Carnival in Venice

Two weeks has gone and now we have our first excursion to Italy organized and financially supported by the university. Basiically it was a one full day trip to Venice. The departure time was 12am in the morning and the bus was fully loaded. Everyone was very excited especially for carnival which is held only at that time of the year. The journey took about 7-8 hours, we were all chilling and some drinking on the bus as it was freezing cold outside. As we arrived, we were served some 'Wiener' or sausages with buns, and soon we went on to take the water taxi and reached Venice at almost 10am. The atmosphere was amazing on the carnival with people playing all different kind of instruments, dressed up in costumes wearing masks etc. After taking the group picture, everyone went seperate ways, i was with Jason, Whitney from WSU, Paul from Canada and Luis from Florida. We first stopped at Piazza San Marco, feeded the pigeons soon to realise that it was illegal to do so though we got away with that. Later i decided to explore myself. Shortly after i found myself circling around the same streets going nowhere, i had no clue at all where to go. Fortunately i met Irmak, one of our exchange students from Turkey and we planned on where to go. The interesting part of the trip was that we could actually walk through the residential areas, seeing people walking in and out of their aparments in the narrow streets. From the bridges, it appears as if the buidings were built on the water with gondolas passing through the canal. On top of the Rialto Bridge crossing the grand canal and looking down the stairs, we could see the entire street with merchants on both side, the market place for souvenirs. Soon we met another group from our exchange, the Fins mostly and we joined them just relaxing at a coffee shop before heading to enjoy the view of gondolas passing under Rialto bridge. In the evening, we had some Italian pizza at a restaurent, its definitely some of the tastiest pizza i ever had. Lesson number one for me as well, never assume anything is free if you didn't order it. We were served a basket of bread and were charged 5 Euros for it. After the supper, it was already late in the evening so we had to rush back to catch the water taxi. All of us started to run and everyone seemed to be enjoying it. About 20 minutes later, we made our way back to Piazza San Marco where it seemed like there would be a big party or concert going on. The square is not far from the bay and since we still had time, all of us managed to be dancing around and enjoyed the atmosphere. Colorful lights were projected on the buidings with live music performance made the environment simply stunning. Unfortunately as the party was just about to begin, we had to leave, otherwise it would have been perfect. The water taxi was so fully loaded that we ended up standing in front of the windshield facing the cosy wind for the entire ride of almost 40 minutes, which the Fins later named it the Titanic ride. Finally as we were about to leave at around 9.30pm, 2 people were still missing and there was no way that we could contact them. We decided to wait until 10pm, and if they didn't show up we had to leave anyways. Exactly at 10pm, when the bus was just about to move, the 2 of them stepped on the bus just on time and everyone was clapping hands from them. A full day of fun had come to the end, there wasn't much noise for the journey back as everyone was very tired. About 5.30am, we arrived the dorm and i found myself a gift from Venice, pigeon poop on my jeans. What a fabulous first excursion in Europe, can't wait for the next one.