Hostells with Aussies

Venice was absolutely wonderful. I really did not expect to like it much based on what I have heard from others, but Jessie and I both fell in love with the city (after it showed me who is boss and pulled me into the water, of course). We managed to make it to Piazza San Marco before most of the crowds on Friday morning and got some great pictures of the square. We went to both the palace and church and they were beautiful. After that we had a great morning just roaming the streets and alleys trying to get lost. It was much more difficult to do so than we both expected. Our hostel was right near the Rialto bridge and there are signs everywhere directing you to it. Jessie and I then decided to go to Murano Island where they are famous for their blown glass. The glass work was amazing and after going through probably 50 shops we made our purchases - wine stopper and earrings for me, earrings and pendant necklace for Jessie. Jessie bought hers directly from the artist and he signed the back which was cool. Back at the hostel we talked with our Australian roommate and decided we needed to go mask shopping and have a nice dinner. We all we able to find great masks after digging for quite awhile. We found a great shop away from the tourist crowds that only sold hand painted items at reasonable prices. From there we found a little Italian restaurant with a tourist menu (2 courses - pasta, and meat - plus a side dish). The food was quite good and it was lots of fun to talk to someone other than Jessie. While sitting at the restaurant lots of vendors came around with roses and music, and pretty standard nice dinner fare. Until one vendor walked by with neon blinking masks just laughing at his own ridicularity (is this even a word, sounds like one to me). We all laughed about this for some time and headed back to the hostel after some wine. Overall Venice was great, and made the abuse from the hostel manager bearable (my friend wants to go swimming with you! Theres a pool downstairs!). Definitely something to laugh about.

I will write about Florence later - starving, time for soem Roman dinner!