Wonderful Day

Venice is gorgeous.  I want a second home here.

I woke up around 9 after a good night's sleep and ater a  very relaxing stretch, I came down to breakfast in just a tank and long sleeve tee shirt.  The sun was shining and the sky was clear.  My clock said the temperature in my room was 74, which is the warmest I've been since leaving Charleston... If not September.  I went outside in just my teeshirt for a little bit before we ate breakfast.  They had very yummy strawberry jam.

Afterwards, I got my sweatshirt and jacket for extra safety, and ended up wearing only my sailing jacket all day.  (And a scarf, but that was because of the wind.)  Carneval started yesterday afternoon, so when we got to the main island, there were tons of people dressed up in costume.  Here are just a few of the ones we saw:

We took the boat to Rialto (the old town and the market) and saw many gondolas with people all dressed up from everything from Snow White and the seven dwarfs to musical notes to jail breaks to gangsters to unidentifiable multicolored blobs.  It was awesome.  They had a parade (obviously on the water) and there was music and people and lots and lots of colors.

We got to Rialto bridge and looked at all the little shops.  We're going back tomorrow to get things because we wanted to scout prices.  While we were there we got awesome tiny sandwiches.  I got procuitto, prochetta and salami, and James got procuitto, speck and some sort of cheese sandwhich.  They were fantastic.

 

Then we caught the boat to Murano (where the glass is from).   I can't say enough how gorgeous the day was. Hopefully these pictures express it.

Once we got to Murano,  we went to a bunch of small stores with all of the glass. It was a lot cheaper than in Venice.  We were pleasantly surprised.  We went to the glass museum (just look at the pictures on Facebook... whenever it decides to stop being stupid) and then went back and shopped.  The glass is amazing and I got a lot of gifts - I hope everyone likes them.  

My problem with gifts is this - it's really easy to find things for certain people and incredibly hard for others.  Pretty much if you're male, I have a hard time finding gifts for you.  Girls are easy.  Jewelry or a collection.  But I think I got some cool stuff today, and hopefully those of you who receive gifts will think the same.

After Murano, we went back to San Marco, window shopped a bit, ended up in another museum that we saw part of the other day, and looked for a place to eat dinner.  Oh, and got and AWESOME Dolce and Gabbana purse. =] 

I had absolutely no intention of getting a purse, but I had seen it a couple of times from hawkers like those you see in Times Square.  I looked and asked how much it was... 55 Euros.  Absolutely not.  He dropped quickly to 45, then 40, then 35.  I said no. He asked me how much I'd be willing to spend. I said 15 Euros.  He said no (obviously) and I said I couldn't do it. He said he'd ask his boss to see, but continued to haggle, 30, 25 Euros.  I said we had no way to get it home, couldn't do it.  Started to walk away, and he said yes.

Yes, 15 Euros to this gorgeous, huge purse:

We couldn't eat where we wanted because it was full and we wanted to sit, so we headed back to the hostel and got pizza from a place really near by.  It was good.  Very similar to certain American pizzerias, like Andolinis or maybe Mellow Mushroom.  The slices were huge and inexpensive, and very tasty.  I got mushroom and ham:

  

Then we logged on, James checked email, etc while I finished my giant jar of Nutella.  It is now clean (except for the very top with the lid and everything - I'll have to get a knife to clean that) and ready to be a purse.  We think we're going to put glass stuff in it to get it home safely.  I have been trying to upload pictures to facebook for over an hour now, and not succeeding.  I put 200 up yesterday and took another 288 today.  My camera is fantastic and Venice is a gorgeous city to use it in.

Now for a shower and bed.  Lido and Rialto tomorrow, then leaving at 5AM on Tuesday.

Goodnight, world.