Venice on a budget

...or my night as a vagabond.
Venice is a beautiful city, at a distance. Okay that's unfair - it's a really beautiful place when you're there, too, it's quite a maze - the buildings are packed tightly together and every four turns or so is a large piazza or campo where there are vendors and children at play. The best sights to see are San Marco and the Frari church. I didn't go into the Frari church as it was, after all, "Venice on a budget" and I couldn't spare the 3 euro entry fee. However San Marco housed likely the most beautiful church I've ever seen (yes, even grander than IL VATICANO) - all the paintings were mosaic, ALL OF THEM! It was gorgeous not to mention on the coast of the Mediterranean. And Venice is all about glass. Murano, an island that's technically a part of Venice, imports glass to the bigger island and to places all around. The pieces are beautiful and inexpensive depending where you shop. I bought a ring (it's broken by now) that was very cheap as well as gifts for Kelsey and Lara. They are splendid!
It was my first time taking a flight from Italy and everything went smoothly. I accidentally booked myself as 'priority' so I was one of the first people on the plane which was absolutely unnecessary. That made for some funny jokes along the trip.
But back to Venice - it's a smelly place. It's technically on the sea and all the 'streets' are made of river water and aside from small bridges to cross, you can only use a water bus or a gondola. We rode a gondola for too much money but it was a nice way to see the city. We stayed at a hostel that was in a prime location for food and gifts, and it had a kitchen so we cooked the first night. For whatever reason we decided not to have a hostel for the second night because we didn't want to pay for one since our flight was early the next day. We decided to get drunk at the train station on cheap wine to keep us warm, but that buzz only lasted until about 1 am. That was not nearly long enough to make us forget about the cold. It was around 25 degrees and somewhat windy. We wandered around the city and snuck into two hotel lobbies before getting kicked out of both. We slept near a homeless man who was extremely gassy for about 45 minutes. After killing about an hour from wandering and bartering for a place to stay (in vain) we went back to the train station to find that it had closed. WHAT THE HELL ARE WE TO DO?! So we stayed outside of the train station, huddled on the steps until it opened back up at 4:30. Then we proceeded to go home on our 8 am flight. I had never been so happy for warmth (p.s. I was wearing sandals the entire time).
In all Venice was a fantastic time. It was quite expensive naturally but we were able to keep things pretty decent. The scenery was beautiful and Mo and I got kicked out of two campos playing soccer w/ some 12 year olds. They loved us and it was fun letting go and playing with the younger kids.
I miss you all! -- Off to Istanbul and Athens on Thursday for spring break. 'Til then!