Venice Weekend Trip

This past weekend I went to Venice with some lovely Skidmore folks. The trip was organized by a visiting professor at Skidmore who is here with her family under the SACI alumni program. 

My first thought of Venice was: "Venice makes the maze of the third challenge in the Triwizard Tournament of the fourth Harry Potter book look easy". Basically, Venice is a gigantic maze with crazy tight streets leading to tiny alleys or huge plazas and bridges pop out of no where to aid individuals across the endless amount of water which mysteriously surrounds Venice. Although I was excited to see the water, I was completely taken back by the craziness of the streets.

My fellow and trustworthy companions Sara and Madi, as well as myself, spent our weekend wondering around either lost or just in awe of the overflowing amount of touristy items being sold, particularly glass and masks. The food was not fantastic, because Venice is more expensive than Florence. But of course I couldn't help myself to taking some food shots. 

On my camera, I spent the trip using manual settings on my digital, something I have never done before. Because I have a better understanding of how the camera works, I wanted to practice on my digital. 

Enjoy!

There is many abandon furniture on the streets. I bet I could furniture a whole single apartment with all the lonely furniture I have seen.

So many mask shops! The cheaply made ones were usually found in the tourist vendors on the streets and tourist targeted shops, while the most beautiful ones were in independent artistic mask stores. Almost every store had rules against taking photos, which was such a shame since they were quite stunning. 

More masks. Sara was on a gigantic adventure to find the perfect mask specifically with purple and gold. It took the entire weekend trying to find her one and all three of us probably tried on 50 masks since we couldn't contain ourselves.

Touristy bead necklaces sold in almost every store. I was tempted to buy one, but I was blessed with quite a tiny wrist.

Pretty shot glass. Probably should have gotten one.

There is something wrong with this picture. Try to find it.

St. Marco's square 

The Cathedral. We did not get to see it unfortunately.

Gondolas. As cool as it was to finally see the tall men in striped shirts rowing standing up, we did not get to ride one because they cost 150 Euros. Och.

On the dock. I like the reflection of the water on the boat tip.

Gigantic yachts lined up on coastline. It was nice and relaxing to walk along this boardwalk like area. There were fewer people too.

Taking a break

Snails! Make me think of my brother Adam who ate them in Vietnam. Yum.

Fruit and veggie market on a boat... poetic

There is artwork all over Venice at the moment. A huge contemporary art exhibitexbhit with countries from all around the world was happening and is the main attraction of Venice currently. This piece is called: "...What if Roots Could Grow In the Waters of the Arsenale?..." by Dalya Yaari Luttwak.

Courageous laundry folks

Now for a snack... 

Sara, Madi, and I had the hardest time trying to find a place for lunch. Not only were the restaurants too expensive, all of us were slowly becoming more and more hot and tired. We finally found an affordable, compared to the other restaurants that is, pizzeria. All three of us desperately needed to just sit and drink water for a bit, so we were not very hungry.

Madi's pesto pasta. One of the better photos I took on manual settings.

My enormous pizza! I am used to smaller portion size pizza in Florence and was quite taken back when this big boy was placed in front of me. I ended up eating half at the restaurant and two more slices while walking on the streets. Madi ending up abandoning the pizza box on a street corner since I was too scared to give it too a gypsy.

It was so hot even the mushrooms on my pizza were sweating!

Because we decided not to attend the contemporary art show our fellow Skidmore folks were going to, the three of us went on an expedition to find the Academia. We spent an hour being frantically lost and exhausted from continuously asking shop employees for directions. When we finally found it, all of us were in a pretty bad mood. Madi, the biggest hug giver, refused to give Sara a hug. It was that dramatic.

I went on my own and spent the most relaxing hour and half sketching. The paintings were absolutely stunning and after attending Professor Waterson's art history trips, I was able to depict most of the paintings. 

My best guess is this painting depicts taking Christ off the cross. This painting is huge and action is highly dramatic.

Probably my favorite painting of my entire trip here in Florence. This scene depicts Mary finding out about her son's death. Its Mary's face which absolutely astonishes me. The emotion expressed is deeply sad, shocked, and overwhelmed so much Mary looks pretty much done with life. Yea, I like it a lot.

No this was not at the Academia. I loved the humor this modern day artist bought, especially this one because it is one of my favorite sculptures which I see every day when heading home (which is down below).

 And for another snackie...

And the rest of the day and the next...

A nice refreshing beer to end the long exhausting day of walking.

Madeline's room! Fit all ten of us. 

Delicious looking sandwiches at a bakery we passed while heading to the train station. I ended up getting a nice ol' big one because it was only three euros and looked too yummy to pass up.

Sara's sandwich. We sat on the dock in front of the train station munching on our snackies.

On the train. The different compartments reminded me of Harry Potter's hogwarts express. 

That concludes my trip to Venice. My next post will be focusing on Florence since this is my last week here. Ciao for now!