June 24, 2009

We woke up and found that the owner had very sweetly showed up and set the table for our breakfast. After getting ready, we set off for Venice. We just made a train that was leaving in 5 minutes. Once in Venice, we managed to find our hostel. It is a sweet little place down in a secluded little side street. I was hot, so I changed into a dress and then we were on our way. We set off in no particular direction. Soon, we managed to find some signs pointing to St. Mark's Square. We followed them and found the square. Unfortunately, they are doing some major construction and so there really wasn't much to see. We met a family of 9 from Phoenix who needed some people to share an extra gondola with, so we only had to pay for half of it! Our gondolier was very nice. He told us all about Venice and the buildings we saw. He said there are something like 420 bridges and over 100 islands in Venice alone! Venice used to be it's own republic for something like 1100 years. We got back and headed another direction. We got lost down a coupld of streets and back alleys, but we managed to get back on track. I got some shopping in and we ate more pizza and gelato! Next, Annie and I went to check on how to get over to Burano tomorrow. We were looking at a map and this couple comes up to us and says, "Hey, do you want two free tickets?" Basically, they were leaving and gave up two tickets that worked for the rest of the day on any boat in Venice! We ran back, told Logan, and headed out. We took the bus boat over to Burano and walked around town a bit. This town is full of colorful houses. This is because apparently, back in the day, some fishermen got drunk and went to another house and slept with some woman who was not his wife. After this, people started to paint their houses different, bright colors to signify which was theirs. We then came back and got some Fanta. It's off to Slovenia tomorrow!