Ciao Italia: Carnevale Venice

For those of you who read this and are jealous that I am here, just know that on Thursday night there were a solid 8 hours where I was jealous of all of you for being home. The worst homesickness I have ever felt hit me late Thursday and kept me awake until 6 AM. It wasn't a fun time and I just want you guys to know I love and miss you all like crazy! Enough of that though, because I am in Italy, and it is awesome. So the best way to get over being home sick? Go do something that is a one in a life time experience... like visit Venice Carnevale!!

Venice from the Rialto Bridge

Kristi, Sara, Ashley and I got to Venice around noon on Saturday to begin our awesome day trip. When we took the water taxi we meant to head straight to Mirano (the island known for glass blowing) so that we could watch people actually do the glass blowing. However the water taxi ended up being the exact taxi our guide told us not to get on because it would take us the opposite direction of Mirano... whoops. So we had to walk straight across San Marco to get to the side of the island that had the taxi that would take us to Mirano. Since it was literally a straight shot across we thought it would be easy to get there. For anyone who has been to Venice you know that that is not the case. At all. It's a maze!! We ended up doing circles. Miraculously found the Rialto Bridge (even though we weren't looking for it yet) and after stopping there to take some gorgeous pictures we ventured down some more side streets.

Virtually a Massive Mosh Pit

Slowly the crowd begin to get thicker and thicker until there was literally no where left to walk. It was like being in a mosh pit. Police were there to try to get people to: A. actually move somewhere and B. not trample and kill each other, it was that crowded. The guy behind me at one point decided it was obviously my fault people weren't moving and that the solution to this problem was to dig his elbow into my back to get me to move forward. I had to scream "basta, basta!" (enough, enough!) to get the punk to get off of me or else I would have turned around to slap him. Then the two women to my left got into a loud Italian fight over, what I can only assume was, one of them pushing the other. It was a hot mess.

Some of the glass made there.

Finally, after about 30 minutes of this, we made our way out of the crowd and found the water taxi. It was a hell of a journey for a taxi but it was well worth it. Mirano was beautiful and had some amazing pieces that were made right there. I fell in love with a lot of dishes and ornaments but I didn't dare buy them because I knew they would be too expensive to ship home or would break in my suit case. Later, we found a cute little restaurant right on the water and got a lunch/dinner and then headed back to San Marco where the main events of Carnevale were being held.

On the water taxi back to San Marco the sun was setting and it was beautiful. I started playing around with the settings on my camera and got some amazing pictures of it! It was stunning. When we got off at San Marco we did some shopping even though I already bought some souvenirs at Mirano. But how many times do I have the chance to buy things from Venice? But don't worry (because I bet everyone is worried...?) I had set a budget for myself and managed to stay under it. So all was good financially. After shopping around and trying to stay warm, because the beautiful temperature was rapidly dropping, we headed back to the Piazza for the Carnevale to truly being.

There were some crazy costumes (like the two at the beginning of this post) and even some American costumes like the Simpsons! People went all out. This one furry pink guy kept putting his finger in Kristi's ear when she was trying to get a picture with him. It was funny... but really weird. He didn't do much to me though, thank God or else I would have freaked out. While we were there they were awarding the best costume (which went to someone who's costume I didn't like very much, but I'm just an American tourist... what do I know?). Then they started to play some Queen, which I naturally had to sing along with, and the YMCA. Kristi got a beautiful video of me singing and dancing to those songs.. I was just excited I knew the dance to the song they were playing since they are usually in Italian!

John, me, Nick, Jason, Sara, Kristin, Ashley, Chris, Dave, and some girl...

After getting hot chocolate (they had hot wine too... don't buy it. It's gross.) and walking around the Piazza some more we met our new friends. There was a group of guys that are in the American Army that are stationed in Italy. We started talking to them in the Piazza and decided to go get crepes together (with Nutella... YUM!). They were a nice group of guys and we had a lot of fun! One of them (John) looks identical to Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies (he even had red hair! even though he usually wore his hat). Obviously, this made him my new best friend and I made him speak in a british accent. I got him to say "ello" "bloody hell" and "merry Christmas, Ron!". It was hilarious. Sara called him Ron all night long... I'm not sure she knew his actual name. But all of the guys thought I looked just like Taylor Swift (which I strongly disagree with...). So it was just a night full of celebrities and laughs. Jason was the only one who knew his way around Venice (how, I have no idea... not too sound repetitive but it seriously is a maze) but he showed us back to the bus station and even though we were a little late (we weren't the only ones!) we said good-bye to our new friends and we got back on the Bus2Alps tour bus to head home to Florence.

Even though I didn't get to do all the amazing things that people usually do in Venice like gondola rides, feeding pigeons in San Marco (it was too crowded for there to be any pigeons... I wonder where they went?), or simply walk around freely I had an amazing time! We laughed so much (even though there were no funny hills this time...) and I got to experience Venice in a way most people don't; during the eccentric and amazing Carnevale! Hopefully some day I'll be able to go back and reflect on all my awesome memories as well as do all the things tourists love to do in Venice, because I definitley want to go back to this amazingly unique city on water. It was one of the best nights I have had so far =]