What a strange and stressful morning! We all had an early start as we wanted to get to Venice around lunch time so we didn't waste a whole day traveling! Everything got off to a smooth start until we got to the train station and couldn't find the ticket validation box! We looked everywhere and because it was so early no one was working yet! We assumed we'd be ok because we had our ticket and if something was to happen we assumed they'd understand - we assumed wrong! This small, rude Italian man walked up to us and I gave him our ticket and explained what happened, but he did not care! He insisted we pay 50€! With no one willing to pay everyone said they had no money and if we didn't pay we'd go to the police, everyone decided we'd go and talk to them because we had been in the same situation when the machine ran out of ink and didn't stamp it, but the man just stamped our ticket for us! You could tell the police deal with this all the time because they just did not care! We could have got away with it, but we ended up paying 10€ each. We finally got to Parma to change trains when I thought my weird morning was over when a gypsy women started following me asking if she could have the peach I was already eating!! She came up to me twice! I was so sick of weirdos and it didn't stop until we got to Venice! There were people everywhere begging for money. People spend there whole day on trains walking up and down carriages putting little notes down beside you that explain to you that they're homeless and can't afford food and then they walk back and ask for money! We saw the same man on our train from our hotel to Venice a couple of times. We finally got to Venice and went straight to our hotel to put our bags down before going in to town. Our hotel was about a 15minute train ride in to Venice. It was a nice and quite area. Everyone was nice and friendly and our room was nice! After we had settled we all went back in to town. There are so many streets in Venice! It's so easy to get lost! So just like Florence we allowed ourselves to get lost and just wandered around. Finally, we found amazing Italian food!! There was a small pizza shop that had the most amazing looking pizza's in the window! Simon, Erin and I went in and each got one! It was by far the best Italian I have ever had!! I was so happy, because I had started to lose faith! We continued to wander the streets going in to each store and looking at all the beautiful jewelry, ornaments and masks. After a few hours we started to get hungry and found a restaurant filled with locals so we decided to go there. It was really busy because there was a graduation ceremony held in the big town square that we wandered in to. I wish UC had ceremonies as amazing as this one! It did however make me so excited to graduate at the end of the year :) We all got pasta and it was delicious! Venice was quickly becoming a favourite just for it's food!! After dinner we made our way back to the hotel! Everyone was so excited for a sleep in!