Venice is Sinking, So Get There Quickly

Oscar commented on the last post that I must have done nothing in Venice. This is simply not true. I just wasn't ready yet to write about how incredibly awesome Venice is!
I left for Venice by plane on Friday morning and returned by train on Sunday. I flew with Ryan Air (really cheap European airline) so I was expecting the worst, but it actually wasn't that bad. The flight attendants were wearing tacky royal blue suits and the safety instructions were attached to the seat in front of you. Since Ryan Air is an Irish airline, all instructions were given in English first and then occasionally in Italian, so in case of emergency, all Italians die. Before boarding the plane, all the passengers lined up at the terminal. People pushed their way to the front of the line, as there were no assigned seats, so the first people in line get first pick. However, as soon as the doors opened, we were all shuffled into a bus, so those who were first in line in the airport were shoved into the back of the bus and were the last to get on the plane.
After arriving in Venice (the flight only took about an hour), we had the arduous task of finding our hostel. We started walking from a train station and ended up in the Italian suburbs. It was neat to see this kind of area in Italy, but after walking up and down the same street for a couple hours, it was no longer that charming. Bicycle seemed to be the main mode of transportation in the area and 70 seemed to be the average age. We didn't quite figure out right away that there was a sidewalk for bikes and a sidewalk for walkers, so cyclists rang bells at us and scowled at us as they passed. After asking a bunch of people for directions, we finally found our budget hotel, which was pretty nice, except for the 5 pound key we had to carry around (seriously, the key was attached to a big hunk of metal). The nicest part about the hotel was its proximity to the bus stop that took us into the main part of Venice.
All the sketchy traveling and getting lost was worth it once we got into Venice, because the city is gorgeous. I expected it to be smelly or for the water to be murky, but it was neither. Unlike Florence, it was not overcrowded and unlike Rome, it was very quiet. It's amazing how quiet a city can be without the noise of auto traffic. What's even more amazing is that there's an entire city built on water and the main transportation is boats and water taxis. We spent most of Friday wandering around the city, just taking it in. It's very calm, yet not boring, and there is plenty to do, but it's not overwhelming.
The bad things about Venice are that it is pretty expensive and pigeons attack. In St. Mark's Square, we went to a caffe to get coffee, but quickly left when we saw that espresso was 6 euros (it's usually 70 cents). Pigeons don't care about how expensive things are around St. Mark's because this is their main hang out. I had a handful of granola and was about to throw it to the pigeons when one jumped up on my hand to steal it from me. These pigeons are so fearless that you can walk up to them and pick them up (some kids were doing this and then throwing the pigeons). Once you feed the pigeons, they won't leave you alone for a while and will follow you, land on you, scratch you, etc. Some crazy tourists put granola on themselves and just stand there while the birds collect on them. This was funny to watch, but not to participate in. Pigeons are gross.
Though Venice does have designer stores and some random other shops (including a male cross-dresser store), most of the shops sell Venetian glass or masks. It gets pretty frustrating shopping for these things because it's hard to commit to buying something when you're not sure if the store next door has something prettier or better priced. I ended up with oodles of glass, my favorite purchase being a set of wine glasses I bought on Murano (the island of Venice where most of the glass is made). I carried my box of wine glasses around all of Saturday and when I got on the bus that night to go back to the hotel, I realized I didn't have them with me. It was 10:30 and the buses and water taxis stop running at midnight, so time was limited to look for them. Emma was so nice and ran off the bus with me to look for the glasses. We hopped on a water taxi and went to the last place we were in an attempt to retrace my steps. Amazingly, they were sitting in the bakery where I had left them, totally unharmed. What had happened was I bought a cookie, forgot all about the glasses, and left happy with the cookie. I am an idiot. We fortunately made it back in time to catch all the taxis and buses required to get to the hotel. Later, in the train station on Sunday, I bought an apple and left the wine glasses at the counter. Fortunately, Emma knew by this point that food distracts me from paying attention to anything, so she picked up the wine glasses and handed them to me just as I realized I had forgotten them again. I should never be trusted with valuable things, or if I am, I should be starved.
Other things I did in Venice included walking through St. Mark's Cathedral (another big church, woohoo), the Doge Palace (weapons rooms+prison+Bridge of Sighs+biggest oil painting in the world=loads of fun), going to Murano where they make a lot of glass (we saw a glass blowing demonstration. The dude has a cigarette in one hand and a red hot ball of glass on a stick in the other. He was bonkers!), eating an awesome fast-food joint called "Jumanji" that had bites taken out of the pizza (the pizza man claimed the oven had eaten it), drinking belinis (while doing this, a mouse ran into the bar we were at and hid behind the Coke machine. When someone tried to tell the bar owners, they didn't seem to care), and taking a gondola ride. The gondola ride was done last minute right before going to the train station, and it was totally worth it. I can see how it would be very romantic, but considering I was in a boat with 3 other girls and it was 10 in the morning, it was more just pleasant than romantic. The gondolier and his apprentice were both wearing the traditional outfits of striped shirts and hats. The apprentice was not the sharpest gondolier in the canal, because every time we asked him a question, he got it wrong, and the older gondolier would sigh with exasperation and say, "No, Michael, that's wrong, again! The canal is 3 meters deep, not 1." It was pretty easy to forgive Michael for his blunders, as he was very adorable.
Venice is a lovely city and 2 and half days there was the perfect amount of time. If I had stayed any longer, I would have no money and oodles of glass.