Easter Break(Venice): Part 1

Guys, I only have 28 days here left. 28 DAYS! I'm in the twenties now! I CAN'T WAIT TO GO BACK TO AMERICA AND EAT MEXICAN FOOD AND SWEAT OUTSIDE! I mean, I really do enjoy being here but after awhile you end up missing the little things from home. Since I'm thinking about it, I'll list more of what I miss terribly: my bed, a ceiling fan, not sleeping underground, healthy CLEAN food, it not being 30-40 degrees everyday....everything else I'm fine with :) I've already decided that the things I'm going to miss the most about Europe are the metro system, apfelsaftschorle(carbonated mineral water mixed with apple juice/so freaking good), and the history&beauty of this place. If I could just go back to Texas for two days...I'm pretty sure I'd be ready to come back here for another 4 months. 
The struggle.

But anyways, my last blog documented me being sick in Prague buuuut so much has happened since then! I'll try to remember as much as I can and I'll start with Easter break in Italy.

Wednesday,(the 27th of March), we flew out of Cologne to Venice, Italy. We managed to get each plane ticket for 70 euros so that was pretty awesome. I was super pumped to go back to Venice. I went during Spring Break of my senior year of high school, fell in love with it, and have been dying to go back ever since. I'm pretty sure my parents were ready for me to go back & get it out of my system since I mentioned it way too much. For example:

"Ah, that's pretty."
"You know what's pretty? Venice is pretty."

"Do you want to go on vacation to *insert random state* or *another state*?"
"Venice? You say Venice? Venice sounds good."

"What do you want for dinner?"
"A trip back to Venice."

You get this gist. So needless to say, I was ecstatic at the airport. When we got off the plane, we caught a bus taking us from the mainland to the island. We then took a water taxi back to our hotel. It was dark and we couldn't see anything but we were starving so I decided that we should go eat at my favorite restaurant. We totally managed to find it, in the dark without a map, and I hadn't been there for 4 years! So proud. Literally the second we sat down though, Teaghan basically offended the waiting by asking him for chicken in his gnocchi(boys and their protein...). The waiter was all like "This is an exclusive menu, the chef would never change it! Blah, blah." So that was great & I'm pretty sure we got stale bread because of it. Thanks Teaghan ;) But other than that incident, the restaurant was wonderful!

The following morning we went out and wandered around Saint Mark's Square/Basilica. It was crazy because due to the rain, the entire plaza was almost flooded! They had these giant wooden planks you had to walk on to get anywhere. It's things like that that remind you that you're currently on an unstable island. Oh, fun fact. Venice is slowly sinking. 
Everyone go while you can! haha.

 Here's Saint Mark's Square. The domes in the back are the basilica and to the right (the tan building behind the tall thing) is Doge's Palace, which is where all the royal venetians lived. You can't really see the wooden planks because they're too far back, but they were there! We ended up trying to go inside the Basilica, but due to the flooding, it was mainly closed and you couldn't get a good picture. Sad day. We ended up taking a tour of Doge's Place which was super intricate. Here's some pictures!

(old medieval weaponry they had in the palace. pretty cool to look at everything up close!)

they also had a prisoners section that was pretty fascinating. In one room, they had a several pictures that the inmates had drawn on the walls...from the 16th&17th century. It was really neat to see how humans were perceived in drawings from way back then! I have pictures on my digital camera that I still need to upload and I'll post all these on facebook lataaaa.

Later that day we continued exploring the area. Venice has a great shopping area so of course we did that :) The street vendors there are awful by the way! They shove roses, umbrellas, locks, purses, weird squishy balls, etc in your face and expect you to buy them. They were in Florence & Rome(where we traveled later) too. I'm convinced they're all in a gang and work for the same boss man dude. Just a theory/I'm totally right.

Here's some more pictures of this beautiful city!

For the next couple of days, we really just explored the city. I knew that the next two cities coming up were going to be hectic so I wanted Venice to be really relaxed! One key thing I realized throughout this trip was that our classes in Germany obviously are not as stressful or hard as the classes at A&M. But that's okay. This is going to sound lame, but in a way we're becoming "lifesmart" instead of "booksmart" this semester...which if anything is equally as important. I've learned so much about myself, traveling, this world, etc. It's been a priceless experience. If anyone reading this blog as the opportunity to study abroad, do your best to make it happen! It'll be worth it. Promise. 

Oh, also my hair dryer ate my hair. I'm including this in my blog because it was a tragic moment in my life. I'm blowdrying my hair when all of a sudden I hear this weird noise, feel a tugging on my hair, and smell something burning. I realized that somehow my hair magically got sucked into the back of the blowdryer? Crazy German products. Anyways, I couldn't figure out how to turn off the dryer so I eventually unplugged it...but it was too late. A huge chunk of my hair was sucked up and I didn't have scissors or anything to cut it out. Don't you worry, fingernail clippers were used to cut it out, strand by strand. 

Welcome to my life.

I'll be blogging about Florence & Rome within the next couple of days! It's too much to cover within one blog. Until next timeeeeeee.