Venezia

                                    Our second visitors being our cousins from Oregon have arrived and this month our journey is set for Venice (in Italy they call it Venezia). Before this we also did a second trip to Pompeii, and took a trip to Florence again, so my cousin Mati and I were exhausted. We took a plain to an airport right outside of Venice and took a bendy-bus (Mati and had a blast messing around on the moving platform) to get to the city. We spent quite a bit of time just finding the apartment we booked for these next three days, as my mom said "You can't get lost when you're on an adventure".... well... we got lost. Walking round and round in circles until we found out that we had passed it many times already. The landlord showed us the ropes on how to use the washing machine, what to use in the kitchen, etc and we put all of our baggage in a small corner so she could finish cleaning while we were out. Another adventure beginning for the day, unfortunately we didn't get to take a boat ride through the narrow canals tight between the buildings, we just walked around and saw what there was to see. That day seemed like it lasted long... All we did was walk here and there until we were super hungry. Some of us split up and our group went to find a place to eat and sit. We found a cheap (but very good) sandwich place and bought sandwiches for the five of us for only 7 euro (we each had two). Then we rested our feet while eating and sitting on the steps that lead down to the water. There were schools of shiny silver fish and a small white crab nearby the steps underwater and this entertained us until we had to leave. Funny.... I never thought any creatures could live in the canals because of the pollution. The next day we took a water bus to an island called Murano, a place of mass production of Venice's famous glass. There were shops and shops full of glass figures and vases etc., and my cousin Mati and my aunt Kat kept wanting to go in every store, they slowed us down quite a bit (we didn't mind all that much) and we were hungry again so we kept walking along the canal until we found another sandwich place (this was even tastier than the last place) and ate until the others caught up again. Meanwhile we were sitting on some stairs and studying the huge glass sculpture as big as a car (a jetta VW to be more precise). After our short trip to that island (we also purchased some souvenirs) we headed back towards the apartment as the Stone family split from us and went to go see some synagogues. We headed to the apartment and I stayed while the rest of my family headed to the grocery store to bring back some dinner supplies. Next day was our day to finally go home (Naples) and at four in the morning Mati woke me up to hug me goodbye (i was excited because a hug from Mati is as rare as my grandpa liked his burgers) and her and her mom left for the airport to fly back home. We all awoke at six in the morning and walked to the bus stop where we waited a half-hour in the wind, rain, and cold. We took the bus to the airport outside of Venice only to find out that our flight was canceled due to a strike (as always). Then we checked our booked flight and found out that the flight we booked was actually for April sixth (the next day) so we had to take a bus back to the train station and wait for a train that stopped at every stop along the way to Naples. To top it off, all of us were assigned seats that were all spread out so we traded seats with some people but had to move every time the train stopped.