Day 49! (10th August)

Well today I got up at 8 as I planned and had a shower before meeting Katie and Pete downstairs for breakfast. The breakfast here was as shocking as normal.. A piddly little (squeaky???) bun, a jam and some cheap coffee or chocolate drink. But better than nothing I suppose!!

Afterwards Pete went upstairs a bit to pack up and then we walked along the island a bit first to get to an ATM for Pete and katie, and also to buy our day pass for the boat-bus and buy lunch at the supermarket. After achieving all this we caught a bus over to Saint Marks square and were kinda blown away. There is a gorgeous church there, which also unfortunately had an unthinkably long line outside. We still had a good look around though! We saw the bridge of sighs which was no big shakes, and while in the square we saw the clock tower ringing, which invloved some big metal figures ontop of the tower rotating to strike the bell which was quite sweet! There were also pigeons everywhere getting fed and flying perilously close to people and stuff.. They were bold as, and if you wanted to you coulda fully booted one to the other side of the square for a bit of sport :). Aparently they carlly lots of disease and stuff.. so arent the most desirable little things.

We then caught a bus over to the main trainstation and booked our trains out for the next day (they were going to Slovenia.. and I to Milan in order to fly to London). We were pretty starving so we sat down near the grand canal and had lunch in the shade next to a nice fountain?statue, with some crazy north indian music wafting over from some nearby buskers. We had a big long bagette type bread and some sliced ham and cheese aswell as bananas and a few cereal bars. This all tasted delicious!

After this we walked around the city for a while and looked in a few shops... OK Venice is totally gorgeous but the shops are something else!! The masks and Murano glass especially. Im not kidding when I say I coulda spent weeks there just going from shop to shop window shopping.. the masks and associated things (puppets, costumes etc) are all so amazing and there are so many varieties and types.. you can spend hours in one shop! The craftsmanship is INCREDIBLE too!! And the Murano glass... Its stunning!! There is so much variety, and everything is amazingly gorgeous. There were so many things I woulda gladly bought if money wasnt an issue, and transporting them wasnt either. But oh man.. you could go to venice and buy gifts that could last you the rest of yoyur life.. totally awesome!!! We saw the theater, and a bunch of other buildings, but just walking through the streets was totally magical. I love this city!

Anyhow we looked around for a while and chatted and stuff all the time as we went. It was great to look around a city with someone.. Ive decided that travelling with someone is definately cool, and although alone has some bonusses, with someones so much better. But I already though that before I left.. Anyway I was so thankful to have Katie and Peter, and they were both such nice people! We then had a look around for a while for a gift for a frind of pete and katies that they stayed with, and we finally found a suitable one in a cute as shop with tons of masks and puppets. Got to meet the person who made it and all, and the sales lady was this sweet little lady.. :) It was cool!

After finishing up with the required shopping we went off towards a musuem. On the way we passed a free exhibition on Violins and especially Vivaldi. Aparently violins and stuff have deep history in Venice and Vivaldi too, and earlier Venice was a very important musical centre. This was really cool! And after that we wound our way over to the Academia Museum and paid to get in (had to pay a bit more not having a student card.. but ahh well). In here were a bunch of mainly religious paintings, and by and large it was good ay. I loved some of the ones depiciting famous scenes from the bible, not sure why exactly, but it was cool to look at peoples interpretations of them.

After this we went to the Rialto bridge which was quite alot more impressive, and had alot of stalls and stuff all over the place to buy things. A good tip if you are ever in Venice is that if you wanna buy some stuff like masks or small glass things go to the Rialto Bridge.. They have the exact same stuff (well the masks are a little lower quality) but for significantly cheaper.

I cant remember for sure, but I think we just walked around some more, caught a bus through the grand canal to check it out from the sea, and then went on the hunt for a place to eat dinner. After alot of consideration and noone wanting to say we should eat at a certain place (we all didnt really mind where we ate :D) we sat down at a nice restaurant in a big open square and had pasta and pizza, which didnt quite fill me up, but was good enough.

After this we walked around a bit more, enjoying the marvellous sights, and chatting away, and then got a boat back to the hostel around 7.30 (was about a 45 min ride). Once back we sat down at our table and I got some pasta, and we played some cards. We played rummy, and then I taught them Scum (Presidents.. Asshole.. whatever u wanna call it..) and Uca (Uker? dunno how to spell it!) and by then it was around 11 something and we all headed off to bed.

It was a great day and I wanna spend so much time here and go to some concerts and performances.. aswell as some serious shopping. And go for a nice gondola ride and all that.. but I think thatll be for another time.

Catcha all later!