So this morning we got up bright and early and had breakfast at the hotel. The spread was pretty incredible, i have to say. During the course of this breakfast, I managed to drink about an entire pot of coffee. This was a terrible choice. I now know why some people choose to go caffeine free. It was absolutely pouring that morning when we got on a ferry bound for Murano. There was a pretty big group of us going, including the roomies, the boys, plus my London roomies and a few others. When we got off the boat, a man directed us to the left where there were signs pointing us towards a glass blowing demo. The demo was free, and a lot less explanatory than one I had seen previously, but it was still really cool. Attached was the showroom where we browsed and bought souvenirs. After most of the group getting pushed out (they weren't buying anything, they were just standing in the door), we headed back to the main area where the shops were. Unfortunately, it was during siesta so only the ones right by the dock were open. The large group was being indecisive and not going in anywhere, so Cara, Kelsey and I split of since we had a few more things we wanted to look for. While walking around, we happened upon another demonstration area connected to a shop where we could go in and just watch the men make glass sculptures. I'm pretty sure we stood there for a good 20 minutes.
After that, Kels Cara and I went back to a shop to get something that Cara needed time to think about. While doing this, the big group decided to go back to Lido. The girls and I were waiting at our stop for awhile when we saw a boat pull up at the next station over with Ryan on it. As the boat started to unload, we also saw Zach, Annie, Brit, so on and so forth. Apparently, they had gotten on the wrong boat and just circled the island. I got their attention and told them to come over to the stop that we were at. Only a few came over at first, and a bunch wouldn't at all due to a little wounded pride. About half of them almost got on the same boat they had the first time and did the whole loop again!!! That half only came over when our boat finally pulled up and all of us were getting on. Another thing about the day, everyone was super whiny about the weather, especially the boys! I've never heard so many guys complain about being cold and wet before when everyone else around them is in the same boat...literally. hehe. But seriously, suck it up! During this time, my little 10 euro umbrella from my first trip to Italy broke. Thomas tried to help me fix it on the boat, but it was a goner. It's replacement is about twice as big and cost the same though. Good trade in! The drawback is that I keep whacking people with the new umbrella, and people can't find me when I'm using it since it covers the entire upper half of my body.
After our little adventure we headed to St. Mark's Basilica for our tour. Sabine was our guide again and she led us into the church which was pretty segregated inside and looked different from ones we had seen previously. The most interesting thin in the portion was a large, golden relief that was COVERED in precious stones. I don't even remember what Sabine said about it's purpose, I was just staring at all the sparkles. I'm pretty sure I've never seen so many precious gems in one item before. After the church we toured the attached museum portion and saw lots of relics. I have to admit I wasn't paying complete attention at this point, I think my blood sugar was low and I was pretty dizzy. After the museum, Sabine led us outside for a walking tour. Luckily, it had stopped raining just in time. We walked around for about 15 minutes before Diana got a text from Jeff Clark who had gone off somewhere and gotten separated from the group. (this happens a lot actually, just to Jeff not the rest of the group). While Brittany and our professor Chip when back to try to find him, the rest of the class we played in a piazza, had some sword fights with our umbrellas, and took pictures which displayed how we felt about the situation: Kelsey was ready to punch someone, I was cheering her on, Dan looked bummed as he held the two portions of his broken umbrella....so on. During this time, we also began taking note of all the broken abandoned umbrellas littering Venice's streets and trash cans. Glad my first cheapo umbrella lasted longer than that! After they found Jeff, we continued our tour where we lost our where abouts and ended up at a large bridge market, I think it was Rialto? Anyway, at this point we were released so Cara, Kelsey, Sarah Masalskis found a little place to eat, shopped, and had some yummy gelato.
At this point, it was time for us to catch a ferry to the stop called Academia for a concertto at 8:30 (which our professors had scheduled). The rain had resumed and the tide was high, so flooding was occurring in some areas. Because of this, the number 2 ferry that we needed wasn't running so we had to take the number 1, which stops at every little spot known to man. Be barely made it to the concert, but that beats almost! The string group was really great, they even did three encore numbers! After the lovely concertto, we headed back to Lido at went to a little wine bar across the street from our hotel. Here we played cards and harassed the owners to shine a light on/ spin the tiny disco ball hanging from the ceiling. Once we were done there, there was an after party in Andres and the boy's room, but being the old lady that I am I went to bed early.
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