The Venice post...and thats all for Italy

Starting from the last post...

That was actually just kind of a teaser because before we headed out to Venice we stopped through Florence to finish up a few more things. First thing to get done- get some lunch at a sandwich shop which had been recommended to us. Of course every time we went there it was closed: the first time we were in Florence it was closed since it was a weekend, and this place was closed on both Sat and Sun. So we headed over and what happened? YEP, that’s right, it was closed. We think it was a holiday that day since there were a lot of places closed (also it was a holiday in Spain). So we just grabbed some pizza- why would we eat anything else? Next headed to the Uffizi! This museum is BIG and had lines in off season…I don’t want to imagine it during the busy season. I didn’t take any pics in this museum so I just guess you guys will have to go see it for yourself. One thing I CAN tell you is that from the museum (at the end of hallway, 2^nd floor) you can get an AWESOME view of the Ponte Vecchio.
We did get some pics of that…along with the rest of the world since it was pretty much the only place you could take pics in the museum.  Oh yes- and I wouldn’t want to forget to tell you- I had some random group of Italian (I’m assuming) teenage boys ask me to take a pic with one of them. I thought what the heck and did it but I couldn’t stop cracking up even during the photo. 

We ended up having to leave the museum before seeing everything in order to catch our train. And OF COURSE got to the train station and ran into problems…why would it be anything different? We just hadn’t realized that we had to catch our train at the other station, which basically had the same name, so we had to opt for the fast train which was great (minus stress of paying more and having to go out of my budget- next time I will know better). 

Now to change up the scene a bit…we soon arrived in the sinking city of Venice around 11pm. It was pretty foggy and dark so difficult to see. After spending about 45min trying to figure out how the system worked for the Vaporetto (since all the kiosks were closed and not many people were around) and calling the hostel, we caught the correct boat to get to our hostel and went upstairs to pass out in our room.  The next morning I had to go downstairs to talk with the manager about a pricing issue and what happened? I ran into a friend I know! I had gone on a road trip with her less than a year ago- it was a graduation celebration trip. This girl got see all the good and bad about me on that trip haha Anyhow, I knew she was traveling around Europe and told her we would be in Italy when she was there but wasn’t able to give her more info so it was just a coincidence that we ran into her. I love when stuff like that happens- it just reminds me how small of a world we live in.

After running into my friend and negotiating with the assistant manager (I got us free breakfast! Too bad it wasn’t good hahaha), we headed out to explore Venice. First thing we did- got lost. Well we actually were just kind of wandering and it took me a few hours to get oriented so the first few hours were spend wandering, running into streets flooded with water, and wishing we had some rubber boots. Watch the video...

After asking a few people we eventually made it to Campo Santa Margherita (a large open area) and grabbed some lunch. Next stop? Well that was the question…we just ended up continuing to wander and hopefully making it to a few museums or something. We soon figured out where we were and found one of the most amazing churches I’ve ever seen, Basilica Santa Maria Gloriosa Dei Frari. The place was just so different that any church I have visited so far in Spain and Italy- first of all, it was only lit by the light from outside through the stain glass windows. It was so cold it seemed abandoned yet so beautiful and comforting. The presence this place had was very unique and the artwork was gorgeous as well. We didn’t hear much of this church before coming but I recommend it to anyone who heads to Italy. 

After spending some serious time in the Frari church we explored more and stopped by the Gallerie dell’ Accademia di Venezia (museum). This wasn’t necessarily my favorite museum but it did have a few rooms with amazing paintings inside. One room was filled with 6 gigantic paintings each about 12x12 ft large and they were just beautiful. After we spent some time there we were exhausted and headed back to the room for some RnR. Before making it back to the room of course we were stopped…There was a gondola…and we were in Venice. My travel buddy couldn’t pass it up so she invited me along and we went for a GONDOLA ride. The ride was beautiful but I think that I’d recommend going on one in the Spring…after its warmed up a bit. We were able to get some amazing photos and see the town in a very different way AND we got a history lesson from the gondola man (not sure the proper name). We wanted to know more about the history of Venice and gondolas so he entertained us with all his knowledge as we sat back and admired the city on water. About a half hour later we managed to get off the gondola without falling into the water and headed back to the hostel for a much needed nap.

 After taking possibly the longest nap in history we got up and headed out for dinner…it was already around 10pm. We headed back to Campo Santa Margherita since that was where all the “night life” was. Of course Venice is a small town and in the off season there is no one there so the night life…well, it was minimal. We bar hopped between the 2 open bars in the square haha, had a bellini or two, ate some pizza (we had a daily required minimum), and order a bottle of wine…

Second morning in Venice, we woke up and ate our free breakfast at the hostel…bread, bread and more bread (not much substance there so I was quickly exhausted within a few hours). We headed out to Piazza San Marco BUT on our way there headed to the big market that they have in Venice. It’s said to be a famous market filled with all types of fresh fish and sea food as well as fresh fruits and veggies. The market wasn’t too big, but then again we were there in the off season, but the food sure was beautiful. I saw some seafood that I’d never seen before- and I’ve lived next to the ocean all my life!
The fruits and veggies were also so beautiful with amazingly rich colors and varieties of crops that don’t exist in the states (at least not in WA). We explored a little more away from the market and stopped by some shops…all set up in the name of tourism. We headed back towards Piazza San Marco and crossed over the famous bridge in Venice (we had to cross it coming over too). We were told it was the first bridge built in Venice, because originally Venice was made up of many different “islands” which were later connected with bridges- SO every time you cross a bridge you’re basically crossing onto a different island (I’m hoping the gondola man didn’t make all that up but that’s what he told us…). The bridge is filled with shops where every tourist can find some overpriced souvenir haha- they did have some pretty cool things though. Also when we were crossing the bridge there was a wedding photo shoot going on (I also snuck in my camera for a pic) and I’m sure their photos just came out ridiculously beautiful. I do have to say though, the bride’s dress was definitely more…modern. It was like a normal wedding dress MINUS about 4ft of fabric at the bottom. So it was a miniskirt wedding dress with which she wore white ankle boots…oh the Japanese are so trendy.

We finally made it to the Piazza where we then tried to figure out where we needed to go. We were searching for the museum but got side tracked by some other attractions. We first ended up going on up into this tall, tall tower which overlooked ALL of Venice. It was pricey to go up but well worth it. You could literally see EVERYTHING…the different islands, the whole Piazza, the mountains (in the distance of course)…everything. I took a bunch of pics up there but wish I would have taken a video because the pics don’t do it justice. Matter of fact, I have a better idea, just fly to Italy to see if for yourself.

After the tower we went to the church next door and explored it and all its beauty. I mean every church we walked into was just beyond amazing. You couldn’t even begin to image how much time and effort was poured into these buildings of worship. Every time I was speechless. This particular church didn’t have too much to explore but we managed to spend about an hour walking around, just in awe of the place. 

Our next goal was to find the museum! That took us a whole couple minutes to find…I ended up not going inside because I was really low on funds and didn’t want to starve to death while in Italy, so I just hung out outside while the other girl explored the museum. While waiting I started to hear some music and it kept getting louder. I finally stood up to see what it was- a group of, what looked like, new found Buddhists dancing around and chanting/singing to the music that one of them was playing. The all looked SO happy and it was really fun to watch. From what it looked like, they were handing out info about the religion to anyone who walked by or had interest. I enjoyed having the music there because I was just waiting found myself a bit bored after they left…maybe I should have joined them.

After my travel buddy joined back with me we headed back to the hostel for what? Pizza? No, not pizza…A NAP!

Once again we got up and it was dinner time, this time earlier than 10pm though. We wanted to head to a “nice” restaurant to get some dinner this time and so we went back to Campo Santa Margherita for some…pasta! At this point I couldn’t keep up with the 1 pizza slice daily minimum so I traded that in for the next best thing (pasta). That night we didn’t stay out late because the next day would be our last morning in Venice and we would have to check out of the hostel. So, we headed back, got our bags slightly organized and went to bed. 

Next day we got ready, packed up, ate the yucky hostel breakfast, checked out and then went out to explore some more of Venice. We, of course, found ourselves at another church…this time it was the Santa Maria della Salute. Again- we stood there in awe. After being humbled again we kept walking until, well, we walked to the end of the island. You literally can stand on the edge of Venice…of course there’s a security guard who speaks minimal English and stands there to make sure stupid tourists don’t fall in…and of course who did he have to talk to? Me. Not because I fell in or anything but because was kneeling to take a picture and fell over a bit…so apparently that signaled to him that I would fall in? Still not sure what happened…maybe he thought I was drunk. Yep, that’s probably it. 

Well we soaked in some sun next to the water, still wearing 5 layers of clothes because it was freezing, and just breathed in Venice. And an instant later we had to head out, well it was more like a few hours but same difference. We lugged our bags to the train station (it was only about a 20min walk) and waited…next stop Milan.

When we go to Milan it was late. We basically had time to drop our bags off at the hostel, grab a bite to eat and go to bed, all to wake up at 5am and head back home…we’ll we were going back to Spain so can’t complain too much there. So that’s exactly what we did, kind of. We got on the bus, after about 10min we figured out we were on the wrong bus. SOOO got off that bus and caught one in the right direction, found the hostel and dropped our bags off. We headed to a restaurant called “Bar Tender” for some food and drinks. Now many bars, at least in Milan and Florence, have it set up where you buy a drink and get unlimited access to the food bar- great deal. If you go to Italy- do that! The food is good, you eat for cheap and the environment is GREAT! I think we were the only none Italians in that place, at least the only non-Italian speaking people. I LOVE places like that- they’re always the best. After getting full off 3 plates of food (they were small plates!) and some drinks we headed back to get a few hours of rest before we had to ship out.

The next morning was the last in Italy, we woke up groggily, taxi-ed it to the train station where we caught a bus to the airport. We got on the plane and were destined back to Spain! From there we said our goodbyes and I headed to catch my bus to my small town of Lucena… But the story’s not over yet! While waiting for the bus to leave, at the last minute, a girl that I know got on. Funny thing- she’s actually from Oregon and doing the same program in a town close to mine, so we spent the rest of the hour+ bus ride talking about our trips, since she had also been traveling. We finally got to Lucena, where I hung out with her and we ate some food while she waited for her bus. After that I went home and…PASSED OUT! Hope you enjoyed hearing about my adventure in Italy…now go check out the pics!

Italy Picture Album

I've missed you internet!

It's been awhile, christmas has already come and gone, next up- New Years. I've been without Internet for the last few days and before that I was prepping for xmas so I've been pretty MIA...again. I'm going to go ahead and give you another post about Italy right now and then I can catch you up on christmas here and christmas eve...

Now back to Italy:

The next day we left Florence and headed to Cinque Terre, a small group of towns along the coast in Tuscany. Cinque Terre actually means five worlds because it is made up of 5 small towns, the one we stayed in was called Riomaggiore. To catch the train there from Florence is about 2.5 hours and a series of 3 different trains but VERY much worth the trip. We got off the train and we just astonished at how beautiful it was to be looking out into the ocean and I can just image how much more beautiful it would be in the spring and summer. Actually when we FIRST got off the train the exit was in the tunnel and we were thinking “where the heck are we” but we just walked out of the tunnel and found ourselves looking right at the ocean. Absolutely beautiful.

Next step, trying to find the hostel. We followed the instructions (good thing we had a print out of them) and found the hostel office. Since the office was in off season they were closed and left us an envelope with the key and instruction on getting to the room inside. I thought it was so cute and almost like a mini scavenger hunt so I was already in love with this town. We dropped off our stuff, wandered around, bought a XL bottle of wine and headed back to the room where we met up with our “roommates.” There were two girls, one from Australia and the other from Canada, and they were both super nice. We all went out for dinner that night. Well I should mention that before we headed to
the restaurant (pretty much the only one open in the town) we celebrated our stay in this tiny but gorgeous town with the big bottle of wine. Alright, so back to the restaurant, well we had some great food for super cheap. Of course this food included pizza haha and also had some nochi, more wine, dessert- tiramisu and some sort of pastry ball filled with cream and cover with chocolate mousse…and lemon cello shots! The lemon cello shots were from influence of the police sitting at the table next to us…they ordered some so we figured how can you come to Italy and not have some??? After dinner we spoke with the police officers with a variety of English/Spanish/Italian…

Also, just a side note, the waitress at this place was a girl from the UK who had taken up living in Italy…I have to say that I think ALL of us were pretty jealous of this girl.

Well after dinner we headed back to the hostel, in the pouring rain, luckily we were staying about 30sec from the restaurant :)

The next  morning was the “hiking” day which went well but the fact of the matter was that not much hiking was actually done. We intended to hike to each of the 5 small towns…we got to the second one and then stopped for wine. The hike pretty much stopped there haha. Well let me elaborate a little more, you see, the trail had been wiped out by a mud slide (or something to that effect) between the 2^nd and 3^rd towns so we had to take a train to get to the 3^rd and then continue. Unfortunately we had JUST missed the train and there wasn’t another for an hour…hence why we stopped and had some wine. THEN we went to catch the train, got to the next town, and it started raining…SOOO we caught the next train right back to our little town and did what? Took a nap of course! At least the pics we got between the two towns were super good…we went on the “Trail of Love”…how romantic.

After getting some rest all of us girls decided we wanted to get some night life so we went to the next biggest town, La Spezia, for some dinner and anything else we could find. After wondering around in search for a decent and non tourist filled restaurant we finally dropped into a local hairdressers to ask for a good restaurant close by- what a GOOD idea because the restaurant was great. To make it even better, everyone in there pretty much JUST spoke Italian- that’s when you know its good. After gorging of the yummy food we went to a bar where the girls had seen some cute Italian boys so they wanted to go back in search for them. The environment of the place was fun and so was the people watching haha. The girls finally got up some courage to talk to some guys to ask where we could get some gelato, glad they finally did but the timing was a little off because we had to then head back to Riomaggiore since 3 of us had to get up early in the morning to catch trains.

So we packed up early the next morning and headed out…this time to VENICE…

Wow its been a while

Before I get into my Italy trip I want to say a few things:

1. First off, I think I have the best boyfriend in the world. I just got a package from him with all sorts of yummy snacks, including my favorites- SPICY CHEETOS and Tapatio sauce!, since there’s pretty much 0 spicy food in Spain. Each goodie in the box also had a note attached to it :). It was fantastic and I loved it!

2. People in Spain are crazy. Haha well, not literally. It’s just every time I go out with Spanish friends they always manage to keep me out until crazy hours in the morning. This Friday I went out until 4am- yes- 4am and my friends still stayed out even after I left. Even though we had a multiple friends leave before me they still gave ME a hard time when I left, saying I’m not used staying out so late because I’m American lol. Gotta love it.


3. ITS ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!! I can’t wait! The only sad thing is that after Christmas is done I will no longer have a countdown calendar with chocolate inside for each day :( I think I need to invent one for the whole year.

My first chocolate from the calendar!

4. I almost forgot to tell you- I went back to the town of Rute where they have the nativity scene of chocolate. This was a field trip with some of the students at my school and my friend Teresa (who's they're teacher)- yay field trips! I think that town has a separate museum for almost every food group because we went to the museum of ham (jamón), anís (anise-licorice), sugar, chocolate and turrón (almond made sweet)...and got samples at each one :) . Those are the 5 food groups right???

Ok now that we’ve gone over all that important stuff, let’s get into Italy before I forget what happened! I’m going to do this in separate posts because there is no way I will have enough time to sit down at write this all at one time. Let’s start with MILAN/FLORENCE…

Well we left Friday morning from Malaga and flew over to Milan. One thing I want to mention, not sure if its hit the US yet, but in Spain and in Italy at least you can go to these stands in the airport where they will basically wrap your suitcase in like this saran-wrap plastic stuff. It looked pretty cool so I got a pic.

Alright well I’m going to try to keep this post as concise as possible since I have SO much to tell from 11 days of being gone in Italy. So basically at the airport we people watched, I got felt up by a security guard, we hung out in MAC while my friend bought some makeup and then got on the plane to leave. After arriving in Milan we took an hour bus ride to the train station, where all the fun began…

So we didn’t exactly have our train tickets booked so we waited in line for about 30min to talk with a person who could help us book tickets (we couldn’t figure out the system on the machines they have because it was giving us different info). They told us that there were no tickets for that night or the next morning- AWESOME- and we already had hostel reservations in Florence. My friend basically spent the next 20min talking with the guy and we finally we able to have him help us out by finding a train that would get us to Florence that night. We weren’t quite sure why he wasn’t telling us about the train before...but we think its because it had a short transfer time to a second train that I suppose we could have missed. Anyhow then we had to deal with another guy who of course didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak Italian so that became a very interesting situation to say the least. When we finally got our tickets we grabbed something to eat and headed to the train, go on and headed to Florence. Needless to say we saw nothing of Milan that day except the inside of the train station, which actually is quite amazing. 

One thing that you MUST know about Florence is that in Italian the name is Firenze- that threw us through a few loops. Well when we got to our hostel, very tired and hungry, we dropped off our stuff and headed out for some food. We went to the closest pizza place and grabbed a bite to eat there. Of course they spoke no English so we managed with our beyond limited Italian (seriously we knew like 5 words) mixed with some Spanish. We each got a pizza, my mistake on ordering lol, but it was a good thing we did because we both ate the whole thing.

After that we headed to a bar that we were told would be open really late (most places around where we were staying closed early) and grabbed some wine. YUM! After we headed back to the hostel and passed out. The next morning we headed out on some adventures. The first was figuring out how the bus system worked. We had had a mis-hap the night before and in the end we took a taxi BUT we didn’t want to spend all our money on taxis the whole time so it was time to concur the bus system! It actually wasn’t bad at all and we also quickly realized that they seem to use the “honor system” there because when you walk on you don’t actually pay the bus driver but instead a little machine in the middle of the bus. In addition each time you buy a bus ticket you can use it for an hour and a half. We caught on quickly to the fact that less than half the people were paying for the bus tickets so we stopped altogether. We only paid for 1 ticket on our entire trip in Italy- don’t judge.

Finally we made it to Plaza (Piazza) San Marco and went into the Chiesa e Convento di San Marco right in the plaza. That was the first time that I realized that I wish I was a member of the EU- why? Because they pay half price on ANY entrance into ANY museum (in almost all senarios). I suppose that was at least good for my friend since she’s from Scotland but just flat out pissed me off. Well, we went into the convent turned museum and explored around, seeing lots of pictures and artwork that had been made. We weren’t supposed to take pictures but I think my friend snuck a few so I’ll try to get some from her. Basically all the pictures were religious, of course, and the majority were paintings of Jesus on the cross. The whole place was pretty impressive but nothing close to what we would see in the next few days. 

The rest of that day we spent exploring, entering into a beautiful church, eating some overpriced gelato on a warm waffle, taking pictures of the Duomo inside and out, eating pizza, and just walking the streets that were filled with people. I have to say that the Duomo was amazing. I mean the pictures show its size but you really don’t feel it unless you’re there- so go and see it! We also explored in this area underneath the Duomo which was pretty cool as well. We also went into the Galleria dell’ Accademia museum where we saw the famous “David.” I was able to snap a pic of him even though its not allowed. We spent a lot of time in that museum and I especially loved the temporary exhibit because it was about Greek mythology- something I’m actually quite interested in. Beyond that there was a room of sculptures that was really neat and one of the sculptures serisouly looked so real that I swear it could have just stood up and walked away. I would definitely recommend this museum to anyone visiting Florence.

Just walking along the streets was amazing in itself as well. There were so many different people everywhere and I really miss that. Some people were drawing beautiful artwork right on the street, I mean literally ON the street, some guy was singing with his guitar and some speakers in the middle of a plaza and there were street vendors everywhere. The city was just beautiful and it was by far my favorite of the whole Italy trip. 

By the end of the night we ended up going to a restaurant in an empty area of town, late at night and on a street called via Maffia- sounds safe doesn’t it? The restaurant had been recommended by a local so we wanted to check it out. We even passed by it the first time because it kind of just looked like an empty bar. We then looped back around and came back to the place, entered in and got a seat. The place was beautiful inside and actually quite romantic- so if you ever need a romantic spot in Italy check out via mafia in Florence. The food was also AMAZING- we got a pizza and a plate with buffalo mozzarella cheese, spinach with some anchovies and some other amazingly delicious cheese that I don’t know the name of. That place was by far my favorite restaurant on the entire trip in Italy, so definitely a place I will never forget…plus the wine was pretty good too :)

We eventually wandered off Maffia street and headed back to the hostel. We were both freezing since it was snowing temps there but we made it back without freezing to death. Actually on the entire trip I wore 3 pairs of socks, 3 pants and 3 shirts plus a jacket…definitely a change from Andalucía’s moderate weather. 

When we eventually woke up in the late morning, we headed out for another day of adventures in Florence. On this day we had a mission and headed back through Piazza San Marco and passed the Duomo to reach the Ponte Vecchio. We did get distracted by the street vendors and ended up stopping at a t-shirt shop to get some souvenirs for friends. When we finished we made our way back in the direction of the Ponte Vecchio. The Ponte Vecchio, by the way, is a famous bridge that has shops all along it and is filled with tourists. It was beautiful and even so amazing that one of our pictures came out looking completely photoshopped, but yes people, we weren’t lying, we actually DID go to Italy! After crossing the Ponte Vecchio (which we had actually crossed the night before to get to Via Maffia but it was late and none of the shops were open) we headed over the the famous Pitti Palace (Palazzo). Of course Italy had other plans for us- they museums had decided to go on strike that day (and a few after but we were leaving the next day anyhow) so we weren’t able to go in nor were we able to go into the Boboli gardens (Giardino di Boboli) but I suppose that leaves me something to do the next time I go to Florence!

In the end that ended up working out well for us because we wanted to check out Pisa. That night we headed to Pisa to see the leaning tower! We got there and got some help from some Italian guys to figure out what bus we needed to take to get to the tower. Of course we missed our stop so we just stayed on the bus while the bus driver did the rest of his route, quite fast, and circled around. THEN we got off at the right stop and headed over to the tower. We got this American guy to take our pictures although it was a little complicated because it was already dark out and the lighting was poor around the towers. Luckily my friend had a camera that worked great at night so she was able to get some fantastic pics.

*I will get them on here as soon as I get them from her*

When we went to head back we, of course, had just missed the last bus of the night so we had to walk it back to the station. We asked some random guy where a place to eat was and how to get to the train station. We went into this little restaurant on the way to the station and had some decent food and then headed back to Florence on the train. The next day we had to head out for another small town but we would be back to Florence one more time before our trip ended…

I'm back!

Oh man do I have some catching up to do. I just got back from 11 days in Italy so I will have a huge posting to talk about all of that. Plus I have to add about a million and a half photos so that will probably be happening this weekend. I'm pretty exhausted from such a long trip and somehow this week has become instantly more busy than every other week I normally have. Now to get back to my life in Spain!