Venice, Part 8

The final and very foggy day. Seeing as we still had a day left on our 3-day ACTV pass, we decided to take the boat up and down the Grand Canal.

Guess who I saw on the boat. Yup, French girl + travel companion.

After returning to our lodgings, we tried unsuccessfully to finish the remains of all the food we’d purchased that week. Then we headed out to the airport. My time waiting at the airport was spent trying to get rid of all my remaining euro coins. You can buy a surprisingly large variety of items for exactly 3,90 EUR at the Marco Polo Airport. Large orange juice, chocolate bar, bag of breadsticks, mini panettone, travel size mouthwash.

We spent that night in Heathrow, which wouldn’t have been so bad if they weren’t testing the sound system for an hour. It’s hard to sleep when the speakers keep repeating, “Voice sine wave, ooooooooeeeEEEEEE….” After much trial and error, I discovered that the best way to sleep on chairs that have armrests is to curl so that your upper body is on one seat and your lower body is on the other with your waist bending around the armrest. I suspect this only works if you’re short though.

The rest of the journey home was a big sleepy blur, so I’ll spare you the details because I’m actually not sure what they are.

Venice, Part 7

Originally, the weather forecast had predicted clear skies for this day, so we planned to take the water bus to a few islands in the lagoon. When we woke up in the morning, the forecast said rain. Wishing not to damage my camera, I left it behind. As a result, it didn’t rain at all. The sun even came out in the afternoon. Of course.

The first island of the day was Murano, which is known for its glass-making. We spent a decent amount of time trying to find a glass-blowing demonstration. You’d think it would’ve been easier considering the dependence on tourism but whatever I welcome a challenge. We finally found a place and watched the glassblower make a leaf-shaped dish and a horse. Then he touched the horse with a piece of paper that immediately set on fire. We made the appropriate gasping sounds and applauded.

I wonder how many pictures this guy is in.

The next island was Burano, which is known for its lace. We didn’t really see anything lace related though, choosing instead to wander around the colorful buildings. Guess who I saw on the boat ride over to Burano? The French girl from the Doge’s Palace. We also passed her a few times while wandering around Burano, but that’s not too surprising considering how small it is.

I would like to point out the tower in the bottom picture. It turns out Pisa isn’t the only city with a leaning tower. These Italians really need to work on their tower-building skills. Or maybe they should just not build them on mud.

Island number three: Torcello, known for being the home of Venice’s oldest church (I think). Actually, I think it’s better known as a marshy wasteland with a population of about 20. Since there didn’t really seem to be anything else to do there, I dragged my friends up the bell tower with me to take pictures. I must admit Torcello was somewhat charming but also very creepy.

From Torcello, we headed back to Burano to catch a boat back to Venice. We were pretty confused when everyone left the boat at a stop that wasn’t Murano or Venice. Then we realized we’d gotten on a boat going in the wrong direction. Luckily that was the end of the line and we were headed back the right way. We also got a pretty good view of the sunset, so it wasn’t a total waste of time. 

Not quite sure what the light next to Burano’s leaning tower is. My friend suspects alien activity.

For dinner, we treated ourselves to an authentic Venetian restaurant recommended by our host, Franco. That meant we could not understand the menu or the staff (at least not very well). As a result, ordering meant point and hope for the best. I ended up with a plate of seafood that included shrimp, adorable tiny clams, and a fish of some sort. My friend (who isn’t a big fan of seafood) ended up with cuttlefish spaghetti cooked in its own ink. I’m super proud of her for trying it, but I think the black color was just too off-putting, so she had it packed up to take with her and I helped her finish it the next day (always glad to be of service).  I thought it was all delicious, but maybe that had something to do with the fact that I’d been eating toast for the past day and a half.

Almost forgot to mention the third prosecco purchase of the week, this time in mimosa form.

Venice, Part 6

A short day because my stomach decided to revolt, resulting in my checking out of reality for a good 18 hours.

Despite not feeling well I dragged myself to the Doge’s Palace because I had our ticket reservations on my phone. Inside, I eavesdropped on a French girl explaining some columns to her traveling companion (who looked like her grandma but I don’t want to assume). Then I decided that was creepy and walked away.

Somehow I managed to make it through our Secret Itineraries tour without puking all over the palace. I did spend half of it hunched over pretending I was really cold when in reality I thought something was trying to claw itself out of my stomach. Despite being distracted by my aching innards, the palace with its gold ceilings and secret torture chambers was definitely my favorite part of the trip.

After crawling back to my bed, I fell asleep and did not get up for a long, long time.

Venice, Part 5

Halfway through our trip, we must have been pretty tired because we managed to sleep until 1pm. Oops. Good thing we didn’t have much planned for the day. We dragged our groggy selves across the island to visit the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. I spent a few hours pretending to know something about art while really just staring blankly and feeling confused. Occasionally I’d pass a famous name I recognized like Picasso or Pollock, and I would force myself to see something special in the painting. “Just look at all the emotions captured in that splatter.” “Mhmm, yes we are all pointy inside.”

The award for most perplexing must go to Agnes Martin for Rose. At first I was convinced that the piece had been temporarily removed, leaving a blank canvas in its place. Then I realized that was the piece, and it wasn’t blank. It was more like faded graph paper. So then I spent a good five minutes trying to find a rose in faded graph paper.

My favorite piece in the collection was L’Empire des lumières by René Magritte. Quickly summarized it’s a painting of a street scene at night but with a day-time sky complete with fluffy white clouds on a bright blue background. My only explanation for why I liked it is that it was interesting. (How am I doing with that pretending to know something about art thing?)

In the museum’s sculpture garden, there was one sculpture of three people standing next to each other. My two friends and I were standing next to the sculpture when a man came up to us and asked to take our picture. After we gave him a very confused OK, he took the picture and showed it to us. Pointing to the three figures, he said, “Look, it’s you!” I must say I am deeply honored to have made it into his collection of photos from Venice.

Another gem from the sculpture garden:

On our way back from the museum, we passed a lady who was just standing in the middle of a street (Lady 1). Then another lady (Lady 2) passed by Lady 1 and Lady 1 grabbed Lady 2 and dragged her to the side. Everyone was convinced a robbery or assault of some sort was taking place, but then Lady 1 pointed to a large pile of dog poop that Lady 2 almost stepped in. Lady 2 then thanked Lady 1 and proceeded to walk down the street. She turned to us and said “I thought she was attacking me, but she saved me!”

Now for food.

Some food I got at a wine shop. Not entirely sure what it was, but it was something along the lines of baccala, salmon, and cheese of some sort. Whatever it was, it was delicious. The place is called Cantinone Già Schiavi if you were wondering.

Next up is the frittelle alla ricotta that I got at Majer. It was good but what else would you expect from a piece of fried dough stuffed with ricotta cheese. This purchase was particularly memorable because I couldn’t order by pointing (it was out of sight). So yeah, just slightly happy that the lady working there could understand my attempt at saying “frittelle alla ricotta.”

 Another trip to the grocery store led to more cookies, more cheese, and more prosecco (this time mixed with peach nectar). If you haven’t noticed yet, my main three food groups on this trip were wine, cheese, and bread/cookies.

Venice, Part 4

We started our fourth day in Venice by walking around the old Jewish Ghetto. If you’re a big fan of Torah crowns, I definitely recommend checking out the museum. Actually, if you’re not a big fan of Torah crowns, I’d still recommend the museum. It’s nice to have some sort of idea of why the area is significant.

Confession: the two pictures above with canals in them weren’t actually taken in the ghetto, but it was pretty close so whatever.

On our way to get food for lunch, we stopped for gelato because Italy. You’d think the below freezing temperatures would make gelato a little less appealing, but it really just makes the experience less stressful because the gelato isn’t threatening to melt all over your hand. Plus gelato also makes you the envy of small children everywhere and who wouldn’t want that.

Made myself a prosciutto and mozzarella sandwich. Tasted exactly like a salted duck egg.

Later at night we wandered out to take pictures of Venice minus the tourist crowds. Our first stop was to get some hot wine at a stand next to the ice rink (there’s an ice rink by the way). The guy who sold it to us seemed really creepy at first, but then we realized it was just a language barrier thing. He kept trying to joke around with my friend, but she didn’t realize he didn’t actually think she wanted orange juice.

I drank my wine way too fast because I don’t walk evenly and it was sloshing dangerously around in the cup. As a result, I ended up rather tipsy. Half of the pictures I took after that came out pretty sad and blurry like this one: 

#TakenWhileTipsy

Luckily a few actually came out okay.

Venice, Part 3

This was a very touristy day. First stop was St. Mark’s Basilica. We waited patiently outside in the rain to get in, but when we got to the entrance, my two friends got in and I was told my (very small) backpack was too large to take in. The security guard then sent me on a quest to locate the bag drop. Not wanting to hold up the line, I quickly nodded when he pointed to a map to show me where it was despite having no idea where he pointed. A few minutes of frantic jogging later I miraculously managed to find the bag drop and rejoined my friends in the church. Unfortunately, amidst all the bag confusion, I managed to forget to grab my glasses. As a result, I was left to marvel in the beauty of the blurry basilica.

Next up was the Campanile (bell tower): a short elevator ride, a few minutes of freezing our butts off, and a decent view.

Having been warned about the deafening consequences of being caught at the top of the tower when the bells start ringing, we anxiously prayed for the elevator to hurry up so it could take us down. While waiting in line we realized we weren’t going to make it so we plugged our ears in anticipation. When the bells started ringing it wasn’t even that loud, leaving the three of us looking like terrified idiots.

At this point we were struggling to feel our appendages, so we entered the first cafe we saw in hopes of coaxing our toes back to life. We got a table and ordered coffee and pastries (to the dismay of the cafe staff who kept giving us dirty looks). Cue first tourist trap restaurant experience. Due to ridiculous cover charges, service charges, and overpriced everything, I ended up paying almost 15 euros for this sad snack:

Later that day we stopped by a local grocery store. The purchases of the day: prosecco, cookies, tomatoes, yogurt. 

The cookies tasted strangely familiar, but I could not figure out what they reminded me of. The yogurt was crazy cheap (0.18 euros what) and also delicious. Speaking of being in love with groceries, the milk tasted SO GOOD. Also, the bread comes without the ends that nobody eats.

Time to search Wegmans for delicious milk.

Venice, Part 2

This was our only sunny day, so we spent it walking around and taking pictures.

I think Venice is the most photogenic city I’ve ever been in. Not much to report from this day. It could be summarized with “OMG so pretty.”

I did make a few observations though:
– There are many clocks around Venice. Very few of them tell the correct time. I’m not sure if this is supposed to have some deep philosophical meaning or if Venetians just don’t like to take proper care of their timepieces.
– There are Chinese restaurants everywhere. Everywhere. I even found one named after my parents’ hometown.

Small world.

Venice, Part 1

Seeing as we had a ridiculously long winter break this year, my friend and I started planning a trip to Europe starting last February. We had all the plans worked out for a 3-week trek through Italy when the Paris attacks made all our parents a little anxious. After much negotiation, we settled on cutting the trip short, resulting in a week-long stay in Venice. This is what transpired.

The journey began in JFK International Airport where the lovely lady at security was yelling at people to “get it together” when they didn’t have their boarding passes ready to go. After the usual race to remove and replace our belts, shoes, and watches in a timely manner without inciting the anger of our fellow impatient travelers, we were through to the gate. A few hours of waiting later, we were on a plane to Dusseldorf, Germany, a city none of us knew existed prior to this trip. On the plane, we had our first language barrier incident. The flight attendants were speeding down the aisle, asking everyone if they wanted whatever was in the large plastic bags they were holding. Hoping for peanuts, my friend grabbed a bag. They were earphones. The rest of the flight was rather uneventful. I watched two movies, ate some surprisingly good airplane food, and held my pee because I didn’t want to bother the man sitting next to me. He turned out to be a really nice guy and helped me grab my suitcase at the end of the flight. Much thanks to you nice German man who I will never see again.

At the Dusseldorf airport I found a very helpful sign in the bathroom. 

It’s a good thing they had instructions or I might’ve tried to dry my hands with only one sheet. What a disaster that would have been.

A short flight and a bus ride later, we found ourselves in the Milan train station with several hours to kill. In desperate need of coffee, we entered the most elegant McDonald’s I’ve ever been in. I then proceeded to make the classic tourist mistake of ordering a latte… which gets you a cup of latte… which is milk. I’m pretty sure I had read about this before but I guess being sleep deprived isn’t all that conducive to successfully pretending to not be an uncultured tourist. The rest of our time in the train station consisted of marveling at how lovely the McDonald’s was, paying to use the bathroom, and attempting to stay warm by waiting for the train next to the bathroom.

The original plan was to use the train ride as a chance to see the Italian countryside. We napped instead and woke up in Venice. After finding our home for the next week, we power napped in order to be awake for the New Year’s Eve countdown in St. Mark’s square. The countdown turned out to be a huge letdown. We found a spot on some stairs in the square to wait for the fireworks, but when they started, all we could see was the reflection in the windows on the building next to us. Everyone around us immediately started running (some with tripod in hand) to get a better view. Eventually we pushed our way into a crowd and got a view through some arches.

Then we got felt up by some randos in the crowd. I think they were looking for wallets or maybe they were just lonely.

They See Me Rollin’

This week I finished my fifth semester at Cornell, which leaves me with all the free time in the world. First order of business? Trip to Wegmans to get ice cream with the housemate. Seeing as it was 11pm, the store was pretty empty, so we decided to do our shopping in style…

In scooters. Was a lot of fun. Definitely recommend.

In the ice cream aisle, we couldn’t decide on what to get. I was mentioning something about wishing there was a variety pack when we saw it. This beauty:

Best purchase of the semester.

Side note: while riding the scooters we decided we needed new names. We decided on Ethyl and Methyl. Because… who knows. I don’t.

Fall Break

Today I woke up, and it was gorgeous outside. I decided I needed to have ice cream before Ithaca turns into a frozen tundra. Having heard good things about Cayuga Creamery, I dragged two of my friends there with me. I got a scoop of purple cow in a waffle cone. They watched me eat it.

The ice cream was indeed delicious, but the trip was marred by an unfortunate incident involving a ladybug. As I was waiting in line, a ladybug landed on my face, and I instinctively swatted at it. It didn’t survive. It did, however, leave an orange liquid smeared across my face and hand, as well as a rather grassy smell.

On the way back to Ithaca, we decided to stop by Taughannock Falls State Park because it was so nice outside. We spent a while playing on the playground and chasing seagulls because what else would a bunch of fully-grown college students do. Then we went to find the waterfall. There was a fork in a road. We had two options: the lower path where all the people were or the steep lifeless stairs. We took the path less traveled. It was a mistake. After hiking for what felt like hours, we could hear water falling, but we could see absolutely nothing through the trees. At this point we felt rather lost and were convinced we would never find the waterfall. After consulting Google maps, we decided to continue walking until we reached the other side of the gorge, where we were finally rewarded with the view we were looking for.

 Note to self: always take the North Rim Trail. Don’t bother with the south.

After making it back to the car we thought we might never see again, we were pretty hungry, so we stopped at Glenwood Pines and ate delicious burgers.

You know it’s a good burger when most of it is smeared all over your face and hands. Bonus points if the juices are dripping down your forearms. All in all I’d say it was a pretty good day.