Venice, part 1

So we made it to Venice! The overnight train wasn't exactly the most pleasant of situations, with 6 people squeezed into a tiny tiny room. But the people we were with were super nice and all spoke english. There was a guy from Vancouver and a couple from South Africa and they were all doing a very similar trip to what we're doing. It was fun to sort of compare notes. OH, I almost forgot! When we were waiting for the train we were talking to a guy from Toronto who just graduated from Queen's with a degree in engineering. I thought that was sort of ironic seeing as Justine is about to go to Queen's and Graham is about to start engineering :-)

Anyways, Venice is spectacular!! The first thing we did was walk through the city to Piazza de San Marco and went to the San Marco Basilica which was absolutely fantastic. The whole ceiling and walls are covered with these spectacular mosaics with gold backgrounds. We went up to the top of it to get a close up view. In the piazza (or square, but i think the Italian is more fun) Graham bought pigeon food and was feeding them. They are EVERYWHERE: at one point he probably had about 10 on him and then another 50 or so surrounding him.

Hmm... I'm running out of time so I have to be short (internet is is about $10 an hour... ugh) We had lunch outside at a cafe - FUN. Early in the afternoon we were ready to get to our hotel because we hadn't had a very good nights sleep. The hotel that we were originally staying at wasn't right on the island but when we got there they offered us a room in their hotel right by the San Marco Square for the same price!! It is a little pricy compared to the other places we've stayed but SO worth it!!! So much fun to be right in the middle of everythign!! For supper we just wandered around for a while until we found a restaurant that we thought looked good.

Anyways, that's about all for today, tomorrow we're going to check out some more of the sights of Venice and eventually we're goign to explore the islands where there's cool art work like glass being blown and lace making.

Oh one more thing! Today I bought the first thing for myself. It was a leather journal handmade in an old fashion Italian style. It's from this cool store hidden amongst the tourist traps (it was even in our guidebook) and has the cutest man ever sellign the stuff while the wife makes the journals. I can't wait to fill the journal I'm working on now so that I can start writing in it!

39 seconds, gotta go!! Thanks for all the comments!! I couldn't believe how many I had today!!

Luv,
Kaila