Dark Italian Underground

I have great memories of Venice, Italy. We flew out of Cologne, Germany and landed in Marco Polo (yes, we played the game there) Airport around 11:30 that night. We stepped out of the baggage claim and the night was humid and muggy. The hotel we stayed in was actually not on the island of Venice, but a small island a mile or two out called Lido. Lido was this adorable little beachy town that was so small you could walk across it lengthwise in about 15 minutes. Anyways, got to the hotel and it was old and quaint and the room me and my roommate shared was TINY. We could hardly walk around in it and even though we had two twin beds, the only way they could fit is if they were pushed practically together.

That first night in Lido was fun. By the time we'd settled in it was almost 1am, but we were starving, so we went in search of pizza and ended up at some bar/cafe where I had my first Italian gelato. It poured rain and was easily 95 degrees out at 2am. The amount of gelato consumed by me in Italy is quite disgusting. I essentially lived off of frutti di bosco (blackberry) and fragola (strawberry). On average, I'd say 3 scoops a day. I am ruined. I will forever turn up my nose at Ben and Jerry's from now on. Love that gelato.

Let's see, I was in Italy for about a week, took a water taxi into Venice every morning. The rides in and out were my favorite parts of the day. Imagine the T, only a freaking gorgeous view and beach smell. The little islands off the coast drift by and the weather is warm and usually sunny... not a bad commute at all. We spent most of our time in churches, San Marco, the doge's palace... The art and architecture there is incomparable to anything I've ever seen. Venice has a unique history of being part of the Byzantine empire (which accounts for most of the Eastern influences) and so the most of the churches are way ornate, covered in gold and have the appearance of a mosque or other Eastern house of worship. It's hard to be in a place like a hundreds of years old church and see the amount of art, time, and money people devoted to making their church beautiful and not be moved to think about religion and why humans worship to the point of obsession at times.

We had dessert and drinks at the house of the woman who runs the whole castle program. Day trip to Saint Athony's Cathedral in Padua. Saw San Marco flooded, reflecting the lights of the city. Beach day full of women who have no reservations about getting tan everywhere.

I can't tell you how much I loved this trip. Venice is maybe my favorite part of the whole program... it was so amazing to get to know and live in a place for more than a couple of days.