Ciao y'all,

Venice was a blast. The End.

We arrived Thursday night (15 Feb), went directly to our hostel (about 15-20km away from Venice), had dinner, and crashed.

I got up ''early'' to go sightseeing, so I took the bus in and arrived by 10am. Like a dork, I had forgotten to charge my phone, so I had enought battery to text my friends that I would meet them at the Rialto at 1pm, and if we didn't see each other, again at 2pm (I hadn't yet been to the Rialto, so I thought it was an open bridge, so it seemed like a good plan -- ha.)

When I got off the bus I saw a man who looked like he knew where he was going, so I asked him for directions, and it turned out to be this nice british man, who gave me good directions and his street map to venice.  He was really nice.

I didn't think venice was very big, so I thought it would be easy to walk to the far eastern end where the Accademià was located; boy was I wrong on that one! I think it took me about 30-45 minutes, due to distance, crowds, and the labyrinthine nature of the streets. It was an awesome gallery, I highly recommend it. I saw works by Titian, Bosanno, and a whole host of famous people that I now can't remember.

I made my way to St. Mark's Square, taking tons of photos of people in costume, among them an Italian couple I ran into 4 times that day. On Friday, most people were in 18° cen. costume; sunday was just like Halloween, people donning whatever they could buy or assemble from their closets.

I ambled off to the Rialto for the aforementioned rendezvous, but found it impossible to find my friends, so I stayed in the area until 2pm, when we were able to meet up. we went to st. mark's, toured the basilica, then went upstairs to the Gallery of the horses, where we toured the museum up there and went onto the balcony to survey venice and take photos. Very cool.

We had lunch at a cafeteria (really good food, don't remember the name) then shopped around for masks, and took a really long time to find the perfect one. I didn't actually find mine until about 7 or 8pm. We put one makeup (mascara and eyeliner) in preparation for wearing the masks and met up with Merrigan's friend Chris, who is studying on the BU language program in Padova. Apparently a lot of people on that program were on their way to venice, inlcuding Jess. She and I had arranged earlier in the week to meet up, but my phone battery died, and apparently so had hers.

We walked around, bought cheap wine, and avoided the numerous people smoking pot. Normally the police would be all over them, but because it was carnevale, they didn't care. In fact, on Saturday night we saw a woman urinating on the side of one of the columns in the poritco around the square, and no one cared, the police included. in fact, a man dressed as Mr. Addams (with the rest of the Addams family, minus children) played drumsticks on her head while she was doing the deed!

At some point in the night 2 of our members had wandered off, so we went to find them at the American Bar, on the square. At least, that had been the plan. I had been talking to Jess and was one minute behind my friends, but when Jess and I got there, my friends were nowhere in sight. Jess and I waited for a good 15-20 minutes, gave up, and made our way to the bus and train stations. We had to split up at one point (later I realized we didn't have to, but it was my first time making my way home), and I walked to the bus station with a group of students from eastern europe, who were really nice (I also happened to run into them saturday night too).

I took the 12.05 bus (last one at 1am), and arrived at the hotel to find out that my roommates had the room key, so I had to wait up for them. An hour later they arrived, irritated with me because they thought I had wandered off. I explained my point of view, and they were marginally appeased, so we went to bed.

we woke up 20 minutes before we had to check out, scrambled to get ready, and checked out to make it to the next hotel, which was by the airport. We had to take the bus into venice, and another one out to the hotel, which took FOREVER. Once we arrived, we went to our separate rooms to plan the day. 3 of my friends went to Murano (the glass island), I went back into Venice, and one stayed home.

I had planned to go to the Doge and the Correr musuem, both on St. Mark's square and on a combined ticket. Well, that plan went down the drain pretty quickly. There were twice as many people in venice on Saturday than there were on Friday, and getting anywhere was a chore. It was like cattle in a chute. I probably should have taken a traghetto, but that didn't occur to me until later. On my way there I stopped by the Frari church (which has great religious art) but I had to pay €2,50 to get in and I didn't have any cash, so i rectified this by using the bancomat behind the Frari. By this time it was 3pm, and I knew the ticket lines to the Correr and Doge would close by 4, so I got a quick glimpse of the Frari and booked it to the square. My efforts were in vain, as it was so crowded I didn't make in until 3:50, and the lines were tremendously long, so I had no chance of getting in.

I decided to wander the area behind (to the side?) of the Doge which bordered the lagoon, right by the New Offices. Lots of booths were set up with hats, masks, and souvenirs, and people doing face paint for carnevale. I watched the different artists for awhile, and got my face painted too. I asked the guy to choose for me and he did this cool curly design in red and gold (go gryffindor!) with sparkles. By the end I had sparkles everywhere (along with confetti in my hair), but it was totally worth it.

I had explored the area between San Marco's and the Rialto pretty thoroughly, so I went beyond the Rialto to East Canareggio. As it was about 5pm by now, the crowds were unbearable; the people who had arrived in the morning hadn't left yet, and were then joined by those who were staying for the party that night (did I mention cattle in a chute?). The ''streets'' are really narrow (sometimes only one to two people abreast), and it got so crowded the police had to direct traffic, designating certain alleys to serve a certain direction for the flow of people.

By this time I was getting really sick of the crowds and kind of lonely, so I popped into a bookstore that had used English books. I browsed for about 30 minutes, and got a call from the roommate who had stayed home; she was on her way into town, so I agreed to meet her at the bus station, as I wasn't terribly far away. Normally this walk might have taken 15-20 minutes, but it took me at least double.

When we met up I found out the others had arrived back in venice, and were waiting for us at American Bar in St. Mark's, so we hotfooted it (as much as we were able) to the square, and then all of us went out to dinner. We had a lot of trouble finding a place that wasn't full and/or terribly expensive, but we finally ended up at a trattoria by the Rialto. We had dinner, went back to the square, and partied.  At one point we saw some guy waving the trinacria, and when he walked by us we all shouted ''sicilia!'' -- he smiled at us and kept walking.  We partied until 12, when we realized we had to get to the station to catch the last bus home. We made it just in time for the 12:50 bus, went home, and crashed.

We took a bus at 8am sunday to the airport, and discovered that our 9:30 flight had been postponed to 10 am; we arrived in Catania at 12:15, just after the departure of the 12:10 bus. Because it was a ''holiday'' (so we were informed), the next bus wasn't until 3:40, and a taxi was too expensive, so we waited. and waited. and waited. It didn't occur to us until later that we could have taken a bus to the catania station, which was served by more buses, so we could have had an earlier departure back to Siracusa. We arrived at 6pm, had dinner, and retreated to our rooms to do our homework.

It was the best day ever. (belli and lydia, identify this quote!)

Elizabeth