Our train to Venice was at the lovely hour of 7:10 in the morning, so the girls and I were up quite early to finish packing and get our buns down to the train station. We also discovered that it's really hard to pack for two weeks in really small bags. The forecast for the entire time we were to be in Venice was rain, which was a bummer. Our first train took us to Florence, and then we hopped on our first Eurostar (an expensive, fast train) to Venice. Once we got there, we all had to grab a ferry to Lido, the island where our hotel was. The ferry we happened to be on felt like the slowest moving craft known to man. I could be exaggerating, but I don't think so. Like the forecast had promised, it was raining so once we got off the boat and got our stuff we rushed to the hotel. After getting there, we didn't have much time before we had to all meet to leave for our walking tour so Cara, Kelsey, Andres, Jake, Ryan and I found a quick food place near our hotel. The girls and I ordered pizza and ended up only having 8 minutes to eat it. Ever tried to eat a whole burning hot pizza in 8 minutes. Let me save you the trouble, it doesn't end well.
About half of our school was in one hotel and the rest were in another down the street, so we all met up before getting on a ferry to take us to St. Mark's Square. We met our tour guide Sabine, who talked a lot about the glory of Venice at the time of it's creation and how it sought to be bigger than Rome. She also mentioned that it was bad luck to stand between the two large columns at the entry of the square, which is where we were told to meet. Good going ksu, way to inflict bad luck on us! Since it was raining, she quickly talked about the elaborate carvings on the outside of the palace and ushered us inside. The palace is pretty extensive, lots of rooms with frescoes and gilded ceilings. Sabine told us about the Venetian Doges and the judicial system of the time that Venice was established- apparently it was pretty strict. After the palace we went on a walking tour of the city. The rain had reduced to a drizzle at this point, which was nice. Once we were done with our tour, the group headed back to Lido for Chinese food. (yup, again). It was pretty awful. The only upside was the fried ice-cream that we ordered for desert. I hadn't had it before, but baby I'm a believer now! After gorging ourselves with unhealthy things, we went back to the hotel room and hit the hay.
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