Venice, Italy

Finally posting Venice! After like 10 posts, I finally have everything up from the Greece and Italy trip. Just in time for the next Europe trip! Except the next one if over the course of 3 weeks and about 8 countries! I'm not sure which country or city I have liked the best so far. Athens had an adventage because we were there the longest, but all the others were equally amazing just in different ways. It is interesting to see the subtle cultural differences that really show when going to countries that are simlar to each other. So far, I have been to Cyprus, Greece and ITaly all of which are considered Mediterannean and European and are very different. In Cyprus- people can seem cold when you first meet them and they tend to take w hile to warm up, but strike up a good conversation and they will tell you their life story. And Cyprus feels more like a neighborhood of families, where everyone kknows eachother and crime and poverty are very low. In Greece, people are friendly and welcoming from the start and have passion and warmth in their eyes and smiles. They are proud to be Greek, but very willing to go out of their way to help and interested in where others are from. The biggest downside to Greece was the poverty level-it was horrendous. There were gypsies, grandparents, mothers, and the worse was the kids! Sitting down for a frappe, we would be aproached every few minutes by a child or man selling things. Italy I had the least time to "read" people, but they also have the intensity to their eyes and faces. They seem welcomign and friendly, but something about them makes me hesitate. Their skin tone is a warm creamy coffee/caramel color with dark brown/black hair, and a sweaty/greasy thing. I wish I had more time in a single city-to get a better sense of the people and culture, the other difficulty was that Italy was the least English speaking. Mark ordered a caramel gelati and got cherry hahaha, it was quite funny actually. I have found that all ready these memories are blurring together, so it is important to me that I continue the writing portion of this. If you are more interested in the pictures, please continue on and enjoy them whenever I write a lot, the writing is just as much for me as it is for you. Also, I enlarged all the images for this post, let me know if you like it better or makes it easier to see!

It was so much fun taking this little cruise to Venice island! As you can tell by our outfits, it wasn't quite warm out, but boat rides along a beautiful Italian city are always a welcomed treat!

 

Hello canals!

In case you are wondering, I did not go on a gondo la ride. I know it's the thing to do, but we only had a couple hours and it was like 120E an hour and there was so much else to see and do-and just experience the city. It was beautiful! (Oh, one other thing about Italy-you have to pay for everything! 3E for butter with your bread at dinner, 5E for a Coke, pay to use the bathroom- that part got old).

Look at the gondola driver and his pug! Just like what I have always pictured =) tehe

We said good bye to Venice at sunset and as the boat headed back for the mainland, I couldn't help but wonder if I would ever return to this wonderful place. What a beautiful country.