Blog: Saturday, May 10th

Sydney Staples 

This past weekend we were up north in Turin to study how immigration may differ between north and south Italy. However, on Saturday, we had the opportunity to leave Turin for the day and night to explore other northern cities. I left for Venice, Italy with Rebecca, Claudia, Shontia, and James at 5:30am! Our train ride was about four and a half hours long, and we didn’t sleep much. When we got off the train and walked out of the train station, the first attraction we saw was one of the town’s famous canals! There were water taxis everywhere. It was incredible. We started heading to our hostel with bags in hands while trying to make our way through the crowd of people also just getting off the train. There was not a cloud in the sky; it was probably 75 degrees at 11am! The streets of Venice are like a maze, it’s extremely easy to get lost in the neighborhood. We found our hostel after turning down a few dead ends, and changed out of our comfy traveler’s clothes. We headed out to the canals and walked around, soaking up the sun and taking photographs of the breathtaking views. The five of us decided we wanted a cheap lunch, so we bought ham and arugula wraps for a few euro. We then explored St. Marco’s Square and experienced the architecture inside St. Mark’s Cathedral. Afterwards, we were offered a ‘deal’ to ride a gondola for just under an hour for a good price… So we took it! Franco showed us around the canals of Venice, and filled our ears with the history of the town. The ride was probably the highlight of my trip. It was so peaceful and perfect, I didn’t want to get out of the boat! After the gondola ride, we wandered along the side of the Grand Canal and ordered drinks and gelato and basked in the Sun’s rays for over an hour. I can’t stress how perfect the day was. It would have been impossible to wipe the grin off my face! After tanning/burning for a couple of hours, we went to the grocery store to buy some snacks and then returned to our hostel. We took a short break and then headed back out for seafood and tiramisu. We read online that St. Marco’s Square is the place to be at night, so we went to go see what was up. There were three live bands playing jazz at a few restaurants, one being the Florian, the oldest café in Venice! We took a lot of pictures of Venice’s nightlife. Once it hit midnight, the bands packed up to go home and so did we. We found our way back, washed our faces, brushed our teeth, and crawled in bed. Bliss.