Venice in a Day (Post 2)

Today a group of us decided to take our first excursion on our own (without the general help and guidance of a professor) to Venice. The day from star to finish was extremely eventful for everyone. First, half of the group woke up late and had ten minutes to make it from their hotel room to the bus. This resulted in the bus almost pulling away as they managed to hop on at the last second. Since there are no buses from Grado to Venice the bus went to a nearby town where we would needed to take the train from. We thought the trains ran every hour but to our surprise the next one wasn’t for another two and a half hours. At first we were a little rattled by this but then decided to make the best of our extra time in Cervignano. We walked to a cute cafe where we sat and drank wine, coffee, and snacked on pizzas. Next to the cafe was this awesome street market filled with older Italians selling all sorts of little treasures. My favorite table was this guy selling old records. I ended up buying one of Michael Jackson’s first records and Sarah bought one of the Beatles. It was such a cute little find and I ended up being very happy for our two and a half hour “layover.”
From the moment we arrived in Venice I was overwhelmed by the crowds and overtaken by the views. Something we are not used to in Grado (luckily) is the large tourist scene. The crowds were huge and between the tourists and people trying to sell the tourist tacky gifts it was quite hard to stay together since we had such a large group. Once we decided to do the buddy system and split into groups things started to work out better. Although the scene of Venice was not necessarily my thing the views were hands down some of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen. They were breathtaking and I’m so happy that was something I was able to see. In our groups we just spent the rest of the day walking around, eating pizza and gelato, and taking in our surroundings. Since it was Venice our group decided we had to do a Gondola ride. This was something I am thrilled I did but will for sure only do once in my life. A short day at Venice to get closer to the people with this program and to see one of the most beautiful cities in the world was an amazing experience. As much as I was excited to get back to Grado, my last few minutes in Venice were sad saying goodbye to it.