Venice is amazing!!! We got in on Wednesday night, and snagged a hotel room which sucked. The directions we were given were horrible and the front desk guy was an ass. We went out to an extremely romantic dinner in dresses and I ate the best pasta I have had to date. It was homemade ravioli with tomato cream sauce. We shared a small bottle of wine before heading out to a pastry shop for tarts and another bottle of wine. That wine was not very good, good thing it was inexpensive. Thursday and Friday we had reservations for an apartment in San Samuele... Since we were going to be there early, I needed to call the lady. Our global phone decided to be a biatch, and say were out of minutes even though my mom added some online.
I asked the front desk guy if I could use the phone, he agreed and I tried calling but it didn't work; I asked if I had to press anything else other than the country code before the number, he said he didn't know and continued to say that he doesn't understand that we can't dial because "the phones cannot be so different in America, you just dial like 1234" ok, ass it's not working. He's not getting a good review, he wouldn't help us with anything.
That being said, we took a water bus to San Samuele and found our apartment without too much trouble. The streets are confusing though considering they're tiny and there's tons of them! We got to the place at the same time as the landlady, which was nice. She was a sweet little old Italian woman who kept saying that the last people to stay there were a "disastre" too funny. The place was so cute! We had a bedroom, kitchen/dining room, living room. We ended up going to a couple markets, I got myself a true Venetian mask :) and a few souvenirs for some lucky people such as Bobcat, and my brothers.
We went to the beach Thursday and Friday in Lido, which was gorgeous! Unfortunately, on Thursday when we were swimming, Alison was sneak attacked by none other than a jellyfish. We had no idea what could have gotten her since the water was not clear enough to see what was down there, her leg started getting red and bumpy so I pointed out the lifeguard, who told her it was a jellyfish... And poured vinegar on it to neutralize it. It went away decently quickly after that. I am only a slight bit pink, I've been applying sunscreen like it's my job what with my Irish skin and all. Thursday we also bought fresh food to make dinner with, and homemade italian wine from a man named Marco, who invited us to a true Venetian party Friday night. It was at a small snack bar not too far from our place. We had lot of wine and free pasta.
We also met our second kiwi!!! His name is Henry and he was funny.. Kinda reminded me a decent amount of Jared (my bro for those of you unaware). We got his email address so we can facebook stalk him :)
We've eaten gelato every day so far, my favorite has been pistachio. I'm not sure what else to say about Venice other than it's absolutely gorgeous and I can't wait to go back someday!
We are currently on a train to Florence, where we have a hostel booked... It'll be nice to be back in a room with strangers, as weird as it sounds... I've missed it. Hostels have so many strangers/potential friends! 2 nights in Florence, 2 nights at a campsite in Rome, 1 night in Dublin, then Chicago! Just 5 more nights abroad! It's sad, really... Since I love Italy and Ireland. Oy.

Picture count: 1062 (there's only so many pictures one can take of canals).

Oh yea, we also didn't have internet at the apartment, which was relaxing to have no way at all to contact anyone other than Alison for 2 nights.