Venice: Everything I Hoped For

Venice was fantastic. Ana and I were only in the city for about 7 hours, but it was a 7 hours very well spent. We arrived via train, and our only goal in mind was to visit Piazza San Marco, or Saint Mark's Plaza. Other than that, we just wound our way through the old, curvy streets that cross over the canals. The streets were very narrow, and for September, there were a good amount of tourists. We thought of taking a gondola ride, but decided that our experience was full enough without perpetuating that tourist trap.
Here is me feeding the pigeons. They have actually stopped selling bird feed in the square, so we had to take a piece of bread from the restaurant to feed the birds. The only thing we could think is that the store owners and locals are tired of all the pigeon pleasantries left behind.



Here is me sitting in the Acqua Alta (high water) library. When high tide comes, I guess the water actually rises high enough in some places to enter the stores, like here. This bookstore had a lot of cool pictures and paintings of Venice.

Ana and I standing on one of the many bridges that cross the canals. There is one large canal that cuts its way through the city, and there are countless miniature canals.


While all of this was great and extremely memorable, I think the main memory I will have from my trip will be from Ana's grandparents. They live in a little town outside of Verona; it is about an hour train ride to Venice. We stayed at their place for 2 nights, and on the second night they took us to a great Italian restaurant that was very authentic and did not have the high price tags of the touristy Venice restaurants. It was cool to hear Italian being spoken.

The memory I will always have is of her Grandma trying to say my name. She could not for the life of her say "Chase." I realize that it is a very American name, and I have realized it more after being here for some time. She would try and try, saying things like "Chin, ch-ch-ch, shirk, cirque, chet, shay, cisk, shhhhh, etc.," but she could not get it down. It was pretty funny.

They were nice people, and they had a huge dog named Blackie. I thought to myself that this name would not be very well thought of in America. Additionally, their first dog was named Blackie. So, they would refer to Blackie, but then have to clarify that it was the first or the second Blackie. I think a new name would be easier, but who am I to second guess their naming system.