Boom Boom BOOM!

Yesterday, I got yelled at by an old Venetian woman with a cane. After waking up at 4am to fly on a tiny plane sitting next to a small French business man with a bad case of “the sniffles” or perhaps maybe swine flu (just kidding Lourdes) the last thing I needed was a lecture in Italian. On the water taxis in Venice, the first row of seats is reserved for pregnant women, women with children, the handicap and of course, persons over 70. In my delirium, I mistakenly thought the sign had a picture of a stick figure with a backpack, however, it turns out the stick figure’s backpack was not a backpack at all, but rather a baby bump. I sat down unknowingly and proceeded to get a few curse words thrown at me in a foreign language. I almost cried, but quickly decided against it because there’s no crying in baseball, or Italy.
After this incident, I pulled it together and we maneuvered our way through the Venetian tourists to get to our hotel, the ALBERGO DONI. We quickly changed and headed out on an adventure. The weather was absolutely incredible. With not a cloud in the sky and a light breeze, we made our way through the museums and palaces on the water. We sat in front of the water taxi (or as we like to call it, the poor student’s gondola) for over an hour just looking at the old buildings, observing the locales and taking pictures. (shout-out to Sarah Scales. I’m taking plenty of pictures for framing in your kitchen). I saw a ton of work by Veronese, one of my favorites, and Jess is being such a trooper checking out the art with me.
Overall, I’d give Venince a b+, with points added for the sun and points docked for the mobs of people and the crotchety old people.
We woke up today around 6am to catch a train to Florence. I cannot wait to see some of Michelangelo’s stuff, I mean he was the best ninja turtle, so I have some high expectations. We should get there around 11:30am, just in time for some pizza for lunch. Hopefully we will have some internet at the hostel, so keep a look out for some phone calls today!

Ciao blog fans,
Ashley