It's time to do me!: Venice Carnival!

March 6, 2011

This morning we had to be at the train station at 7:30 to head off to Venice for Carnival!!! Marissa, Jackie (my one roommate from the other side), Harris (a boy who Jackie is friends with and who goes to school with us), and I were all going to the Carnival and once at the train station realized that there were a ton of other students going with us! We ended up taking these two huge coach buses and once on the bus they told us it would be about a 3 hour drive! Yikes! They played the movie the Italian Job on the bus ride there, but I couldn’t really see the t.v. that well and was kinda sleepy, so I ended up taking about an hour and a half nap. I honestly enjoyed looking out of the bus at all of the beautiful scenery that we were passing and it honestly didn’t seem that long before we were told we were in Venice! Our bus took us to this port where we got on a ferry that would take us to the other side of Venice – the side of the Carnival! Once we got close to the water I knew it was going to be a fabulous day because the sun was shining so bright and the water was the bluest blue!

The ferry ride was about 30 minutes and we got to sit on top of this ferry and see the water-side of Venice for the entire ride…I loved it! Once the ferry docked we were basically set free with a map and itinerary of the day, but we didn’t have to stay with the group, we just had to meet back at 7 to catch the ferry back to our bus. The first thing we wanted to do was buy a mask! It was Carnival which meant everyone was going to be dressed up and everyone was going to be wearing masks, and we wanted a cute, fun, pretty mask to wear around all day! There were masks EVERYWHERE! We had the biggest selection in the world and all of a sudden I looked down and ta-da! There mine was sitting there looking at me! It was this gorgeous blue and black mask with big dark feathers on the side of the mask with a blue flower in the center of the feathers…just my style and personality! Marissa found this super cute light pink and gold mask with a really tall feather out the top of her mask, and Jackie got a mask similar to the style of mine but in hot pink which is definitely perfect for her! Harris wasn’t really into any of the masks and we said he was just being too picky, but he said by the end of the day he would find one he liked.

Starting from the dock we realized the streets/walkways were PACKED with people. We started walking to Piazza San Marco which was where all of the action and events were taking place. But walking there we had to just follow the slow crawl of the crowd and be patient because nobody was going anywhere in a hurry today! But along the way we passed a ton of the “water streets” of Venice that had the infamous gondolas floating down them…so pretty! And it didn’t take long before we started to see all of the people dressed up! It was like Halloween for older people! We saw these people dressed up in all of the colors in the rainbow, just more elaborate of course. And there were all of these couples walking around in their masks and old renaissance style dress, even whole families! I couldn’t describe to you all of the couples that I saw because it would just be completely impossible, but they were normally matching and in some sort of theme, and everyone had masks on. The history behind the mask was that for one day out of the year the poorer citizens would be able to mix with nobles because everyone was masked and represented as equals. A few of my favorite dressed up groups were the Smurfs, the clan of Snow White (they even had the mirror on the wall with the “mirror mirror” phrase written on it in Italian), King Tritan who was jeweled head to toe and was just absolutely the most gorgeous man I had seen all day, and then of course me and Marissa’s favorite singing group who were stopped along the walkway and formed a circle playing music and singing this famous folklore song. Everyone around was singing the song along with the group, and Marissa and I were so sad that we couldn’t sing along, so I clapped along with them…it was fabulous!!

There was a big stage in San Marco across from the GORGEOUS cathedral on where a mask contest was held, along with other events throughout the day. We were really hungry so Marissa and I decided to just grab a sandwich because we didn’t want to sit down in a restaurant and miss out on the day’s events. Of course being on the water Venice is known for their seafood, so I got a tuna sandwich and it was the best tuna I have ever had in my entire life (which I’m sure I repeated over and over to Marissa as I was eating it)!! We went into a little store near the sandwich shop and admired all of the Murano glass in the store…Venice is known for the Murano glass which is just absolutely beautiful! After admiring we wanted to get back into the Piazza and continue on with the day’s celebration.

After walking around the Piazza and looking at people’s costumes we decided that maybe we should walk down along the water and see what else was going on in that direction. Like I said earlier the sun was shining so bright and it was such a beautiful day which made the water so shimmery and beautiful; I could have sat on the dock by the water all day and be just as content. But of course that wasn’t why we were here, so we walked along to see more people dressed up which is more fun that it may sound, and we passed more stands upon stands of masks…they are so beautiful I probably could have bought 10 and switched masks every half hour. It started to near 3 o’clock, so we made our way back to Piazza San Marco because we could meet back up with our group at 3 to go to a glass blowing demonstration at the Murano glass factory.

Once we assumed that everyone who wanted to come to the demonstration was there we made our way to the factory and as soon as we entered there was this massive green glass horse…it was so cool and we were only in the doorway! We headed up these stairs to the room for the demonstration, and as we walked up we passed this adorable glass clown who was holding glass balloons! Too cute! We crowded into the room and prepared ourselves as this guy introduced the glass artisan and explained the process of becoming a glass blower. In order to have the title of Murano glass, a glass artisan from Murano has to be the one craft and blow the glass, and if someone produced the same glass piece but wasn’t from Murano then it would just be called a really nice piece of glass…they’re serious about this stuff!

The glass blower had this long rod stuck into the fire and when he removed it from the kiln he worked extremely quickly as he rolled it on tables and spun it and let it hang in order to start getting the perfect form. He was constantly turning the rod though, and before we knew it, in one breath of air, there was a beautiful glass ball…but of course he didn’t stop there. Once he formed it a little more he actually cut the ball along with a small other tubular section of glass off the main part of the stick and stuck the bottom of the ball onto the end of the stick with the part that he cut sticking out the end. He then put this back into the fire to heat it up for just a brief time, along with another small stick with a ball of molten glass. He brought both sticks out and snipped a small portion of the molten glass and placed it onto the glass ball. With a really quick whip of the stick the piece of molten glass was now a handle on the glass piece, and with another snip he made a spout…it was a glass water pitcher! Everything the glass crafter did was so swift and so quick, but yet he was able to make such a beautiful glass piece in like 10 minutes. VERY impressive!!

Now that the demonstration was finished we were moved into a new room that has GORGEOUS pieces of Murano glass everywhere and the man from the previous room gave us more history and information about the Murano glass. He talked about the way the glass was cured and used by the artisans in a way that it doesn’t break as easily as other glass, and he demonstrated this to us by slamming a glass cup on the table extremely hard. He also explained that the gold flakes that they put on different things are 24K because anything less would eventually start to chip away after a while, but this way the gold will last as long as the glass. He also explained that the color of the glass is achieved by adding different minerals, the rarest of which being the red glass. He said that since the red glass is hard to find and is basically just sold in the area around Venice (or something of that sort) the red glass will always be a little more expensive; and when they mean expensive, they mean expensive…a set of two small, round glasses is 100 euro. Once he was done with his talk we were free two walk through the next four or so rooms that were filled with the different forms of glass that we were free to buy; they had anything from glass animals, to cups and plates, to necklaces and earrings, and basically anything glass you could think of. But my all time favorite glass thing they had up for sale was their chandeliers. Oh my were they gorgeous! Each and every chandelier is hand crafted and one of a kind and they are the most grand and interesting things you will ever see (too bad I wasn’t allowed to take pictures!!).

Eventually once you were done admiring we were free to leave and go back to the festival or do whatever we wanted, we just had to meet back at the dock at 7 to catch the ferry back to our bus. Now that Jackie, Harris, Marissa, and I were reunited again inside of the Murano factory we decided to stick together for the rest of the day. We all agreed to go back to San Marco because the Waltz was going to be happening by the stage real soon. We headed back in that direction (very slowly of course) and popped in and out of quite a few stores along the way and Harris finally bought a mask! He bought this really funky gold and black mask where the nose was long like a beak and curled down and out a little bit at the end…it was perfect! We tried getting up close to the stage, but the mass of people was just so outrageous, and we weren’t willing to pay 5 euro to stand inside this gate to have a better viewing. We stood around for a while when Jackie said she really wanted to get a drink and would be back in like 10 minutes, so Marissa and I stood by the gate and tried watching what was going on at the stage for a while and realized it was basically just all of the people we had seen walking around all day gathered inside of this big area to waltz..nothing too exciting really. But while waiting for Jackie and Harris to meet back up with us I got silly stringed twice!! It was too funny.

It didn’t take long and the two had found Marissa and I and we all agreed that it was starting to get chilly out now that the sun was going down, so we might as well go somewhere for dinner and then by the time we were done with dinner it would probably be nearing 7. We walked in the direction of the dock and down a side street to find a cute little restaurant. We found this restaurant that was displaying a “tourist menu” which usually means a full course meal that has preset choices, and usually isn’t that expensive. We went on inside because it seemed pretty nice and they had a seafood, meat, and vegetarian menu to choose from which suited all of us because Jackie is vegetarian, Marissa was dying to have seafood, and I really wanted something with meat. After ordering we were brought out the drink that came with the menu deal which was this pinkish sparkling wine which nobody liked except for me, so they all passed them my way. We got bread to start off with like usual, and the first course was brought out along with Jackie’s fettuccini because she decided against the menu deal. Harris and Marissa got some sort of salmon, while I got breaded mozzarella. I shouldn’t really be eating that much cheese like that, but it was so delicious! It basically was like one giant mozzarella stick. The second course for Harris and Marissa was mussels with gnocchi I believe, while I got tortellini with peas and meat…once again, super delicious!

As we were waiting for our third course, waiting, waiting, waiting, we saw this big group that started to pour into the restaurant and they didn’t stop coming…it was like a clown car! I swear there ended up being an extra hundred people in the restaurant in the matter of minutes. And all of the servers started bringing out their drinks and completely ignoring us. There was a server who came and took away Jackie’s plate and we reminded him that we were waiting on our next course. Eventually they brought out the third course and we immediately asked for our dessert and check, because we were starting to get in a bind for time! I know Marissa and Harris’s third dish ended up being some sort of white fish, but we had to scarf down our food so fast I honestly didn’t get a look at it. My third course was a piece of veal with potatoes and a ball of spinach. Even though we waited so long to get it, I still enjoyed every single bite, and it was now time to hurry up and eat dessert. Dessert ended up being some sort of white square that kinda had a jello texture with some cocoa sprinkled on top. Whatever it was, it was delicious and topped off a really nice meal (even if we were pressed for time)!

We hurried out of the restaurant even though we ended up getting slammed with ridiculous extra charges on our bill, but we didn’t have time to mess with it because we didn’t want to get left behind in Venice for the night! Harris really wanted a shot glass from a stand so him and Jackie stopped, but Marissa and I kept walking because we could at least tell the people from our travel company that they were on their way. We made it just in the nick of time and us girls were even able to get a couple pictures in front of the dark water before boarding the ferry. Once off the ferry we hurried to the buses because it was freezing outside, but as we were passing all of these stands I saw a mask out of the corner of my eye and I had to stop to just look at it real quick. The guy saw me pick it up and immediately gave me a discount and told me it could be mine for only 5 euro…that’s a crazy deal! I couldn’t say no to that, and figured even if I didn’t end up wearing it, it could still be a souvenir for someone when I get back home…it just was too beautiful to pass up!

We were back on the bus and everyone was ready to pass out…it had been a really long day! They started to play Casablanca on the way home and it was blaring so loud that I had problems getting to sleep, and I could steal hear the movie playing with my ipod headphones in! I must have ended up falling asleep for about an hour and a half, but once I woke up I just couldn’t get comfortable again and just waited for us to pull up near the train station and head home! I don’t even remember the walk home because it was so late and I was so tired, besides the fact that my feet were killing me! When me, Marissa, and Jackie walked in the door the house was silent, and we got our pj’s on, agreed that we had no energy to shower, and went to bed with no hesitation!

Our lovely ferry!

Marissa and I on the ferry to Venice!

The water was just gorgeous!

Venice in the distance.

The gorgeous architecture of Venice, including one of the famous little bridges that the gondolas are known to go under.

A Pirate Ship!

We could already start to see the crowds of the Carnival!

I found my mask and was ready to head off the San Marco for all the action!

Masked beauties :]

The rainbow!

One of many many gondolas!

The streets were PACKED.

A cute little family all dressed up!

The beautiful cathedral!

The cathedral was so large with an enormous line to get inside.

Me and King Triton..my favorite man of the day! He was decked out in jewels H to T!

This guy means business.

Three of the most gorgeous people I have ever seen!

People were throwing confetti everywhere!

The best tuna I have ever tasted!

The back of the cathedral...so big, so gorgeous!

The Snow White clan (even including the mirror on the wall!)

Smurfs!

This lady cracked me up! She was so decked out and so shimmery and so plump,
and I caught her laughing as she took a picture.

Our favorite musical and singing group! I clapped right along!

Everywhere you walked there were stands with masks.

More masks.

And a ton more of masks!

The Florian caffe is old and legendary in Venice where we saw a crowd of people dressed
up sitting inside. But don't even think about walking inside unless you want to pay a pretty
buck...their tiramisu was 11.50 euro!