Clam's got nothing on me...

7/3/2009

On Friday morning, I woke up as planned and went down to the breakfast provided by the hotel.  It was really good, with some pastries, delicious granola, and even little packets of nutella (some of which I snagged to bring back to the ship with me).  I was even convinced to try the coffee, since Italian coffee is supposed to be really good, and enjoyed it.  I don’t think it will become a habit though, still not quite sweet enough for my taste.  After breakfast, we grabbed our pursed and headed out to find a ferry from Lido to Venice.  While we were waiting to figure out the best water bus option, Kelly made the statement that she was “happy as a clam”.  Personally, I don’t really think of clams as overly exuberant creatures, and so my automatic response was that “clam’s got nothing on me”, which was true.  Venice was such a beautiful place it would have taken a lot more work than I was willing to put in to not have an amazing time.  We took the shortest one that just got us to the same island as St Marco’s Square, and walked along the waterfront to get there.  It was so pretty with parks, bridges, and lots of people out and about.  When we got a little closer, we started running into street vendors, and shopped around a little.  I mainly looked so I had a price reference for throughout the rest of the day.  We arrived in St. Marcos Square, and it was so amazing.  All I could think about was the movie “The Italian Job” and the beginning scene of the gold heist in Venice.  The Square was crowded, and pigeons were everywhere.  I almost got pooped on by one of them!  I was walking along and splat, right in front of my face.  I think it fell not even two inches from my nose.  I am very glad it didn’t hit me though.  After taking our fare share of pictures in St. Marco’s Square, we continued through the narrow walk ways, trying to leave the crowd behind.  While we were walking, we got enticed to do a gondola ride.  Split five ways, the price wasn’t that bad at all, and we were all ready to have somewhere to sit down.
We loaded up the gondola, with our driver seating us strategically to balance the weight, and then away we went.  I felt like he knew everyone else that was out on a boat, especially all of the other gondola drivers, and I felt like they were talking about us.  Hopefully they were saying nice things.  It was so peaceful going around the canals, and as we passed important buildings, our driver would point them out and say their significance.  After a rather long amount of time passed, we were back where we started and continued our roaming through the streets.  We found a cute little café for lunch in view of the Rialto bridge, and took our time eating.  Tara and Kelly stayed sitting at the table while Audrey, Sarah and I walked to take pictures of the bridge.  It was the classic view of all of the postcards from Venice, and absolutely stunning.  The stairs were marble, and worn down from years of foot traffic, making them very slick.  Walking back down them, Sarah slipped, but didn’t fall.  When she caught herself, two older Greek ladies that were walking next to us yelled out “Hoopah!”, and threw their arms in the air.  That made us all laugh.  We got back to the table, settled our check, and decided what was next.  Tara opted to go back to the hotel, and Audrey, Sarah, Kelly and I continued our adventure through Venice.  We took lots of pictures, especially of the buildings that were noticeably crooked, sad proof that Venice is in fact, sinking.  Then, we stopped at a wine bar, where the other girls ordered Spritzers, and Audrey got a plate of roasted red peppers that she shared.  They were amazing.  We stole some of the bread to bring back to St. Marco’s Square to feed the pigeons too.  After that, it was time for some gelato, and a relaxing stroll back to the square.
There were little kids running around chasing the pigeons and trying to stomp on them, and when Sarah held out her bread, she was swarmed by birds.  One promptly landed on her shoulder and began eating from there.  As she was crouched down with the bird on her shoulder, a little girl with a face covered in gelato came up to here, and Sarah offered her some bread to feed the birds.  The girl seemed a little confused by the whole process, but also seemed to enjoy it.  After all of the bread was gone, we made our way over to a bench to look at out map and figure out where we wanted to go next.  The two people on the bench, a dad and son, just happened to be from Dallas, Texas, where the girls I was traveling with all were from or went to school near, and so we chatted with them for a while.  We may have even convinced the kid to go on SAS as a study abroad program when he gets to college.  After wishing them a good rest of their trip, we decided to head back to the hotel to clean up, and then go get dinner on Lido.
After some quick power naps, and just rejuvenating after a long day in the heat, we looked for food.  There was nothing to special, so we went back to the same restaurant we ate at the night before.  It was good food at a good price, and the waitress was much friendlier the second time around.  None of us were feeling too rambunctious after food, so we decided to call it a kind of early night, and headed back for bed, making plans to go to the beach the next day before our flight out.