfriend and Farashta, Kate and I argued over the newly purchased map trying to figure out where to inquire about a hostel. The booklet we got from the Tourism Office indicated that all of the places to stay were on the pricey side, and we couldn't figure out where we were on the map, so we decided to regroup over lunch. We found a cute cafe nearby and after a delicious meal of the best lasagna that I have ever had we were re-energized to once again begin our search for somewhere to stay. We happened upon a storefront that said "Hotel Reservations" and went inside to ask about hostels. The lady said that she only does high-end reservations (like a beach house or a 5-star hotel) but she knew a guy. So we walked with her around the corner to the Ristorante da Ivano where she spoke a few words to the guy behind the bar, and he agreed to give us a room for a good price. We were very grateful to not only get a room, but not have to pay an arm and a leg for it. Mr. Ivano even invited us to sit down, and gave us free coffees, free pizza, and a free dessert. You should never depend on it, but sometimes the random kindness of strangers really pulls through. After putting our stuff in our room - which only had one bed, and it wasn't that big - we started to explore the city.

If you know anything about Venice, you probably know that instead of streets it has canals.
Which is really neat, and very unique. It made for a very quiet city since there was absolutely no car noise (breaks, opening and closing doors, horns, etc). Instead of cars, they use boats to get around the city - There is even a public transportation system comprised entirely of boats! This is a "boat stop", or basically a dock where you get picked up.The sidewalks were normal size, but the space between buildings was quite narrow -It rained the whole day, but it wasn't anything we weren't used to after three months in Santiago!Sadly, however, the famous gondolas (you know, where you sit in the boat with your sweetie and some guy in a red-and-white striped shirt in a black hat rows you around while you make out the whole time) didn't run while it was raining. This didn't really bother us, because a) we weren't there on our honeymoon and b) it is 80 euros per ride, and we are poor and again, not on our honeymoon.I greatly admired the variety of colors and the architecture.We saw a lot of masks, for sale in the artsy stores as well as in the tourist ones. They look a lot like the carnival masks that people wore during carnival, but we were there long after carnival, so I really don't know why they are big in Venice. We were trying to find our way to the Piazza of San Marco, but we wound up on the opposite side of the city. After a hour of walking around in the rain and the cold we wanted to warm up, so we went to the nearest cafe. Unknown to us, it was a really posh cafe.We ordered hot drinks, and I had one of the best coffees I have ever had. Since we were already there, and the drinks we so good, we decided to get dessert. Because we were on vacation, and why not. I ordered this chocolate raspberry cake which was the best chocolate creation I've ever touched to my lips.Since we didn't order off a menu, we really had no idea what the prices were. We kind of expected to pay more than, say we do for the 0,35 coffee at the dorm, but we were not at all prepared for the bill!!!! it ended up being 4,00 euros for the coffee and 9,00 euros for the dessert! between the three of us, it was 39,00 euros! holy crap. After we emptied our pockets and asked the waiter for directions we made our way to the Piazza of San Marcos. This time, we found it!This plaza is mostly famous for the hundreds of pigeons.I am not sure exactly why there are so many pigeons there, but for a euro you could buy some pigeon food, hold it in your hand, and have them flock all over you.Kind of gross. Kate especially thought it was gross. Ever since Kate's mom warned Kate to stay away from pigeons because they are dirty birds that poop then walk in it, Kate has had an aversion to pigeons. But we sure had fun playing one of our favorite games, "fake kick the pigeon". This game started after our friend Alana told us about how she saw some kid kick a pigeon on the street. Shocking, but the pigeons in Santiago are really annoying because here have no fear, often YOU have to move out of THEIR way so in a way it was kind of understandable/hilarious. Kate thought this idea was genius but she didn't really want to kick one of them because a) they might poop on you and b) that is just mean. The whole point is to get them to move out of your way, not to hurt them. Thus "fake kick the pigeon" was born.There were also some ornate, famous for some reason, buildings in the plaza. I think this one is a church/cathedral - And there was this astrology clock - And this tower - (note how my umbrella broke. I refuse to buy my 5th umbrella, so I suffered in (relative) silence)By the time we had seen the whole plaza we walked around and did a little shopping. Venice is known for its glass - jewelry mainly - so we scored some good presents. Since we were pretty much broke from our snack, we picked up a sandwich on our walk home. We decided that since we hit all of the big things in Venice that the next day we would hop on a train and go to Florence, so we made our way to the train station and bought tickets to leave the following day. We were exhausted from our extremely early morning and day of walking around, so that night we went straight to bed.