Whoever invented cioccolato is a genius

Location: Venice, Italy

My hostel rocks.

So after I go back last night with my little picnic, I meet a group of people (its a small place so there's only like 20 people staying there) including 2 Aussie sisters, 2 Aussie twin sisters, a German guy, a guy from Chile, a guy from Washington, a girl from Jersey and a guy from Ft. Worth. So the guy who owns our hostel cooked us all dinner (which apparently he does every night) and it was this nice little plate of tortellini and we all went and bought bottles of wine and sat around and drank and ate and it was magic. Then we watched the beginning of the Italian Job (which was kinda cool, coz we are in Venice) and went out to this really neat little local Italian pub until like 3 then back to the hostel to chill until we finally went to bed at like 5.

Woke up this morning and walked with the Aussies and the girl from Jersey to the train station (because we had heard there was going to be a strike and wanted to make sure we could all get out of town ok in the morning) and then got some little sandwiches. We spent the ENTIRE day just casually walking around town talking. We stopped in almost every store especially the mask stores so we could find our masks for Carnival.

Oh yes, and I forgot to mention... tonight is the first night of Carnival which they apparently celebrate in Italy as well (I thought it was just a Brazilian thing) and Venice has the rowdiest Carnival in the country. It's like the New Orleans of Italy. So, we all bought masks that we are going to wear tonight (I really wanted a cloak as well, but they were too expensive). My mask is baller and pink with these feathers coming out of the top. It's great. I am so pumped.

So we walked down to San Marco square (it took us like 3 hours because we were walking so slow) and we shot some pictures. We went inside the church which is literally the most amazing church I have ever been in. It is absolutely breath-taking. The entire ceiling is made of gold. Real gold. There are mosaics everywhere and it was so huge. After this we walked down to see the sea and took some pictures near the main gondola station. After this we walked back down to the square to feed the pigeons. This was literally one of the most un-real things I have ever done in my life. You get this thing of food and then instantly you are COVERED with pigeons... Hundreds of them are just flying at your face, sitting on your head, your arms your legs, all over the ground. It was so scary at first and you kind of just stand there and scream for the first part of it. After a while though, you get used to it I guess and its not so bad. I didn't get pooped on, I was lucky, but one of the twins did, yuck!!

From here we got some gelato and then walked to the Rialto bridge which is one of the only bridges that crosses the main canal. We stood there for a while and took pics and then decided to take a gondola ride. Angie didn't want to, so she sat on the bridge and the 5 of us all went on a nice little 25 minute gondola ride. It was great!! It was actually really scary though, because the gondolas are not exactly the sturdiest boats and you rock the whole time and I kinda thought we were going to tip at least 3 times. The views from the water though, were amazing. Our driver didn't sing though :(

When we got back to Rialto, we got some cioccolato (which is basically melted chocolate, but they call it hot chocolate) and then sat on the bridge and watched the sunset. It was beautiful. We walked from here to this awesome little glass store to look at the figurines. I really wanted to get these little animals that were no bigger than a blueberry, but they were €7.50 each and I thought that was a little high. I'll have to make sure and get some when I come back here and don't go anywhere else.

I am absolutely in love with Venice.

I am so excited about carnival tonight.

XOXO

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