Venice

Hello from Rome! We have been staying with my (Andrea) family in Rome since Sunday. My uncle Alfredo (my mom's brother), aunt Lolita, and cousin Freddy have been nice enough to let us stay with them while we've been in Rome. They have internet and computers so I'm getting back to updating the blog. Let's see what I remember from a week ago...

Tuesday
Our train took us to a train station in Venice but we had to transfer to another train to get us into downtown Venice. We managed that just fine and got on a Vaporetto, a Venitian passenger ferry. The Rick Steves Italy book has been really helpful and we got on the right Vaporetto. We got off at the Academia Bridge and followed the directions from the book to the hotel. Rick Steves always notes that in Venice it's really easy to get lost so we were pretty sure we would have trouble finding our place. Luckily, we found it just fine. You just have to always be looking up to read the signs pointing you in the direction you need to go which often feels wrong since you are walking down what seems to be an alley but it's actually the place you need to be. Most signs just have arrows pointing you to the place you want to go but the signs vary from professional printed signs (like street signs when you drive in other cities) to hand-written paper signs and even graffiti (which was helpful on many occasions).

When we arrived at the hotel, there was a big tourist group with a guide who was speaking in Spanish about some structure next to the hotel. In passing, I didn't really hear anything and we made a mental note to look up what the place was at some point. Later, we would find out. Cue the creepy music.

The hotel was clean and nice but was a mix of very grandma-esque lavish furnishings that were slightly on the cheesy side. No offense to any grandmas. But hopefully you get the idea. Everything was very flowery, plush, velvet, and just a little too decorated. The man at the hotel greeted us with a little English and was very nice. Our room was decorated with mustard yellow fabric everywhere. Two things were my favorite. Number 1, the mirror. The mirror hung above a dresser (decorated with a big white doily). The "frame" of mirror looked like a giant rectangular scrunchie. It was mustard yellow and also resembled a bunch of squished fortune cookies made out of velvet. Yikes! Number 2, the giant oversized couch. We took a picture of me sitting on it and it really looked like when you put a baby on a couch or in plays when they build huge couches and the actress sits on it. I had to almost jump up to sit on it. And yes, it was made out of mustard yellow velvet material. Yikes times 2.

On the first day, we took a stroll around Venice. We walked back over the Academia bridge and wandered around the area. There was an older man who was walking behind us for a while and while Evan thought he was following us, I was pretty sure he was just a little drunk. He walked past us and we didn't see him again so Evan stopped worrying. We walked along one of the big canals and stopped by a grocery store to buy some snacks. I bought Oreos (my fave) and Evan bought a drink he thought would be delicious. It was San Pellegrino something in a black can. So of course, being adventorous, Evan bought it. It turned out to be awful so I sat there enjoying my oreos while Evan tried to power through the drink. After the walk, we made our way back to the hotel and called it a night.

Wednesday
Since its been so long since I've updated the blog, I'm sure I'm missing details and mixing up days/activities... I think we went to a little cafe near our hotel for breakfast. We walked over to St. Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco) and went to the Correr Museum which had lots of statues. Then we went to the Basilica. In many of the churches that we went to, there was a dress code. No bare sholders (or spaghetti straps) or bare knees, for men or women. I was usually wearing tankity tops so I made sure to bring a little cardigan or something to cover up but others did not. The first thing we saw inside the Basilica was the fashion police. Best job ever. The fashion police look at each person walking in the Basllica and they pull you aside if you violate any of the rules. I assumed they would just make you leave but that's when we noticed a girl wearing what looked like a big paper placemat or tablecloth. They give any violators the paper and make them wrap it around their waste or shoulders (or both, I guess). It was so strange to see people walking around with wrapping paper on their bodies in such an old church. But, I guess it passes the fashion police's requirements.

The Basilica was incredibly old, dark, and as always, had detail everywhere. It only took about 10 minutes to get through (since we didn't want to pay to see the extra areas). We walked outside to find the entrance to Palazzo Ducale. Apparently, we walked right past it and went too far. But, we walked over the bridge where everyone was taking pictures of the Bridge Of Sighs, which is in the Plazzo Ducale. We found the entrance, and went inside. It's a really neat place that includes a tour of the Dogi Apartments (for the military leaders of Venice), the prison, and the Bridge of Sighs. The Bridge of Sighs was the last time prisoners saw anything outside of the prison walls as they made their way into prison. We also toured prison cells and saw some pieces of wall and paper that prisoners had written or drawn on inside the prison. It was very spooky but cool at the same time. Outside of the palace, in the courtyard, were two big statues. In the Rick Steves book, he said that they were of Moses and Paul Newman. I stopped reading at that point (bad idea since he clarified that they were probably Neptune and Mars), and thought it was so strange that they would have a statue of Paul Newman... Yeah, it wasn't Paul Newman but we still took a picture of it and it really looked like him... :-)

At some point we went to a restaurant nearby. Evan ordered steak which came out as a big chunk of pork. He was hungry so didn't say anything. And it's a good thing he didn't because a few minutes later we heard some sort of commotion on the other side of the restaurant. A guy and a girl (they sounded Australian) were in a tiff with the waiter, and a man who was probably the manager or owner. It was something about the restaurant charging them for something they didn't order. The owner kept saying "In Italy, this is what it is and its amazing. You don't appreciate what this is!!" and the girl responded, "But I didn't order that so stop saying it's so good!!", back and forth, back and forth. I don't know what happened in the end but they left and the man was pissed.

We walked over to the Ca' Pesaro museum, a modern art gallery. They were featuring a Tony Cragg exhibit, which was pretty cool. Check him out if you like modern art. Everything reminded me of inner ear canals. We were craving non-Italian food so we tried to go to the Hard Rock Cafe (shame, yes, I know). We got so lost. I'm pretty sure we walked in circles 3 or 4 times. And we were really hungry, so that didn't help. When we finally found the place, we walked in and the woman said they weren't open. Something about waiting for the water guy... It was the evening so we figured they would normally be open so it must have meant that something was wrong inside. So, we went to Burger King. Shame again, I know. Evan ordered a beer which was weird to do at a fast food restaurant. As we walked back to our hotel (or were still lost), we saw and smelled a big tube pipe thing along the street near the Hard Rock Cafe. The water guy arrived! It stunk! We're guessing that there was a sewage problem and they were pumping yucky stuff out of the restaurant.... sick....

That night (I think...), we went to bed and were listening to "The Facebook Effect" on the ipod. As we both dozed off to sleep, I turned off the ipod and Evan woke up hearing people talking outside. It was dark, probably around 10 pm and it sounded like a tour in English. I couldn't really hear very much but I could tell from Evan's reactions that it was a scary story. He was so freaked out but kept on listening. He closed the window and told me what he heard. Apparently, there is a well in the courtyard outside of the hotel. The story goes that about 200 or 300 years ago, a teenage girl was pushed into the well. The lid was placed over the well and she obviously died. When they found her skeleton, they say here mouth was wide open because she was screaming (right....). They believed she was probably from a nearby mental hospital and someone took her from there and threw her in. Something like that. Like I said, Evan was freaked. I did start thinking about the movie The Ring (creepy) but just proceeded to play BeJeweled on the iphone to ignore that it really was spooky. I'm guessing that Evan didn't sleep well that night.

Thursday
On Thursday morning we packed up our stuff, and walked over to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. I love modern art so it was a nice change after seeing all the very old art and statues over the first half of the trip. The museum is inside Peggy's home and surrounding property, located on the Grand Canal. Its an all white house with many connected rooms and a beautiful waterfront balcony. In the garden, Yoko Ono gave the foundation a Wishing Tree (it was an olive tree). There were slips of paper to write your wish. After you write it, you hang it on the tree. We wrote one and later saw a cute one from a 6-year old kid that said "My wish is to be a superhero". I loved that tree.

They had lots of artwork from different artists (many I don't know, even though I like modern art), including Picasso and one of my faves, Jackson Pollock. His art is so bizzaro and I love it. For anyone who hasn't, I'd recommend watching "Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?". It's a really interesting movie with a neat twist that has a great story about a woman who stumbles upon a Pollock painting and also provides a history of Pollock.

Outside, in the garden, a woman was giving a brief history about Peggy so we listened. Peggy was a fascinating woman who seemed to be a bit quirky. We hung around the museum for a while because it was so beautiful and relaxing. Then, we got our bags, and hoppped on a vaporetto to the train station to catch our train to Florence.

Ok, enough for my typing fingers! Right now, as I've finished this post (it took a few days of revisiting since we don't have much time at internet cafes), we're in Nafplio, Greece. We're headed to Atens for a day so we can catch our flight to Santorini on Monday.

Hasta luego!

A + E