Venice

Ok. It's been a few days or so. I know. It's been crazy though. I can't have time go by while I sit here writing about what I should be living out there.
This was venice:
We got in friday, and took the long, scenic route from Piazzale di Roma (Bus Station, from the airport, we took a bus) along the Grand Canal to our hotel. It was fantastic. The best little boat ride I've ever taken. I had seen Venice in pictures, but nothing, nothing, can ever capture what it really is like. When I was younger and learned that Venice was "a city in the water" I thought "ok, sure, so there's a couple of islands with a large canal in between and in order to make it easier humans built a couple of smaller canals going into the islands" WRONG! Here is how it happened: there was water, and several tiny islands, humans dumped dirt and logs into the water and built land around the water, then proceeded to establish and entire civilization there. With water, EVERYWHERE! Usually, first the land was there, then water-ways are opened up by humans. In this case, it was the other way around, first there was water, and THEN there was land. Which explains why it's sinking. So my first views of venice were from the Vaporetto along the grand canal. It rained the entire weekend. but it was still breath-takingly beautiful.
We had enough time to get to the hotel, and by the way, if anyone is thinking of going there anytime soon, I recomend the Hilton Stucky something somthing. It's brand new, and VERY nice with its own private shuttle every 30 min to Piazza San Marco. We just checked-in and had to rush, put on costumes and masks and go to an old hotel near San Marco for out opera/dinner/party event. It was no more than 40 guests. All dressed up like it was the court of Louis XIV, drinking Bellinis (Prosecco and Peach Juice, soo good). There was an opera performance in the lobby, just 4 singers, and it was the one with the Figaro song in it, I can't remember the name. Sooo beautiful. Absolutely fantastic. Then we had dinner and dancing in the ball room (look at the pictures). it was a great night. The next day we spend in Murano. We saw glass-blowing demonstrations, walked around all the shops, and were told how a lot of the smaller pieces are actually brought in from China, but claimed to be made in Murano which is in turn destroying the Murano glass industry, had lunch at a Pizzeria, mmmmmm, and then went back to Venice where we had dinner at a wonderful, and expensive (although the Consierge said it was "not so expensive") restaurant. Venice is known mainly for their seafood, and that's what we had, delicious seafood. So good.
The last and third day we spend in Venice, enjoying of all the events of Carnevale. People parading their costumes. A huge show on the stage in Piazza San Marco, well it was a city-wide party, and we were most certainly invited. We had lunch at a wonderful little tea room right in San Marco where the spectacle was happening on both sides of the glass windows. Inside: The room decor dated to the 17th and 18th centuries, the solid marble tables were still original, the food was served in silver trays, AND if you had costumes on you could skip the waiting line, resulting in everyone inside having elaborate costumes, the scene being as if taken straight out of a Versailles movie. Inside: people looking in, people walking with their costumes, people, people, people, and more people. The coffee was great too. Then we proceeded to walk all around the city, looking into all the shops and churches and streets and bridges and canals. It was fantastic. Afterwards, we returned to the hotel to pick up our stuff and left for the bus station again.