Venice City on the water (and other random Beth-isms: yes it is a word)

Hello to all my readers haha. I give myself too much credit. Probably only 3 people read this.

 Claude Monet's Grand Canal. I did a 14 page research on Monet, J.M.W Turner and Auguste Renoir's perspective of Venice through their paintings in the 19th century. I was so excited to see the Santa Maria della Salute pop over the horizon.

Venice was everything I expected. Beautiful and colorful. My kind of town. Venice is a collection of islands connected with canals and bridges. It was completely built on water. Pretty Impressive. We bought water bus passes for 16 euro each to have access to the water boats all day to get from island to island. Once we got there we figured out the boat system. It was very hard for all 8 of us girls to stick together. Since we went for Carnivale it was literally wall to wall crazy people. We all lost each other several times (but dont worry we all made it back eventually). Venice is beautiful and all but extremely expensive. We stopped for lunch at a cute little seafood restaraunt and ended up just ordering margherita pizzas and acqua-natural. But it was yummy and less expensive. Teal, Sarah and I ordered an appetizer of calamari, it came out with these yellow spongy slices of what looked like pineapple. It had the texture and taste of grits! I loved it. Teal said it was an acquired taste for her haha. Atleast I know where to find the closest thing to grits!

We left there to go buy some wine for the afternoon/evening. I've found a wonderful strawberry champagne called Fragolino. So yummy. For the most part, I didn't drink much. I felt in the mood to watch Sam the whole time drink. Silly Samantha. At some point some American Army guys that are stationed in Vencinza, Italy found us. We talked with them for around two hours, listened to some Jamacian Italian band and then jumped on a water bus back to our land bus. We ended up waiting on the last bus for all the late drunk people. Our bus ended up waiting for about an hour later than the original departure time. Leaving us to arrive back in Florence at close to 4 in the morning. Next time I'm going to Venice when it's not Carnivale and I'm staying overnight. haha.

Isn't it heavenly?

The gorgeous Venice

Another Gondola Man

Me and the Ladies Monica and Sam

Confetti!

As soon as we got there. Like my new leather jacket? :)

Gondola man on his cell phone. All of the gondola men had on the stereotypical black and white striped long sleeve shirts.

Sunset on the water bus (just like it sounds, Venice has a boat system that transports people from island to island).

This is from Sienna the weekend before. Me and Monica standing in the Plazza del Campo. Lots of history here.

Me ontop of the Duomo Tower in Sienna. Once again, terribly afraid of heights and could not stay up there long. It felt like the tower was moving with the wind. Beautiful Tuscany :)

Sara took this picture of me. Personally I think I look quite hilarious. But I thought my family would appreciate a candid. This is in Sienna, again. Piazza/Plazza del Campo.

This coming Thursday we (Sam and I) are scheduled to depart for the French Riviera (Nice, France) for the weekend. Pictures will be posted next week from that trip :)

I should start another blog for all the cooking I've been doing! When I get home I should throw a big italian dinner for everyone. (Although I will have to get my fill of wings, steak, salsa and nachos before I go back to Italian food). Hope everyone is doing good. Some of you should be expecting post cards in the mail soon :)