Maze of Venice, and FLOOD!

Poor Venice. It really is a city that I don’t think will last much longer. It’s only industry is really tourism, and the prices are so outrageous, I don’t know how much longer it can manage charging tourists so much. So I decided definitely that I will be leaving for Florence in the morning. Venice though is really a maze of roads and alleyways and DEAD ENDS. We hit so many it became funny. It was nice though just to look at all the places. Fortunately, Venice is really just that–the canals and everything are what draws the tourists. We went to the main Square of St. Marco’s to have a look inside. It was nice, and the square had tons of pigeons. Luke insisted in buying a packet of corn, and he had a blast having nasty pigeons crawl all over his arms and head. Cheap thrills I guess. Anyhow, it was hilarious in the evening, because after all day tromping around Venice, we decided to go get some dinner and head back to the square to catch a boat back to the hostel. On our way though, we found ourselves trapped. Just by water though. Venice as you know is just built on reclaimed land, and is sinking all the time. Tonight however, the water trapped us in the middle of the square with no where to go. I felt like I was going down with the Titanic because there was a violin playing at a restaurant nearby, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the situation. So we had to take off our shoes and socks, and go around to the other side to get some dinner. Of course the other side had no flooding, and I was walking around barefoot. The people coming that way of course stared at how skanky I looked with my bare feet and shopping bag. Even some Japanese tourist said in Japanese, ‘oh my goodness, they’re barefoot…’ so of COURSE I replied in Japanese back to them and I said, Yes, because it’s flooded on the other side! So, they were shocked and I guess thought it was funny that some random white boy spoke their language. So, we got dinner, and headed for ANOTHER ICE CREAM, and back to the hostel.