This way to Piazza San Marco

Wednesday, August 31st The next day, I slept in ‘til 10 (so did Laura..our clocks are in sync most of the time) and did some laundry and made some instant coffee and tea that was available to us. At noonish, the four of us headed out in search of a)lunch and b) Piazza San Marco, the main square of the city. I would say central, but it really wasn’t. Chris told us the night before that it was a 15 minute walk, but it ended up taking us like 2 hours at least to get there hahaha. Everyone gave us different directions. There were signs, but some of them even had double arrows, so we’d choose which way to go, having no idea if it was in the right direction. Lunch was along the way (at a hole-in-the-wall which was delicious with perfect portions). We also stopped for a gondola ride!!!!! Gondolas, one of the main attractions of course, are so expensive. For the most part, the drivers charge around 100 Euro for a boat. But we cannot afford that. Even though I have spent more than 25 Euro on a single meal (it is what it is), I couldn’t justify a 10 minute Gondola ride for the same amount. We passed a couple and finally got a guy to give it to us for 50 Euro. Half the price!! It was well worth it, and I am so glad we ended up being able to drop the price. How can you go to Venice and not ride a gondola? The guy didn’t sing, but he was a total character. He kept making inappropriate comments that were totally amusing and also terrifying. We ran off the boat and didn’t make eye-contact, when he brought us back to the dock. Eventually, we found ourselves in the Piazza San Marco probably around 3 PM. It was beautiful, though. There is a huge church with mosaics and gold plating. And if you go through the square, it opens up to the ocean, where all the canals lead. When you think of Venice, you think of Canals and gondolas, right? It’s so surreal though because there are actually no cars. There are boats. People use the waterways to get places, if they don’t walk. The water canals are their road equivalents. Strange and so different from the rest of the developed world. Oh, but so scenic. I don’t want to know how many bridges we took pictures on… Venice was hot, too. So, after the heat and exhaustion and all other things that involved getting to Piazza San Marco and back to our hostel, we needed a refueling in the room. Our friend from the previous night, Chris, had already left for Rome, but we saw that we had a new roommate in his place. I collapsed on my bed and slept for an hour or so, which felt wonderful. When I woke up, our new roommate was there, and it was about 8 PM. He was not so friendly; in fact, he didn’t make eye contact or even say hello to us. Awkward. We just lowered our voices and left the room to find someplace to eat dinner. Probably 5 minutes after leaving the hostel, we saw a tourist shop with a tshirt rack out front. The first tshirt was one that had two signs to Piazza San Marco, with arrows pointing in opposite directions. We all burst into laughter because it was obvious that it’s a running joke that its complicated to get to Piazza San Marco. Which meant that clearly, after a 5 hour escapade from earlier in the day, the joke was on us. Hhahaha. Like I mentioned earlier, Venice doesn’t have much of a nightlife. This means that generally a lot of restaurants close early, too-- at least the cheaper, more local joints. The nicer restaurants stay open later, probably because they have the funds to employ their staff for a longer period of time every day. We were so hungry that we stopped at the closest restaurant that didn’t have a cover or service charge (in Italy, some restaurants have a cover charge and a service charge included in the meal. So, we started to look for places that said specifically that there was neither). It was called Marciana and once inside, looked like an Italian place you could find in the states. But, it was crowded, so we used that as a good sign and sat down and ordered. The waiter was impressive as he was taking our orders. He spoke great English and understood Molly’s eating parameters. But when the food came, it was clear that he had totally taken advantage of us. Malvika and I had a decent meal, but Laura’s portion of pasta was way too small and Molly had ordered, upon his recommendation, fish that was ridiculously small. We were like, huh? Is this real life? And after he filleted it for her, it was half the size. Oh yeah…and it was 18 euro. At that moment, we decided we didn’t like him. But it got worse. When it was time for the bill, he told us that the bread he brought us was 2 euro per serving. (and we’d gotten 2 servings). He also added some arbitrary numbers together for our totals. I was totally fed up with him, and I almost ended up paying him the amount he had dealt me, which was like 2 euro more than I owed him, but Malvika totally told him off. It was awesome. And then he gave us a refund, kind of. Not to mention he tried to flirt with us earlier, so he was basically a walking disaster. Arrivaderci, Marciana. Gelato for dessert fixed the dinner failure. Mmmmmm. We had already gotten it earlier in the day, but it is just 1.50 for a scoop…so it’s hard not to have it multiple times. It made me think of Paolo’s Gelato in Virginia Highlands back home, which is where I first had gelato, I think. We sat in a random square that was pretty populated, finished our gelato, and headed back to sleep. When we returned to our hostel, we had another new roommate, who was much nicer than the awkward one, and turned out to be Swedish. He was talkative and had great English. Turns out he was headed to a Music festival in Croatia, and was stopping in Venice along the way. Cool.