Venezia!

Venezia

I was told that I would hate Venice… Maybe it was being on the water, maybe it was the Boston Whalers, maybe it was the window boxes overflowing with poppies, maybe it was the company, or maybe it was $33 million home right on the canal that I spent most of my time in, but I loved Venice!! Katie and I arrived by train Saturday afternoon (a fairly eventless trip!), and checked into our hostel. Katie had accidentally booked two rooms, which somehow got us a double room with a private bathroom for the price of a dorm… it was fabulous. However, the next night I was moved to a dorm since I was alone, and I had my first true hostel experience. I definitely slept with my face about 2 inches from the face of a strange woman. It was cool though. Anyway, we took the scenic route (the route for people who don’t know where they’re going) to meet McKinley at Casa Artom. For those of you who don’t know, Wake Forest owns a house in Venice called Casa Artom. It used to be the U.S. Consulate. It’s huge and beautiful and right on the Grand Canal next door to the Guggenheim. McKinley is living there this semester. I'm jealous. We went to dinner in a cute piazza near the house, got some delicious and cheap gelato, and then went back to hang out at the house. The next morning we went to St. Mark’s and the following morning (Sunday) we went to the Guggenheim (possibly my favorite museum so far? The jury is still out…), and other than that we just wandered around, ate a lot of gelato, hung around at the house with the other Wake students living there, cooked our own meals, were lulled to sleep by the waves lapping against the house and the gondola singers passing by, etc. etc. It was truly fabulous.

Sunday I took another train back to Rome (hopefully my last one for a while), and had a very interesting conversation with an older Italian man (he was a professor of pedagogy… never really figured out what that was) and an Italian woman whose husband is an American man in the military… I spent the night in a real hotel that was in an old castle. It was really nice to be shown to my room, have my bed turned down, not have to see anyone else in my room or bathroom, etc.

The next morning I got up early and flew to Málaga to meet my group! Now I’m sitting in my casa with my roommate. It’s been a little freshman orientation-esque, but so far so good. I’ll let you know when there’s more to report!