Venezia, Padova, & Verona

This weekend I had a long but amazing weekend.  On Saturday morning I had to be at the train station at 6:30 for the Venice trip.  I went with a group called Erasmus Student Network.  Erasmus is the exchange program for Europeans but they still let me go. :)  We left the train station at 7 and arrived in Venice around 11:30.  We had stopped along the way though to break up the trip.  It didn't seem like a very long drive though because we had a nice bus and I was sitting next to a guy from England named Matt.  It was nice to be around a native English speaker for a change!  Once we arrived in Venice we met some other people who smoke English as well.  Some from Portugal, Belgium & Poland.  I hung out with them for most of the trip.    We then took a ferry across the water ( I am still kind of confused as to what type of body of water it was).  The ride was amazing!  Even though everyone says that the water is so dirty it is such a beautiful light blue.  Very different from San Diego water.   The architecture surrounding the water is gorgeous at well.  The scenery was gorgeous there,  but that is the case of most of Italy.   When we arrived at our stop, we saw all the Carnivale madness.  I have never seen so many people before!  It was amazing.  There were people dressed up in the Carnivale masks everywhere you looked.  The ones in just the masks were mostly the tourists.  But others were wearing beautiful ornate outfits with there masks.  There were so many different types I couldn't even take pictures of all of them.  The joke of the trip was Italy really brings out the Japanese in people with all the photo taking. Hahaha.  There were people of all ages dressed in these ornate outfits.  Even little kids.  If I lived in Venice I would totally dress up!  You just get to walk around like a princess and everyone wants to take a photo with you.   It was sort of strange though to look inside a restaurant and a whole table of people dining in 16th century attire.  Most of the Carnivale stuff was in the m ain square of San Marco.  There was also an amazing church at San Marco.  I wish that cameras could capture the actual beauty of everything but there is nothing like it in real life.  After walking around San Marco we went kind of back a block or two into the city.  That gave us a chance to see the canals and the gondolas.  I didn't get a chance to go on a gondola so I guess I will have to go back to Venice. :)  I finally tried my first gelato in Italy and mmmmmm it was delicious.  Its a good thing it is really cold out because then I would be eating gelato every day!  We only got to spend about 4 or 5 hours Venice until we had to leave.  We took the water taxi back to our bus. It was the perfect time for a water taxi because it was sunset.  Che bella!
When we arrived back to the bus we drove to Padova.  We were running late so we ate dinner the second we got into the hotel before going to our rooms.  At dinner we had pasta and dessert.  But not enough!  I guess I am becoming accustomed to the Italian lifestyle because when they served the pasta I thought it was a kind of small portion but then I just assumed it was Primo piatto (1st plate).  All of us thought that there were going to bring us Secondo Piatto (2nd plate) but when they brought out dessert everyone was like What?!?  This is all we are getting to eat?  A little plate of pasta and a piece of cake?  So everyone (including myself) was starving.   After that we had to rush upstairs to get ready for a party.  They made a club in this huge warehouse and other Erasmus groups from Italy were there as well.  The club was completely disorganized.  There were probably 300 people there and everyone was trying to check there coats.  Checking coats was never something I thought about before coming here.  It was absolutely ridiculous!  It took almost 40 minutes to check the coats because there was no line and there was just a huge mob trying to push forward.  And then they had security guards that were pushing everyone back.  I am so glad we don't have to check coats in San Diego!  The party was fun but I was very tired.  Some of us left a little bit early (2 a.m.-Italian lifetsyle is crazy!) and got back to the hotel at 2:30.  I am so glad we left early because the party ended at 3a.m. and some people didn't get home until 5 a.m. because they were trying to get there coats.
The next day we toured around Padova a bit.  We only went around for about 2 hours but it is a fairly small city so we saw the main places.  They gave us a little tour.  One thing that was funny/interesting was the tradition of the university when people graduate.  When people earn their degree their friends rip off all their clothes and drag them down the stairs so they are hitting every stair.  At the bottom there is a book of their college life that the friends wrote.  It has all the bad things they have ever done in college.  They have to read the story of their life to their parents, grandparents, other relatives, and anyone else that is there to celebrate their graduation.  What a strange tradition! That was pretty much all of Padova.
After Padova we drove to Verona.  I loooooved Verona!  It was such a cute little city.  It was exactly what I imagined Italy to look like when you see it in movies.  Tall apartments with little balconies and plants on the balconies.  It was so quaint and beautiful.  They have the tiny Colosseum too.  The main attraction of Verona is the home of Juliet, from Romeo and Juliet.  How it was the home of a fictional character?  I do not know, but people travel from all over the world to see it and to touch to breast of Juliet with the hopes of an abundance of love in their life.  Juliet's breast is very shiny because she gets so much action. Hahaha. The walkway into the courtyard of Juliet is completely covered with writing of intials, hearts, poems, you name it.  There is also a iron gate next to the Juliet statue that has locks all over it.  The locks represent someones relationship.  If you and your love break up you  are supposed to go remove the lock from the gate.  One of the girls accidentally broke one of the locks and about 10 of them fell..... hope the same doesn't happen to whoever's relationship that was! After walking around the courtyard of Juliet we went to the town center.  There remains a pedestal that they chained the sinners too for public display.  Everyone takes pictures on it with one of the chains.  Following the courtyard we went to a cafe where we tried the specialty drink of the Veneto region... Spritz!  I guess it was specifically invited in Verona as well.  It is a aperitif drink made of white wine or prosecco( sparkling white wine) and Aperol an orange bitter.  It was very delicious.  When you order a drink like that they also just bring out food to you.  At this restaurant they brought out three different types of chips.    That was about all we did in Verona.  I would really like to go back and have more time to explore the beautiful little city.  :)