July 13, 2006: Venice/Venezia.
Song of the Day: Be True to Your School

FINALLY! The day – the very day that most people on this trip have been waiting for. Venice, king and queen of cities with streets made of water. Or the only city with streets made of water. Unfortunately, this is also our last full day in Italy. After this we move off to Switzerland. But hey, what better way to spend a day in Italy then by going to Venice?

Nothing that I can think of.

Breakfast in this hotel is quite nice. There was a large arrangement of cold cuts, cereal, and bread, as well as free Nutella. Since I like Nutella, I happily grabbed two little packets of the stuff and spread it on the equally awesome pre-toasted toast-in-a-bag. Those little toast thingies are cool, because they’re toast, but in a freakin’ bag.

There was also red orange juice, which is very sweet. It has the taste of regular orange juice, though, so it would only be good once in a while for me. I’ve never had a taste for orange juice, but this stuff was pretty good.

We boarded and shoved off for a port, where we would take a ferry boat to the many islands of Venice. Once we got on the bus, John Yule appeared and made his usual announcement.

"Well," he said, "today is the day." And he continued to blather on about how everyone’s been waiting for Venice, and what you can buy there. Decorative masks, Murano glass, gelato, etc. All good stuff that I intended to buy. And did buy. So this is basically like a short story about how I bought tons of stuff while in Venice.

Once upon a time we reached the port and got onto a boat. The boat had a roof, but the boys didn’t want to go up there since they were content boiling in the hot sun on the back of the boat, bottom level. I went up to the roof with the girls and felt the nice, cool breeze. The view was also very nice, good enough to take many pictures (and videos) from. The boat hummed an E-b all the way, though it may not have been an E-b. I wouldn’t know anymore anyways. The recording I did of it didn’t catch the sound. I sang the note though, so I’ll check it when I get home.

The boat reached the island and we unloaded onto a lavish courtyard, by which I mean a small seaside street with lots of vendors trying to get you to buy cheap merchandise and construction areas where tiles were being replaced. The actual lavish courtyard was to our left a walk away. During the walk we passed the Bridge of Sighs, a short bridge that served as a link between the Imperial Court and the Prison. People were tried, and once found guilty were IMMIDIATELY taken across the bridge to the prison, where they would remain for an extended period of time. The two windows are there to serve as the prisoner’s last look at freedom in the beauty of their city. They were said to have sighed upon looking.

St. Mark’s Square was basically our meeting place. I learned that the square is actually not shaped like a square, but a trapezoid. It’s made that way to skew your perspective and make it look longer than it actually is. It really does look very long. At ay rate, we had until 5pm to wander the city. That was basically five or so hours, since it was around noon. The ridge crew decided they would stop for batteries and memory cards, have lunch, and then split into boys and girls until the 5pm deadline.

The buying batteries and memory cards bit was actually a surprise. And it wasted time. But if they want to take photos, they should be able to, I suppose.

As usual, we had trouble deciding where to eat lunch. Tons of places looked fine, but Casey is so damned picky that we can never find a suitable place. We finally found one in a rather odd looking pub. I ordered a pizza, and so did everyone else. Some ordered pasta and Wyatt ordered a wrap that turned out to be disgusting. I also got water, which was definitely not enough water.

The pizza was huge and delicious, and so was everyone else’s. I let Wyatt have some of mine since he hated his wrap so much. The guy deserves a good lunch, at least.

We paid the bill and waved good-bye. Every boy was up for looking for gelato. We actually didn’t find gelato, but a cool mask shop. They had incredible decorative and festival masks, as well as hand-crafted marionettes. Everything was lavishly done and precise to the last gemstone. For every nice gemstone the price went higher and higher. There was a mask I would have loved o get, a black mass with thin plastic designs shooting out from it with diamond-like gemstones, but it was €253! At such a ridiculous price, I decided I’d rather get my family glass.

Corson bought a small mask for €42. It looks neat, but it’s not as neat as the €253 mask. I guess it wouldn’t be, but I’d sooner waste my money on the more expensive one than the cheaper one. I don’t find it worth my money, really. However, Wyatt decided to splurge and purchase a €164 gold-colored mask with three heads. It’s insane looking, and it’s just like Wyatt. The only problem was, he didn’t have the money up front. He ended up borrowing from Piros, whom he still hasn’t paid back.

I had also checked out a cat marionette, which had porcelain shoes and a hand-crafted red ad gold garment with golden threads making designs all across, as well as a hat with a feather in it. In fact, it looked a lot like Puss in Boots. It was really cool, but it was over €300. I haggled with the store merchant, who gave me a discount bringing it down to €270. I still didn’t want to p-ay that price, so she said "250." I still refused. Way too much for my blood, even if it was even nicer than the lavish black mask.

We left, and I’m sure the clerk was unhappy that I had bought nothing. We explored around, still looking for gelato. I began to walk into glass shops with Murano glass, which turned out t be quite colorful. I didn’t like rainbow-ness of a lot of the glass, so I didn’t buy at certain stores. Eventually we found a random place called Marco Polo International, a glass shop that specialized in big glass things. In there they had everything I could ever dream of wanting in glass, including a perfume bottle and a golden glass turtle. I would have bought something else too, for the Rabbi, which was a collection of glass rabbis doing funny Jewish things, but I didn’t have the money to spend on that.

There was also this awesome Jews vs. Christians giant glass chess set. It was €3600. The pictures were free, though. ;)

The perfume bottle was a whopping €198. I had Wyatt consult me on which one tgo get – there were five different kinds, all the same style and price, but each different colors. I got the one that was a different style and an awesome color. I hope she likes it.

The golden turtle is brilliant. Max has always wanted a glass turtle. It has to be a surprise, though – I told Mom about it, and she promised not to let him know about the turtle. I hope she hasn’t said anything yet. The turtle was €84, a very good price. Everything total was €278, but the clerk winked at me and read "€278" while pointing to the number "€240." I suppose I got a nice discount. The discount, however, was not enough to get me to ship it home for €60. Sorry!

Wrapping paper is a lot nicer in Europe, by the way.

We continued to explore around now that I was done with glass shops. We entered a calligraphy store, where they had journals made of fine leather and bookmarks for cheap prices that were tons better than the one I’d bought. The entire store was dim and small, and the door did not close on its own. I kept forgetting about this and the clerk constantly told me to shut the door every time I opened it. I’m too accustomed to seeing doors close on their own in stores.

There were some great pens that I wish I could buy. Unfortunately I have no use for calligraphy. If I ever do, I have a small calligraphy set at home. It’s fun to play around with. Spending hundreds of Euro on a single pen and nib is not.

We left and she asked me to close the door again. I did so.

We ended up coming across a nice ice cream place. We all bought gelato and water. Everything was good, the ice cream was ice creamy, and the sun was shining above the small alley. It shone even brighter when we made our way to the post office, which was supposed to be near where we started. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the post office, so we just baked in the sun. It was supposed to reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit that day. I wonder if it did.

We ended up walking in circles looking at trinkets and other non-special things in side stands. Everyone voted to go to St. Mark’s Basilica since there was nothing else to do. We didn’t know what line to get in, the choice being the incredibly long regular line or the immensely short "AUTHORIZED GROUP" line. We decided that since we were from AMA, and we were in a group, we were somehow and authorized group.

They let Matt, Casey and I inside the church. Corson and Wyatt were detained outside because they had backpacks. I was going to go back and see what was going on, but Casey and Matt had already gone in, so I followed and said I was sorry.

The inside of the church was completely gold and pink marble, with large religious paintings decorating everything. I believe that St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna was still the most impressive of all churches we’ve seen, but this was a great example of how styles blended together. It was large, like a fortress, but covered in gold and exquisite objects, sculptures, paintings etc; basically a huge combination of Romanesque and Barouche.

I kept trying to talk to Casey about what the heck was going on, but he told me to shut up out of respect for Jesus Christ. I wanted to tell him to shove Jesus Christ up his ass, because we’d just left two group members behind. I refrained and just said we should leave to see if they’re still outside. Good thing that the designated path around the basilica was short and sweet. saw various people praying and such before we exited. One guy snapped a photo, even though you’re not supposed to.

We exited out into the gift shop, and then out the large arc. We had come out just a few feet away from where we had come in. Corson and Wyatt were nowhere to be seen, so we roamed around the area t check if they had gone anywhere. Casey checked the long line to see if they had simply gotten in that in hopes of catching up to us. Piros thought Casey would abandon us, and I said he wouldn’t. He didn’t abandon us, of course, an came back saying he couldn’t find them in the line. We ended up going back into the church to see if they had gone there. When they weren’t there, I suggested that we just do whatever we wanted, since they had gone off and done their own thing obviously. I told Casey that we could go up the stairs to the next levels of the church, and he had no clue what I was talking about. I told him about the stairs I’d seen at the entrance, and led everyone to them.

These were the first European steps I’d seen that were very steep to climb up and very narrow on top of each step. It was as if the normal European-style step and been flipped 90 degrees, so now you stepped on the small side and stepped up the big side. It was a pain to climb up, and you constantly thought you’d slip and fall over to your death, but luckily there was a very thin railing.

At the top, it seemed to be just a gift shop. It cost €3 to get in, so we all said no to it and walked back down. Once we were down, Casey told me that it was €3 to see the BALCONY, not to go into a gift shop. I would have done it had I known that!

We decided after that to go see the large bridge, Ponte de Rialto. I looked at the map to see which direction it was in, so we walked. And got lost, too. We couldn’t figure out where it was, because it was too far away from St. Mark’s and in an odd direction as well. We ended up at the back of this weird church when Casey said that he was going to go look for Corson and Wyatt at a place he thought they might be, as in the post office. He also said that he needed stamps. We told him that was fine, and he left. We knew he was ditching us.

Later on, after being lost for a little while, Piros and I turned around and headed back to the Square. There was no point in trying to reach the bridge lined with jewelry shops and street stores anymore. We were running out of time, and although it would have been a fun sight to see, we just didn’t have time.

Piros said he had to go to the post office, too. I really didn’t t it. They were in VENICE, and all they could think to do is go to the post office? Bullshit. You can go to the post office anytime, or speak to the person at the front desk of your hotel, but you don’t go to Venice to go to the post office. You go to Venice to see fucking Venice. I’ve never heard of somebody going to an incredible city that will disappear in fifty to a hundred years just to ignore it and go to a post office.

We still never found the post office, but while we walked alone I bought a snow globe for Max. I told him I’d get him one from Venice, and I made sure I did.

We ended up getting lost. Really lost. It took us a half an hour to get back. Allies got really small, and suddenly there were no tourists. It was obviously the "real" Venice, as in the residential areas. I saw some Italian people talking and smoking just nearby us beyond a small gate. Twice we passed by a didgeridoo player. The second time he waved to me as I videotaped.

We hopped from island to island trying to figure out how to get back. We found dead ends, boats with graffiti on them, odd statues and monuments, large churches, broken gondolas. It was as if you were experiencing the backstreets of New York City, but completely Venicized. It was actually really cool. If we didn’t have so little time to get back, I might have enjoyed it. Piros wasn’t worried at all, because as he now says, he "got us lost of purpose." I doubt that he did it on purpose, but I’m not complaining or anything. We did get back on time, after passing the didgeridoo player r the second time.

Oh, wait. I’m thinking wrong. We did NOT get back after that. I had myself fooled into thinking it was the square in front of us, but it wasn’t. I even went, "Who knew that the didgeridoo player was so close?" Of course he wasn’t. He was a random street player in the residential areas where hardy any tourists can find. We actually had gone around in a circle and were at the church he’d passed a little while ago. Not the church Buckley had left us at, but the other large church I described in the sentences describing what we saw in the "real" Venice.

We did eventually get back by finding the street which was crowded with fashion and clothing stores, then locating the correct alley to go down which had a bridge to the Square. We were back about fifteen minutes before it was time to leave.

I tried to catch pigeons on my arm in the meantime. Since we had to walk through the square, and it was absolutely clustered with birds from end to end, and I had seen pigeons randomly jumping on some people’s arms, I gave it a go. Not a single pigeon jumped to my arm!

We found Wyatt with Russell nearby the meeting area, and close to a separate cluster of pigeons. Wyatt had lost Corson, it turns out, while they went off doing their own thing. I continued to try catching pigeons on my arm, and Wyatt and Russell told me that I needed to buy food. It was €1, and I didn’t have the time or the need for all the bird food you got, so I declined the opportunity and just took photos of scurrying birds.

It was then time to meet at the meeting spot, so we all together walked. We found Casey, who told us how he had been conned by an Italian flower vendor. The man had thrust the flowers into his arm and made him pay for it. It was €5. He gave the flowers out to various Ridge girls while Retz walked around asking people what they got. I told her about my stuff, of course.

The boat ride back was less amusing than the ride to Venice because there was no roof to sit on. I ended up sitting near the back on a wooden bench, since all the outside seats were both taken and stupid seats to take due to the hot sun. I fell asleep with my bag of gifts and one hand on the black paint of the bench in front of me. I woke up and had black shards all over my hands and clothes. Eugh.

I wiped it off and got off of the boat. I was really tired, and we had quite a long ride back to Abano Terme, which worked out.  We didn’t have another concert, so for the dinner the staff just asked us to dress nicely since it is a fancy restaurant. I got out of some nasty clothes I was wearing and put on a fresh outfit, even if it wasn’t a formal one.

Dinner was with Dino again, but not Casey. I was with Matt and Wyatt, I believe, because Corson was taking a shower and wasn’t down on time. He ate alone.

All the way home people had been talking about going in a mud bath or doin some sort of spa activity with the possible free time we’d have at night. Unfortunately, everything was closed, and we didn’t have too much free time. I sat and wrote a bit, but for the most part I was very tired, so I just said good night and shut my eyes.