Thursday was an extremely long and freezing day for me, but Friday was a relief because I got to hop on a train to Venice for Carnivale and meet Tate there!! I was so excited! Maddy and I woke up early and caught an 8:30am train and arrived at 10:30. We somehow found our way onto a water taxi (our first ride on the water, we loved it!) that took us to a stop near our hostel/apartment (so we thought?) and after about 30 minutes of wandering the tiny confusing streets we arrived at the front door to where we were staying - I'm surprised we found it at all. But it was a cute little apartment with a small courtyard area, kitchen and a bedroom which Maddy, Tate and I all shared (Tate had not arrived yet). After this, Maddy and I were on the hunt for the perfect mask to wear. Carnivale is one huge masquerade festival so about ever single store in the city sells them. Maddy and I shopped around for an hour or two and finally found ours (made in Venice, not china!). We headed out to St. Marco's Square where the majority of the people were at and wandered and enjoyed all of the costumed Venetians and the BEAUTIFUL city on water! Let me just take a minute to explain how beautiful this city is, I am in love! The water, the boats everywhere, the scenery, you just want to sit back and stare for hours on end and enjoy the beauty. And you want to ride on a speed boat like Angelina in The Tourist. Jealous.
Later in the day Tate arrived straight off his plane from Bangkok and I met him at where the water taxi drops you off. I cannot explain how excited we were, it was the best! We were so happy :) It had been so long since I'd seen him. Enjoying Venice with him made the trip perfect. The rest of the night we ate dinner and called it an early night, we were all exhausted, but in the middle of the night I woke up absolutely positive someone was in the other room and I was about to die. This turned into a 30 minute fiasco involving Maddy and then us trying to wake up Tate across the room without making noise because we were terrified. Tate woke up and searched the place and all was fine haha but man I was scared until then!
The next morning we started off the day with a gondola ride! It was a little expensive but come on, we're in Venice, you have to ride in a gondola. And it was SO worth it. We saw parts of the city we never would have seen, and rode under the little bridges... it was beautiful. We also walked around the separate island parts of Venice and saw different cathedrals and piazzas, and took a long walk along the grand canal which felt like a walk along an Italian beach. I love Venice. I'm going back.
This last picture is Maddy and I with a group of Kayakers that went down the Grand Canal, ha! At around 5:00 Tate and I got on our train to Bologna to start an adventure in another city together. Bologna, known for its amazing food and meat sauce (ragu) is also a place where no one speaks English and no tourists are found (as we discovered immediately). I can say we attempted to find our hotel at 7pm from the train station, but we pretty much wandered in a circle and made friends with an Spanish guy from Spain who we tried speaking Spanish to to find our hotel, but in the end we took a cab and it cost us 5 euro. It was close haha and so nice! The staff was very friendly and helpful and it was very cheap to stay in. And it had a huge breakfast! But Tate and I stayed in Bologna Saturday and Sunday night and had a leisurely time wandering and exploring the city. One of the sites we visited were these two towers, one is tilted like the leaning tower of Pisa, and the other is extremely high - 500 steps to be exact - but we climbed to the very top and it was well worth the effort! The view of the city was perfect and peaceful and seeing the tower inside was cool in itself. There were some very steep steps, more like ladders than steps, and some tilted steps as well... it was just old to say the least, and I would do the climb again in a heartbeat!
So steep!
There was also Bologna's own little Carnivale going on in the main square with some interesting floats and tons of kids... imagine every Disney song playing over loud speakers but sung by children in Italian, haha. Interesting... and a little creepy. We ate at two very good restaurants while we were there as well, and it was sooo good and pretty inexpensive which was nice. I had pasta with meat sauce the first night (tagliatelli al ragu I think it was called) and lasagne verdi alla bolognese (green lasagna noodles with meat sauce) the second day. Yum! We also gained a very useful skill in Bologna - (free) city bus hopping. You just wait for the bus, jump on through the back doors when it stops, ride in the back, then get off at your stop, and whala! It's free! It's like we were never there... well, it's technically supposed to cost like one euro to ride the bus but psh, I'm not made of money, and no one really cares. So we bus hop :) Overall, we had a very fun time spending time together and exploring.
Now we are back in Firenze (and going to class...) but I am excited to show him my favorite spots around the city. This weekend we are going to go visit Cinque Terre (5 cities bundled together on the coast over looking the water!) so it should be a fun week! Ciao for now!
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