Day 2 In Venice by Kaley Chrissie & Brittany

Ciao! This morning we woke up bright and early to prepare for a very adventureous day. We met in the lobby at 8am and we took a walk through downtown Pordenone. Although the shops on the streets were not open yet, we enjoyed the scenery. The building here are very beautiful. After that we walked back to the hotel and had some breakfast. We ate croissants, coco pops, cheese, and fruit along with other delicious foods. Then we all met in the lobby again and walked to the train station to head to Venice. The train ride to Venice was about an hour and a half long and we all had a lot of fun sharing stories and taking pictures with one another. Upon arrival in Venice we all piled out of the train and met in a circle while Tim talked to us about the area we were about to embark on. He told us about the meandering streets and how each town led into one another and if you just kept walking you would eventually find a sign to follow to the next town so it was hard to really get lost.

The first town that we walked through was Ferroviaría Santa Lucia. There we walked over our first bridge in Venice, the Scalzi bridge and took alot of pictures. Then we followed Tim, our tour guide, to the next town which was Rialto. We looked at shops along the way, but it wasn't till we reached Rialto when we all branched off in our own directions to shop and eat. Each group shopped till they dropped and tried their hardest to bargain deals with the vendors on the streets. Some were more successful than others on the whole bargaining deal. For example, Tim told us that we shouldn't pay more than 5 euros on a purse in the streets, but two of our teammates ended up paying 20-25 euros anyways...bargaining skills??

For the most part every group took a ride on the Gondolas at some point today! These rides were amazing! Some people had a gondolier who spoke some English while others got one who understood very little English, but none the less everyone enjoyed their rides very much. When in Venice! Every shop that we walked past had almost all of the same items. The most prevalent were carnival masks, key chains, and any glass item you could think of. We found out later that there are so many glass items in Venice because off of the coast there is a town called Murano where it is known as being a glass making paradise and is the home of Venice's glass making industry, which explains the amount of glass we saw in today. The last town that we made our way to was San Marco where we all met in the plaza around 3pm. When we met there we gathered for a while and took pictures. While we were standing in the square talking, a very excited pidgeon decided to fly right over Shannon Sitzmann ,and it was nice enough to leave a little present behind for her. This present just happened to land right in her hair. Shannon took this event very well while all of us were laughing and pulling out our cameras to take pictures of her. True friends right there!

After that we branched off and shopped again until 5:45pm. Many people took this time to go into the St Mark's Basilica if they hadn't gone already today. The Basilica was magnificant. The architecture is unbelieveable and undescribable. Luckily some of us are rebels and got some pictures inside of the Church even though it was forbidden. Oops! Also another major difference we figured out here is that public restrooms in Italy are not free like they are in the U.S.. The restaurants are free to use, but in order to use the public restrooms here in Venice, you have to pay 1,50 euros. And on top of paying, you are going to the restroom in the same room as the men are, but their stalls are on one side and the women's stalls are directly across from them. Lets just say this experience helped us become very cultured.

After our long day in Venice, we met back at the train station in Ferroviaria Santa Lucia and headed back on the train to Pordenone. When we got back, we walked to our hotel and then went to eat some dinner at a Pizzeria that is located right next door to our hotel. It was delicious food and we all enjoyed eachother's company very much. Our day was full of fun and excitement and we can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring when we take our 5 hour bus right to Urbino and take a stop in San Marino! Ciao!!

The team in la plaza de San Marco

The public restrooms: 1,50 euros.....

Using a restaurant restroom: 1 euro possibly....

Going at the train station in a hole in the ground: PRICELESS! :)