26 October Saturday - ITALY
We woke up in our hostel at 7:45 am...and guess what. My face was swollen! Before I was fully awake I could feel that my lip was swollen...but I couldn't really think straight yet. I guess I didn't write this in my other blog posts when catching up for tues/wed or whatever I missed...I have been getting bites at night!!! All over my arms, and even my face....they don't really look like mosquito bites but they itch and swell up huge and get all red! AHHHH I got so scared we had bed bugs! But I never saw any bed bugs by my bed...but I am so worried. But the bugs from last night were mosquitos I'm pretty sure because I was sleeping right under the open window! And then in the morning I even saw a mosquito on the drapes. AHHH So my lip was swollen, and my EYE...I got stung on my freaking eyelid! And one on my forehead and one on my cheek, and a few on the back of my hand...my hand was SO swollen. I could barely get my rings off. It hurt really bad. So that put me in a pretty bad mood first thing in the morning :( I wore my glasses (thankfully I brought them!) all day, and the swelling in my lip and eye went down after a few hours....sad Claire. Oh, and we woke up to a note from our friends from last night that said something like "Ciao, HEYYYY SEXXXXYYY LADIES!!!!" (it's from a song). Something else in Italian too, I think.
The first thing we did was go to the Accademia museum...it opened at 8:15, and we got there at 8:30 (checking out the hostel delayed us...we couldn't find the guy). We got in fine, and spent a good two hours in this museum!! It was AMAZING. This is the museum with the David and other works by Michelangelo.
WOW.
There were like seven "unfinished" sculptures by Michelangelo...but they can be interpreted as being finished. They were commissioned for Pope Julius, but he died before they were finished. There were originally going to be 30 slaves...two are a bit more finished and are in the Louvre. Anyways he had a set of unfinished slaves. He had some inner problems with himself (like most troubled amazing artists do), and he struggled with the idea of there being a God and things like that...finding inner happiness...finding yourself. He always said that sculpture is easier than painting because in that slab of marble....the figure already exists. It is in there. You just have to take away all the extra pieces surrounding it and find it.
I could have spent hours in front of these. You could see each individual mark from his carving into the stone!! AHHH SO INCREDIBLE
So past the corridor of unfinished slaves stands The David. (No photos permitted but...hey....my iPhone took this). It was incredible. We sat there for a while looking at it, and I circled around many times. Usually David (from the story David & Goliath) is portrayed AFTER he kills the giant, and has previously been sculpted with his foot standing on the head of the Goliath. Here, however, Michelangelo shows David BEFORE he has killed him. In his face you can see his concentration as he thinks about how he will conquer this unbeatable man. You can really SEE it in his face! So amazing.
We wandered through the rest of the museum, then headed outside to grab breakfast. Which sadly ended up being McDonald's again....pastries are not filling enough! Those egg and ham bagels...yum.
We wandered through the shops again for a tiny bit, and Kimber and I were the only ones with the energy to climb the TOWER... (if you look in my pictures from yesterday, it is the bell tower next to the Duoma). From it we got an awesome view of the dome! It was the coolest. The stairway was sooo narrow, all stone, so many people..!!! The view was just awesome.
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| these are the tourist signs |
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| the Baptistry from above |
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| some protestors walking through the markets... |
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| he was embarrassed I was taking his pictures. I really just loved his shoes. |
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| we love the photobooth..hahahahh this was right before we left |
So we went back to the train station. On our way, Haley and I stopped at this photobooth again and got some "after" photos printed. Then we grabbed some NOODLES!!! We walked into a cafe, expecting to get pastries for lunch...nope. Noodles duh!! They were delicious. And look at the cute little mushrooms!! We got on the train at 1:30. I sat with Kimber in one area...we both slept most of the 2 hour ride to VENICE.
...And this is what we saw when we were pulling into that beautiful island of a city. Already breathtaking with so little.
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| this is the first thing we saw getting out of the train station...wow |
We read Dad's instructions and bought a 7 Euro ticket to get one ride on the public boat. It goes around the canal both ways, around the island. So yeah we took the blue line from the train station around counter-clockwise into the ocean to the opposite side of the island to San Marco church. It was closed by the time we got there, unfortunately, but we still got to walk around the square out front which was crazy. FULL of people and shops.
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| Selfie in the glass |
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| the lighting was awesome because the sun was in these clouds... |
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| this is San Marco...see the scaffolding? They were cleaning today so it was all covered up :( |
So Venice is known for yeah, the canals going through the city, but also for their glasswork and for masks. I didn't know about the masks, but I've been so excited for the glass work!!! There were gondola drivers by the canals asking if we wanted to buy a ride. They are expensive. But we watched couples on dates riding in them!! The drivers wear those black and white striped tops and hats! And they usually sing in Italian while they row around. Some even had accordion players on them! Ahhh it really was like living in a dream.
The sun started going down, and we wandered our way back through all the buildings to the opposite side to get back to the train station. Our train left at 8:57 so we could take our time, but things started closing and we didn't want to be late! So we got there an hour early and walked through more glass shops and up and down streets and bought more gelato (duh).
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| beautiful (expensive) shoes |
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| PIZZA. People always say pizza from Italy really isn't THAT good...BUT THIS WAS REALLY GOOD |
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| we got LOST..... |
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| ALL GLASS! |
Another night train....Haley, Kimber and I sat in a cabin with this very black man from Nigeria. He's lived in Italy for 13 years. He was really talkative...hahah. We all slept right next to each other! So strange but it was totally fine!! It was daylight savings here that night so we gained an hour on this ride. Luckily we were able to sleep for most of it.
This dream was such a dream. I loved it so much, it could not have been better. All the traveling went so smoothly, we saw SO much (we planned for MUCH more, but there's only so much you can do in a day and a half in Florence, and three museums was pretty good!). Venice was honestly just a tease. I better be able to go back here someday and spend a few WEEKS. It is just sooo cool feeling. Except for that it is swarmed with tourists. I loved it. And the weather was perfect which added to how perfect it was. Everybody got along too. Just a great time, small group was good too!!
