Venice

Venice is for lovers. It's such a beautiful romantic city, people seem surprised I am traveling alone. And you know what, for the first time here, I am getting that longing feeling, as I watch all the other touristy couples. I just wish I had someone, someone to scream at in public for getting us lost. Or someone to buy me a horrifically overpriced fugly mask and then take even fuglier photos of it in front of a random landmark. Or someone to help me struggle with the babystroller up over the millions of cobblestone bridges. Someone to keep shrugging everytime I asked them where they wanted to eat. Someone to give me loud, pompous and inaccurate historical information viewpoints on architecture during the sunset at St Marks. That's amore.

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Venice is like Disneyland, it's so touristy and unreal. The tall narrow streets look like an opera backdrop.

The locals have a name for me here. "PARIS HILTON!"

The hostel is magical and by magical I mean it took me a good hour to find it in the maze of streets, lugging my suitcase in the 30+ midday heat. I even had BACK SWEAT. But it's in a beautiful old Venetian building with terraces and chandeliers and all old original fixtures and a big pool table (billardo anyone?). Every night is like a slumber party as we all converge in the common area and sip cartons of grown up juice at cocktail hour and discuss conservative cultures, Gossip Girl, and recipes.

In the evenings we accidentally discover the nightlife. Walking past a restaurant one night the waiter calls us inside, "Here, you drink for free!" Well buenas noches. Prosecco, Campari, grappa. Here in Venice their local drink is Spritz. It's pretty lame. We meet the richest man in town on the way to the discotheque. Italians dance funny.

Today was beautiful. I managed to see the sunrise. Me and five other cheap travellers at the hostel decide to split a gondola ride six ways. We decide not to bargain, our only deciding factor was determining how hunky the gondolier was. Daniele has been in the business most of his life, and as we glide through the canals we pass by his younger brother and his father, also working the boats. I ask if I can try rowing us - after all I've been getting fully RIPPED in my months of farm work - but he says no.

From there I take the vaporetto to Murano, the glass island and get to watch a glass blowing demonstration. On the way back I hop out at the San Michele stop. The Island of the Dead is the cemetery of Venice, and has tons of old crumbly graves. I'm the only tourist I can see for a while and I'm not even sure if vistors are permitted so I catch the next vaporetto back to the island.
I walk past a wedding leaving a church- it must be a famous family because the piazza is blocked off by Italian swat teams. I pass through an alley of them and they applaud. I get lost and find a teeny piazza with some little kids playing soccer and I end up setting down my purse and getting creamed by them for nearly an hour.

Here are some creepy puppets. Culture.