Hello yall! Saturday - Sunday we traveled to Venice for the weekend and it was wonderful! I have to say, that so far Venice has been my absolute favorite place I've been too - it's just so quaint and so picturesque. I learned that there are about 455 bridges in Venice - and while I don't think I took a picture of every single one, it was only because I didn't see every bridge, haha. I took over 200 pictures within 36 hours...I guess thats the Cam.ak side of me ;) On saturday afternoon, we had free time, so a couple of us took the water bus to Murano and went to a glass-blowing demonstration and "museum". It was pretty cool how easily and fast they could make things....and then of course charge an arm and a leg for them too, haha. After that we shopped around in the glass stores, had some gelato and made our way back to Venice - I wanted to go to the Guggenheim in Venice, which holds Peggy Guggenheim's personal collection, but we didn't have time before dinner unfortunately. Dinner was however, delicious and I got to eat steak. A couple of the girls didn't want theirs, so I happily ate their steak too. After a nice dinner, we all were free to wander around - so thats exactly what we did for about 3 hours. Some call it lost, we call it "wandering". But we eventually found ourselves in San Marco square which was beautiful at night - and there were little orchestras playing everywhere, so we stayed a little bit and just enjoyed the scenery and music. By the time we were ready to go back, we realized that we were about 30 minutes away from our hotel....perfect time for a gondola ride! I definitely suggest taking a gondola ride at night if anyone ever has the chance, it was so nice, the weather was perfect and everything was so pretty reflecting off the water. Our gondola man pointed out to us the homes of Casanova, Marco Polo and all the governmental buildings too, so we got our own little tour of the city.

Sunday, we got up real early to eat breakfast and walk down to San Marco to meet our tour guide - the same 30 minute walk but it was much better the 2nd time since I was following people who knew where they were going as opposed to trying to read signs, ask locals or use googlemap. When we got to San Marco, I was completely blown away by how awesome it was! It was defnitely beautiful at night, but to see it during the day was incredible. The pictures dont do justice to how massive and ornately beautiful the buildings are, or to the amazing view of the water. We walked around for a bit to take pics, etc, and then met our tour guide, Louiselle. Best. Tour Guide. Ever. Really - she was so entertaining and so excited about what she was talking about, that there was no way she didn't have every single person captivated. She was so fun and I really loved having her as a guide. She showed us all of the buildings and told us the history of them, as well as the history of Venice - which I found to be incredibly interesting. I learned so many things about Venice that I had no idea about. We left San Marco square and walked down throughout the city, and she showed us the hospital and other buildings, and residential areas. It was such a great tour - but by the time we were done I dont think I've ever been so tired in my entire life. We went to a late lunch and then we went to the Academia, where thankfully - it was a relatively small collection. Don't get me wrong- I LOVE museums and art, obviously, but I, along with the entire group, was just slap worn out. Thankfully, there were chairs and benches, so I could sit and enjoy works by Giorgione and Titian sittting, which was very nice. After all of the museums, archetectures, tours etc, it was time for us to leave. We took a taxi boat back to our hotel- it reminded me of the boats that Indiana Jones raced in one of those movies - haha, so that was fun for me. I have to say, I was very sad to leave Venice. It was definitely one of my favorite places, and I really want to go back very soon. So...if any one wants to go and take me, let me know!

Hope you all are doing well, miss you very much! Liorah