Venezia (Venice if you please)

Wrapped up another weekend trip yet again this past Sunday but this one was with 28 other IES study abroad students as the school sponsored it. It was a long trip, but definitely worth it. We got to Venice around 2pm or so on Friday, dropped off our stuff at the hotel right outside of Venice in an area called Mestre and wandered around the "main island" for a few hours. I bought a fabulous mask because I've always wanted one and my friend Shannon and I checked out a lot of small gift shops that carried glass made at one of the neighboring Venetian islands. We met everyone else for dinner at 8 and the food was plentiful and pretty good.

Saturday we had a 7:30 wake-up call and we all ate breakfast at the hotel. We took this ferry to San Marco to see the church. It's pretty much the most touristy part of Venice.

My favorite part of San Marco was the tour we did of the palace of the Dogi. He was basically like the elected president back when Venice was the shit aka the world's wealthiest city (It's still part of Italy's wealthiest region). They turned it into a museum and I got to see a chastity belt from the 15th century in person! Our guide was really dramatic and interactive and it was pretty fun. She told us this funny story about how the husbands of these women would go away for 6 months at a time so about three months before they left, the women would get really fat, get fitted for their chastity belt, lose all the weight while their husbands were gone so they could slip it off, and then get really fat again before they returned so it would be nice and snug. She also gave us a lesson on inheritance during the Venetian empire when the world was cut out for first sons and daughters and how your life was chosen for you. If you wanted to be with the one you loved you became a nun/priest and your lover became the other because priests were allowed inside convents at night with no questions asked so basically convents were safehouses for illegitimate couples in the act! Hilarious this woman was. I also learned some of the ways to identify artists by the repetitive clues they left in their paintings.

We then went to the island of Murano on Saturday to see a demonstration of glass-making and then to Burano where they make lace. I've seen glass be made before in Canada but it's such a cool process I didn't mind seeing it again.

Saturday night was pretty fun because they had a mini-Oktoberfest by our hotel. I met some locals and some Americans which were both entertaining and ate too many crepes.

Sunday we got up super early and waited 40 min for the bus to take us to the port of this canal where we took a 4 hour boat ride. I was too tired, hungover and cold to really enjoy it. The guide was energetic but too loud. We had the boat to ourselves for half of the trip but later, these old French tourists joined us so they had to guide in two languages. After the trip we went to lunch and everyone was exhausted but IES insisted taking us to see another villa, one belonging to some famous Italian architect. After that side trip, we bussed back to Rome which took about 6 or 7 hours including two stops. It was one of the quietest bus rides I've ever been on because everyone was sleeping. They dropped us off at the school which sucked because I had to walk 20 minutes to the subway with all my stuff. I got back to my apartment at about 11pm and hit the sack immediately!