A View of Venice

We started our journey early morning on Friday May 30th. We somehow both made it to the airport for a 9AM flight (a feat in itself which is impressive consider Angela literally graduated yesterday) and took a tiny 45 minute flight to JFK Airport where we encountered what is probably the worst airport and terminal in the States. Why can't everything be like Hartsfield?

We walked from the lovely renovated Terminal 1 to the... not yet renovated Terminal 2, spent an exorbitant amount of time in lines, and ate some disgusting food that was full of regret. We boarded our 9 hour flight to... Moscow. Yes, Moscow. And it was actually quite lovely! Even though Aeroflot sounds like it should be shitshowy, it was quite comfy and I... promptly passed out. Angela had a slightly harder time as her ears seemed permanently popped after the flight.

After, we had a brief... 4 hour layover in the lovely Sherementyevo Airport. There was chocolate.

And alcohol.

And then after three hours on a flight where neither Angela nor I were awake for more than 30 seconds, we arrived in Venice. AND IT WAS DISGUSTINGLY ADORABLE. Seriously though. This was the view outside of our hostel (incidentally we may have pissed off our adorable tiny Italian lady hostess).

After we dropped off our things, we went exploring. I think the greatest part of our experience in Venice was just wandering around. There are sights to see, but... it's not really the most important thing. Wandering around the city, hopping on and off vaporetto (yes all the buses are boats. and all the cards are boats. and all the taxis are boats.), taking photos of random things, and so forth really made the city enjoyable. It's also a pretty tiny place so this is totally possible. Initially, we decided to walk to the waterfront to eat. On the way, we saw gondolas.

We also saw a ludicrous amount of Venetian masks (in all shapes and sizes and varieties and price ranges).

And we also saw, of course, ten million beautiful views of the tiny canals that go through Venice (isn't that gondolier adorable???).

We eventually made it to the waterfront on the Grand Canal near the Rialto Market and the Rialto Bridge.

AND WE ATE OUR FIRST ITALIAN MEAL. IT WAS AMAZING. OH MY GOD.

This is going to be problematic. >> BUT DELICIOUS. So I don't know. I guess I should go run or something. We also took some postcard-perfect photos from atop the Rialto Bridge. And by postcard-perfect, I mean that this was literally my computer background for some time before we ever came to Venice. :P

Afterwards we wandered over in the direction of Venice's main attraction, St. Mark's Square (again, not a particularly large city). First though, we discovered that the golden gates appear JUST ONCE in the old city of Venice as McDonald's was very eager to make us aware. :P

We eventually made it to St. Mark's Square where we saw the Basilica and Doge's Palace from the outside (it was a bit too late at this point to go inside anything. Tourism, man. Everything closes at 6 on the dot).

We also had a beautiful view of the water next to the square... with extra gondolas!

We also found a nice garden to walk into... (if we had been in Paris, it would have been an ideal napping location... we're trying to do a little bit better with jet lag this time around).

And we eventually made it to the Ponte d'ell Accademia (the only other bridge across the Grand Canal besides the Rialto)... which looked beautiful in the sunset and was lined with engraved locks. <3

At some point I became gravely concerned...

Because I saw what our future held as tourists in Italy... OOOOOOOOOPS. :P Hopefully we won't be quite that bad.

More on the rest of our Venice visit soon!

Love always,

Maja