ciao bellos!

Apologies for not filling you in sooner about Italy. My procrastination (as has been the subject of this blog at times) and my sore-just-started-bikram-yoga body has kept me with jello limbs and an all too clear mind (ha!) But here's a little of what happened in Italy.

Rick and I started out in Venice. From the airport I thought I had figured where we were going, but realised we got on the wrong bus. Fortunately it took us where we wanted to go but in a roundabout way. Anyway during this hour long bus ride, Rick offered his seat to a fellow and I got chatting with him and his wife, who were returning to Italy from Sydney (yes, a two day trek for them). They offered us some espresso to thank Rick and two days later we end up in their house in Trent. But I'm getting ahead of myself a little.



Venice is beautiful - narrow winding streets that could take you nowhere and everwhere. It's easy to get lost, something Rick and I didn't mind...unless I was hungry. Rick made sure to have some emergency food in his backpack because, though I tried to exhibit some maturity and self-control, I turn vicious when hungry + tired.

Rick and I spent two nights/days in Venice. I booked our accommodations the day before we left, which remained our only pre-booked accommodations for our 9 night stay in Italy. It was very good accommodations for the very low price we paid for it though I wasn't sure if it was very good or if I was prepared for anything thanks to the many youth camps and church retreats I've been to. Since there were a couple of unexpected towns/cities we went to, it's a good thing our itinerary was quite flexible.



We spent the two days in Venice exploring the long narrow passageways that lead to more winding streets, seeing what interesting place it would take us to next. There are a lot of things one can do in Venice; Rick and I opted to walk around, eat, sit in piazzas and watch well dressed Italians and confused tourists, eat gelato (which is probably the only consistent thing we did in Italy) and drink espresso instead of going into the museums and galleries. There's nothing like the gelato and espresso in Italy.



Venice is busy, overrun by camera happy tourists like me. Even in its busyness though, it was a city of ghosts. An old city with old buildings, each filled with centuries old stories. It's no wonder many artists have found inspiration here. Given the time, I'm sure we would have tapped into some of the Venetian inspiration - alas, two days is enough to see the city, but not enough to truly explore it.