Venice

So after the first leg of spring break with the Art 361 class had come to a close, I got off the train from Paris at Brussels Midi, raced home, took a shower, repacked, had anawkward exchange with my host family about why I was home, then left again off to gare central to make a train to Charleroi, since the shuttle buses had already stopped for the night. I get to the train station 5 minutes before the train is to
depart, only to realize that the train station doesn't sell tickets past 10pm (so the ticket attendant Kelly had talked to the day before had lied to her) and Maisah was at the wrong train station. By the time we (Kelly, Katie, Maisah, and I) were all situated it was now 12:30am. Since we had already gotten this far in our plan there was no turning back now. We decided we would all just split a taxi to the Charleroi airport. After falling asleep for most of the ride we awoke to an unfortunate bill of about 40 euro per person! Rough. The worst part about it all was that our flight wasn't until 7am, so we got to hunker down like hobos at the airport and get some zzz's before our Spring Break 2011 could officially commence. At 4am when the airport officially opened we were woken up my guards kindly asking us to wake up. It seems as though the airport has no problem with people spending the night there, but in the morning when they open their doors they want all the hobo college kids waiting for their flights to get up. Once we were up, we pretty much sat around waiting for Christy to join us (her host mother was driving her so she wouldn't have to sleep at Charleroi. Once Christy arrived we checked in, got coffee, and once again waited for our flight. While waiting we ran into Zack, who was also heading to Venice.

Kelly and Katie at 4am at Charleroi Airport

SPRING BREAK 2011

 When 7:15 rolled around we were finally off on yet another joyous Ryanair adventure. After a rocky flight we arrived safely in Venice-Treviso. It seems as though every time I take a Ryanair flight I end up an hour out if the city I am aiming to arrive in and this trip was no different. We had to take an hour long bus ride from the airport to get to our destination of Venice. First thing we did in Venice was figure ourselves out, for we were only spending the day there and then taking a night train to Cinque Terre. In order to situate ourselves best, we dropped off our luggage at the train station, then went off to explore the city. Katie had managed to fill up her memory card in Paris on the ART trip and didn't clear it when she stopped by her host family, so we stopped at a stand and got her a new memory card that then didn't even end up working. But since she had opened up the packaging, she wasn't allowed to return it. It was after this little fiasco of trying to return the memory stick that I learned that bargaining and bartering wasn't going to happen during this break. 

Church next to the train station

Once I learned this, which by the way, I was super unhappy about, we stumbled upon a protest outside a church. What the protest was for is truly beyond me, but they looked upset, so we quickly got out of there. In our wanderings we found some gelato, our first experience with gelato was awesome. And it just kept being awesome! I can honestly say, I don't think I'll ever get tired of gelato. Its sooo NOM NOM NOM!

Protest in Venice

Gelato Number 1

Later, we went to a delicious lunch of pizza. Our first true Italian pizza! Then, we passed by numerous canals and found the Rialto brige. Just as we were trying to find St. Mark's square, we ran into Sam from Beloit, the only other Beloit student studying at Vesalius. With his help we found St. Mark's square. There we walked around admiring the vast open area surrounded by churches, the town hall, and the Zodiac clock.

Katie, Janice, Kelly, and Christy

Janice on the Rialto Bridge

Rialto Bridge

I WISH I HAD BOUGHT THIS HAT!

St. Mark's Square

Zodiac Clock

 From there we headed to the Marina area and Katie went off to find some beads that her dad had gotten for her as a child. Since I decided it was a lost card, Kelly, Christy, and I went off and ended up in some random children's museum.

Children's Museum

 After the fun of the museum, we got more gelato! Then ended up in a music museum, where we got to see some classic instruments made in Venice. The Hemingway exhibit in another museum became our next stop. In case you were wondering, it was quite cold outside, so we kept ducking into museums to try and get some warmth.

Gelato Number 2

Musical Instrument Museum

 Once we left the Hemingway exhibit, we stopped by the Opera and Theatre house, as well as we visited a church. We did a giant circle somehow and ended back on the Rialto Bridge, only to end up at a restaurant where we got coffee. By this time, we were running on no sleep, gelato, and it was cold out, so sitting down to drink something warm was just what we wanted! After about 2 hours of sitting and drinking our coffee we started feeling hungry, so we left that restaurant to walk across the street to go to another restaurant.

One of the guys from the other restaurant walked into the one that we were now eating dinner at and they kept asking us why we had left them to go to the place we were at. We simply smiled and said we were hungry. Before we know it we are getting asked out for drinks after the waiter was done with work, and since we didn't have any other plans we said yes. This was our first mistake. We ended up having drinks with the waiter and his boss, who was about 45 over back at another one of the restaurants that they own. But the longer we spent there, the creepier they got, until finally the bad vibes got me and I stood up saying we needed to leave, only to find out that they had closed a garage-type door. This is the point in the trip when I said, "Oh shit...." then I began to bang on the doors. Quickly, they let us out and we ran back to the train station. As it was getting late, we picked up our luggage and went to the closest hotel. We went inside and asked if it would be ok for us to sit in their lobby until 3am when I train left because we didn't feel safe waiting at the train station and the receptionist was so kind. He said of course, and showed us where to stay for the next few hours. We waited in a lobby which fortunately had enough couches for all of us, so most of us just took a quick nap before our alarms went off a few hours later leading us to the next day of our spring break journey...