Exploring Venice

Greetings from Venice!!! So I am in the middle of my European back packing adventure. It was funny because you hear of students going on back packing trips throughout Europe to “find themselves” and I am not sure since I am in the real world with a job and all if I can say that I am out here trying to find myself. But I do pray that this alone time with God will help me to clear my head and look towards the future.

The trip thus far has been uneventful in a good way, God has watched over me with safe travels and health so for that I am thankful. Venice is absolutely amazing, and has found its place on my top five cities in the world for sure. I would rank them in no particular order of Cape Town (South Africa), Bagan (Myanmar), Rio De Janero (Brazil), Venice and of Course North Richland Hills (Texas. And Abilene has to rank up there close!!!!

After arriving early in the morning around 9:30am of course my room wasn’t ready but I was able to talk them into giving me a room with air conditioning (you would be surprised at how many of the hotel rooms in Europe do not have air conditioning even the nicer ones.

Venice as I am sure you know has no streets big enough for cars and therefore there cars are boats. They have a fantastic public boat system where you can jump on and off just about anywhere to get to where you need to go. But really unless you are going from one side of Venice to another or one of the close by islands there is really no need to even do that just walk. It’s funny at night when I am walking down ones of the canal walkways or sitting at a restaurant I would see smaller personal boats cruising by with teenagers in them with some florescent light bulbs inside and load music making them kind of personalized. But I had to wonder if I was raised in Venice and not North Richland Hills Texas which means I would not have gotten a Z71 pickup I wonder what type my first boat would be? My guess probably something fast (you know me something really impractical knowing that you have to go slow with all of the traffic and winding canals in Venice, kind of like me getting a half ton 4 by 4 pickup truck to drive everyday in the city)!!!!

I think one of the reasons I feel in love with Venice is simply because it is a classy city. In all ways, which I really can’t at this time think of another city in the world that pulls it off half as much as Venice does. Take the architecture for example. It has its own personality during the day and is transformed at night. Saint Marks square is amazing. During the day it is full of hundreds of tourists taking photos, enjoying the surroundings and feeding the pigeons. Now this is really funny to me. For several reasons first of the last meal I had at Magi (my driver in Egypt) house one of the many entrees served was Pigeon. But there they are in Saint Marks square hundreds of them being feed by the hoards of tourists. So much so they are climbing all of the tourists on their arms their heads every where. I wish my nieces were here they would for sure have a good time playing with them. But I like Saint Marks square even better a night, which is probably a sight that is not seen by almost all of the tourists coming here via cruise ship because they always leave before dinner time. But it transforms there are these three bar/restaurants strategically located apart from each other in the square with each one have a band stand with a five piece band playing all kinds of classical music. The waiters in real tuxes (not those cheap banquet looking ones) and serving a variety of drinks on silver trays. Being a waiter in Europe is usually a career not just something that is done in college so there is a distinction that is clearly made here the waiters that have been working there for years get to wear the black bow tie and the ones that are newer probably easier to say middle aged are wearing white ones. It makes me wonder if there is some kind of party that is thrown when they get to change colors of their ties?

There are all kinds of ways of getting around the canals though there are the water taxis or private boats zooming around, the gondolas slowing moving down the canal some times with a guy singing and another guy playing the accordion. But once you get towards the area where it gets more open it is amazing with all of the boats zooming by, the gondolas gentle floating around and the super yachts docked alongside. It really makes me feel like I am in middle of that old James Bond movie. Speaking of super yachts I saw the biggest one I think that I have ever seen. It had tons of security around it and one day they were even taking boats out from the side of the interior of the boat for people to go ashore. I also saw the MV Voyager which has now been renamed the Grand Voyager which is the sister ship to the MV Explorer which is the one we took around the world for Semester at Sea. It is an identical shop besides the paint which it is now all white but pretty cool to see it.

I took one of the boats over to Merano today. It is also amazing you can see the island from Venice and Merano is where they make the glass objects. Everything from Bowls, to sculpture and jewelry. It is pretty cool watching them blow them into shapes and seeing the final products the chandeliers are amazing and a price tag that goes along with it. Later I headed back over to Saint Marks square and when headed back to the hotel I was walking right in between all of the fancy stores like LV, Gucci and Channel. There was some famous or big wig Asian in Channel because there was lots of private security with them but I didn’t recognize them.

I am excited about dinner tonight, my hotel has told me of what they call a true Italian restaurant with lots of locals so I am going to head there later. The food has been pretty fantastic thus far and I have been eating lots of pizza and pasta!!!

OK well I guess that’s all for now. I am headed next to Florence but I am extending my stay here in Venice to get some more time to enjoy the city.

All for now.

Ciao,

Chad