Big Adventures, Little World

Our day started with a walking tour through the city of Venice, which is by far the best way to get around. That or on a boat through the canals. Hottie guided us through the city showing us a few sights here and there, like the Bridge of Sighs, which has been ruined giant advertising all over it. We ended up in St. Mark’s Square where there is also a basilica dedicated to him. There are some really beautiful and amazing sights and views throughout Venice and after the walking tour we had a chance to explore them for ourselves. First though, there was a lace demonstration of how lace was made and the history of it, I think. I’m not too sure because I walked in for about a minute before getting bored and going to check out the square again. I ventured back in to the lace demonstration again, only to see the lady holding up a piece of lace and saying is cost 960 Euro before turning around and heading back out again. I’m not sure if anyone actually thought it was interesting at all.

Tommy and I headed off to explore the city and get lost. It is so easy to get lost in the city of Venice, but also it’s so easy to find your way back again, so it never really matters. So we just wandered for a while checking out some of the shops and sights around the city. Although there wasn’t really much of a range. The extent of the shops was basically souvenir shops, clothes shops and plenty of mask shops, but not much else. We had a lot of time to kill before needing to head back to catch the shuttle bus to the campsite so we thought it would be a good idea to walk back out to the square, and then catch the Vaporetto (Water Taxi/Bus) back to the bus station. We would have plenty of time, or so we thought. Once we got out to the square the first taxis we found we private taxis and were going to cost 60 Euro, which wasn’t what we were looking for at all. We found the right place and jumped on, but it was the longest ride stopping at every single place it possibly could before we finally made it back to the station, and then had about 45 minutes wait before the next shuttle bus. Not so much fun considering all we wanted to do was get back to the campsite and relax.

When we finally made it back to the campsite it was straight into the pool for a swim before relaxing and then dinner in the restaurant of pizza and pasta. Pizza and pasta is pretty much the only two things we ate while in Italy. That, and gelati. After dinner there was a band playing outside the bar, so a big group of us sat around waiting for them to start. While we waited, we started a new round of Kings, this time with some different rules, including the ‘Gecko’ card, which led to gecko injuries for myself and a few others and I’m sure some bruises here and there. For anyone who is wondering, the ‘Gecko’ card entails once it being played, everyone finding the nearest wall or tree and pushing themselves flat up against it like a gecko. Once the card was played, everyone was up, chairs flying everywhere, drinks getting knocked over, and people running so as they weren’t the last one to be the gecko. I’m quite sure everyone else sitting at the other tables hated us and though we were crazy, but we had a lot of fun and that’s all that we cared about. The band came on after that and they were really good with the lead singer coming around trying to get people involved in helping him sing, but it seemed only our table were the ones joining in. All in all it was a good night, and I even got to bed early enough to get a decent sleep before making our way to Austria in the morning.