Shay's Italia Adventures: Carnevale 2011 di Venezia plus Verona!!

Well, I think its safe to say that USAC dominated Venice and Verona this weekend. All sixty something of us headed in a private bus to Venice last Saturday and on the way home took a pit stop in Verona on Monday. It was Carnevale in Venice (kind of like Mardi Gras) so there were ONE BILLION people everywhere and tons going on. After our 5 hour bus ride on Saturday morning we finally arrived and Venice was beautiful. It was a gorgeous sunny day and words really can't describe what Venice is like! Water/boats are everywhere. I'm pretty sure my good friend Rick said there are over 400 bridges in Venice. Hence the reason why seriously every time we stepped foot out of our hotel we were instantly lost. Jessica and I cannot be left alone!

So we arrive Saturday and got settled in our 2 star hotel. I never thought I would be so excited for a two star hotel but it was like a fun little vaycay from Torino. We then took a walking tour through Venice which basically lasted 3 hours or so because we were walking at a pace of 2 miles an hour. It was so hard to stick with the group and tour guide because people were everywhere! Check out the pics below. We walked around and saw some pretty cool stuff including San Marco's Square (I hate birds), Marco Polo's digs, The Doge, a few other churches, amazing canals, etc. The whole time we were also checking out people's costumes because the whole weekend everyone was dressed up with masks and all. Some costumes were so elaborate you wouldn't even believe. After our tour we headed in the general direction to get some food. Let me tell you that in Venice, THINGS COST MONEY. Everything was pretty pricey so our dinners both nights were not the best but still good. I have become addicted to calamari (fried squids as they call it here) so I had some of that both nights with some sort of pasta dish. Once we finally found our hotel we got ready and headed out! The funniest part is that both nights we got lost so we ended up just wandering the streets for the most part. Saturday night we found a bar and even ran in to a few of our directors out for drinks. There was music everywhere and tonnns of crazy people out.

Sunday we got up and grabbed our typical cappuccino and pastryish type of breakfast and headed out. We were still starving and happened to come upon......yep you guessed it......ANOTHER MCDONALD'S. Our tour de McD's is going pretty well if I do say so myself. We have hit Torino, Venice, Milan, Florence, and Rome thus far and are looking at expanding internationally. Check out that fbook album when it drops in May. Anywho so we grabbed some Big Mac's and headed to Murano. It took us FOREVVVUUURRR to get to San Marco's where you buy tickets because it was literally single file everywhere. On our way Jess and I stopped and got our faces painted! It was sooo cheap and super fast. They paint masks on your face so that if you don't have your's on it still looks like you do. So once we got to San Marco's we got our tickets and hopped on a boat. It was like 40 mins but we made it. PS it rained basically the whole day and night so that was kind of a bummer. Murano was so cool! We saw all the glass being blown and went into so many shops to look at stuff. We took loads of pics and then headed home. We accidentally got on the wrong boat so it took us forever (again) to get back to the mainland. Once we made it again, we stopped and got food at another place that was decent. Italians are like Hawaiians we have decided and are on island time at all hours. Seriously we were there for three hours. After that we once again returned to the hotel and got ready to go out. Once again it was still raining and we got lost and ended up just walking around in the streets. Because it was Sunday everything was closed so we went home and went to bed.

Monday we got up and to our surprise we had eggs for breakfast! You know something is up if Shay is excited about eating eggs. We ate and then packed up and got ready to leave for Verona. Back on our nice bus we slept for about an hour and a half and then ended up in Verona. We had a little walking tour and proceeded through Verona to see the Roman Arena and Juliet's Balcony. Verona is famous for making an amazing meal out of horse so you know we had to try it. I was a little nervous but it was actually really good! Kind of beef stewish. So after wandering around for about 2.5 hours we headed back on the bus for Torino! It was such a quick but fun weekend and awesome to see water. I would love to go back to Venice one day to get a real Venetian experience on a weekend that wasn't Carnevale, but it was still so much fun. I leave in less than 24 hours to see my parents in Paris!! So excited that we are spending a full four days together in Paree. After this weekend it is our Spring Break and we are off to London for a few days then Dublin for St. Patrick's Day...yeehaw!! Love you all and hopefully I can catch you on skype soon! Sorry I have been so bad at skyping, our internet is not working at our house so it is kind of hard. But just know that I love all of you and miss you dearly! Au revoir!