Ah, Venice...

Today was a freezing cold, foggy gray day in Venice. After getting up, putting on my usual t-shirt and the zip-up brown sweater that has become like my second skin, bundling into my red fleece jacket and warm winter hat, and blue Athens scarf and the mittens that I got in Rome, we set out for the train station. Although we got a little bit lost, we found the "stazione" and hopped aboard the proper train. Slowly but surely we're figuring out which trains we can ride for free with our Eurail Pass, and which ones we have to pay extra for (i.e. the trains we DON'T want to take.)

When we arrived in Venice there was a thick fog, and everything looked really sleepy. Probably everybody was inside because it was so freaking cold out! But seriously, the city was much less crowded than I remember it being when I was here last, when I was 12 years old and visiting my relatives Jane, John and Mark, who were living in Bologna at the time. I recognized the interior of the train station from my memory, though, as well as St. Mark's square. (Side note: funnily enough, as my dad likes to joke, every time I go to Europe he moves into a new house - when I was here eight years ago, he moved to our house on Ford Road, and now he just moved to St. Paul! It seems that every time he moves, I scamper off to Europe to avoid the hassle.) Anyway, today the place seemed almost empty except for us. There was zero wait to get into St. Mark's basilica, which we didn't go into last time I was here and which I daresay I have much more of an appreciation for, now that I'm older. One thing I definitely appreciated about the place was, as my guidebook told me, that the interior of the basilica was designed not in the traditional Catholic style but in a more traditionally Greek Orthodox shape. Also that the Venetian sailors who took Saint Mark's remains from Alexandria had to pack them in pork meat, to avoid being caught by Arab officials. Also, I had never seen so many gold mosaics in one place before! They were on the ceilings, in the domes, on the insides of archways, on the sides of the archways... the whole of the basilica seemed to be made out of gold mosaics and beautiful green, red, and grey marble columns. Not to mention the awesome tile mosaics on the floor! It's a very visually stimulating place!

Both Maddie and I enjoyed reminiscing about the "Classical Kids" tapes we used to listen to as children, because the Vivaldi one had of course been set in Venice. We laughed at the lines we remembered ("The whole WORLD could meet here!" referring to Piazza di San Marco) and went on an unfortunately failed quest to find the school that Vivaldi taught at. We succeeded in finding the BLOCK that the school was on, however, and we managed to get a picture. We also saw the Bridge of Sighs, and ate at a Chinese restaurant because we wanted to see what Italian Chinese food was like. (It was pretty good, although a little bit expensive. Really good dumplings.) Today was an awesome food day; later, because it was FREEZING, we went and had a cioccolata calda (hot chocolate) Italian-style: thick, rich, muddy chocolate that has to be churned in a mixer to keep it from solidifying, topped with real fresh whipped cream and cocoa powder. I swear, if you held some of it in your mouth, it seriously took a bit of effort to move your tongue around. Mmmmmm... warms the body with its heat, warms the soul with its flavour, AND adds fat to one's body, for extra layering-protection against the cold! Nice.

Speaking of Nice, that's where we're going tomorrow! (The city in southern France, that is.) I look forward to seeing what the south of France looks like at 30 degrees Fahrenheit. The next day we'll go to Paris. I've been e-mailing with some friends of ours, Max and Mel, who are in Nancy and Strasbourg, respectively, to see if they want to hang out with us when we're there. Hopefully that will happen, although they're both still in school. I'm bummed that I didn't get to hang out with my cousin Mark, who's working in Bologna, but unfortunately time didn't allow it. I should go e-mail him right now, actually. Cheers everyone, only two weeks until I'm back in America; see you soon!