Chelsea's 21st & Venice!

So I think I've mentioned before that for this entire semester, weekends start on Thursday afternoons once classes are done (It's pretty fabulous :] ). Well, I think that was more true for this past weekend than for others. You see, Thursday was Chelsea's 21st birthday :) Not such a big deal here in Italy (the drinking age is 16, driving age is 18.. interesting, right?), but still a pretty big deal for Ms. Chelsea, haha. So immediately after our Italian 101 class, Lilian and I, along with Chelsea's roommates Sasha, Ally, & Sarah Drooks, started preparing decorations and supplies for Spa Dacomo while Chelsea was in her advanced Italian class. She came home around 430pm to handmade birthday signs, facials, hand scrubs,nail polish, & plenty of drinks. Needless to say, Spa Dacomo was a great success :)

Getting our goopy hydrating facials on, haha

Roomies with the array of drinks (or at least the empty glasses that held them)

After a moisturizing facial, a tightening facial, a hand scrub, nail painting, hair styling, a wardrobe change, and a number of drinks, we were ready for dinner at Hemingway! Lilian & Sarah Duke had arranged to have pretty much everyone in our program there, as well as dinner dishes selected beforehand and a cake made by the bartenders/owners' Mom - it was so sweet! We also had party hats set up for everyone to wear. Basically, it was a blast. I was sooo tired at the end of the night though (that was the most I've ever had to drink in one night, so I launched into whiny and sleepy mode, haha), but thankfully Sarah Duke & Lilian took care of me and made sure I made it home safe before a bunch of them headed out to another bar, which I greatly appreciated. All in all, I'd say it was a really fun night :)

Me & the birthday girl ready to go out!

Ally, Lilian, Chelsea, & I all dolled up

Birthday girl & me with our party hats at dinner

Chelsea with her purple absinthe birthday shot, courtesy of Cathlin, & Sasha with her "Girl, you's crazy!" face, lol.

Dacomo + Nick

Lilian, Sarah Duke, & me :)

Andrew Smith & me

Chelsea's customized cheesecake! Her slice had a cherry & said "Chelsy 21" in chocolates. It was so cute!

Friday morning Chelsea and I were off to Venezia! Despite all the partying of the night before, I thankfully didn't have any aftereffects - no headache, nausea, anything - definitely very glad of that. We got in a bit after 4pm, and the sun was already setting (so early, lame!), but I got a couple shots of the gorgeous view of the Grand Canal from the bridge outside the train station. The guy who manages our hostel met us at the station to lead us to where we were staying, because they had moved us to a different place because the one we had booked was having hot water issues. It turns out that the one we actually stayed at was nicer, had higher ratings, and it was only like a 5-minute walk from the train station. Super bonus! Haha. :D The hostel had a very nice homey feel to it - it was run by a couple from Canada, housed mainly younger people around our age, and was set up kind of like a flat or apartment with 4 or 5 rooms, a kitchen, and a couple common rooms. After getting settled in, we set out to explore. We mainly just window shopped and saw the Rialto Bridge, then found some dinner (pasta with crab sauce for me, pretty delish), and then crashed back at the hostel after the full day's worth of traveling.

Sunset on the Grand Canal

Gorgeous!

Our hostel room :)

One of many Venetian mask displays

View from the Rialto Bridge of the Grand Canal by night

Saturday morning we woke up to the sirens signaling high water at 630 in the morning. By the time we got up, showered, and had free breakfast at the hostel tho, the water had already receded so that the streets weren't flooded anymore, which was good. Our first stop was St. Mark's Square, and we took a fairly leisurely Vaporetto (water taxi) ride down the canal to get there, which was pretty cool cuz we got to see the city from their aquatic "main street." We got really lucky with the weather on Saturday, because after checking the forecast I expected some rain, or at least clouds, but we had a pretty clear day and didn't get any rain until right before we left Sunday, so it was pretty much perfect. :)

Rialto Bridge

 

This was around 1030, four hours after we heard the high water sirens. It still reached above street level!

To give you an idea of how much the tide recedes, this is the same spot about 3 1/2 hours later.

The two big things we wanted to see in St. Mark's Square were the Doge's palace & St. Mark's Basilica. We went to the palace first to see if they had any more spaces available for the secret itineraries tour, and lucky for us, they did! The doge was basically a sort of Duke, and the palace is where all the political stuff happened, from what I gathered. We got a guided tour thru the secret rooms where all the documents were handled, where prisoners were tortured so that they would confess/give information, and we saw the upper prison cells, including the one where Casanova was kept. We learned all about his story, which, from what I understood, went something like this:

Giacomo Casanova was a playboy, so annoyed husbands would send letters of complaint to the palace, so officials kept an eye on him, and finally he was arrested for witchcraft. Lucky for him, executions were outlawed just 5 or 6 months before his arrest, so he was sentenced 5 years in jail. Since he was rich, he got to have his own chair & take walks up in the attic. Somehow he got some iron or something, which he proceeded to use to carve a hole in the floor. All he had left was to carve thru the canvas painting in the 3 High Inquisitors' office ceiling directly below his cell when they were on holiday, and he would've been home free. Unluckily for him, this was the day they decided to move him to a new cell. The keeper discovered Casanova's hole, but was blackmailed to keep quiet about it or else Casanova was gonna tell the authorities that the keeper was the one who got him the iron. So the keeper repaired the hole with his own money & Casanova was stuck in a new cell under 24-hour watch. He needed a new plan, so he started smuggling messages and the piece of iron to a priest that was in a neighboring cell (he'd had 12 kids!) thru a Bible passed on by the keeper (poor chap couldn't read, so he didn't know what was going on!). The priest somehow carved holes & was able to get to Casanova's cell, and somehow they managed to escape - right out the palace's front door! 

In addition to all of the prison-related stuff, we saw a store of weapons they now have set up in the attic, along with the support system for the immense Grand Council room. It's the largest room in the world not supported by columns; Rick Steves said in his guide that it has like a 2,800 capacity or something like that. It's huge. And the ceiling is held up from above. It didn't look like a very elaborate setup.. just a lot of beams crisscrossed on top of each other. But it works.. the Grand Council ceiling is completely flat, none of it is weighing down or anything. Pretty impressive. I wish I had pictures to show you, but none were allowed inside the palace. So that secret tour was really informative, interesting, and totally worth it.

After wrapping things up at the palace, we went out to the Basilica. Since some of the plaza was still flooded from the morning, we had to use the raised platforms they had set up, but it actually wasn't too bad as far as having to wait in line goes, which was cool. No pictures were allowed inside the Basilica, but a bunch of the other tourists were taking some, so I snuck this one, which I felt kind of bad about. The ceiling & I think the walls as well were pretty much all mosaics made with gold from the booty acquired by the Venetians during wars. Just past the altar they had what we think were the remains of the evangelist Mark, but I don't know for sure b/c we didn't pay to go wander that part. I was thinking about it tho - if Peter is in St. Peter's in the Vatican, & Mark is in Venice, where are the other apostles/evangelists? How do they know that these are their tombs anyhow?

Doge's Palace

Water in St. Mark's Square

So much water in front of the Basilica!

Everybody walking on the raised platforms to get to the Basilica

Haha, I thought this was pretty funny. Some lady getting some seriously special treatment.. manual transport for both her and her luggage through several inches of rain.

The other side of St. Mark's Square

Chelsea in St. Mark's Square after the water has all gone

Me in front of the Basilica & Palazzo Ducale

So many gondoliers! (Nah, we didn't ride one.. too expensive!)

 

Me with the winged lion, which represents the evangelist Mark

After finishing up with our major touristy stops, we set out planning to shop for the rest of the day. By the end of the night, we both had a large bag or two filled with purchases, primarily souvenirs, so I would definitely say that it was a successful day. We met up with Flora and Cathlin for some delicious pasta (+ squid for Flora) dinners, and then it was back to the hostel for the night. Chelsea crashed kind of early again, while I took advantage of the fact that we had a TV and DVD player and watched Prince of Persia because I loved that movie :)

Sunday (yesterday) morning we took our time getting up and getting showered, had ourselves another free breakfast with the other young travelers staying there. We met people from Canada, England, and New Zealand, which was interesting and cool to hear all the various accents around one table, haha. We caught our train back to Alba around noon, just in time for it to start raining pretty steadily, and after another full seven hours or so of traveling, we were back in our cozy little town. :)

All in all, I think this weekend was fantastic. I had a lot of fun with good friends, got most of my souvenir/Christmas shopping done, & & got to enjoy great weather with just enough time to see and do all we wanted to in the lovely city of Venice :) Uber plus: we got thru what is highly highly likely to have been our last Italian train ride, woo! Not a fan of Italian public transportation, can you tell? ;P I likely won't have any more big travel plans for the rest of the semester (3 1/2 weeks!!) until the school-sponsored trip back to Florence & Pisa, which is fine by me. Anyhow, I've got an Italian test tomorrow to study for, sooo.. Ciao for now! :)