Venice and Rome

Well, I made it to Italy after a flight on Ryanair. Their planes are pretty much public buses in terms of their feel. The seats don't recline, theres no airsickness bag (I guess you just unload on the floor, much like a public bus, but I don't know much about unloading on a bus), but they do get the job done.

I stayed one night in a single bed in Mestre, which is on the mainland directly across the lagoon from Venice. The hostel was a nice place to crash, and I woke up early to make my way into the city. It turns out that its a small world because I ran into a friend (Greg's roommate Kathleen, plus her friend Birgitte) randomly at the station while I was waiting for Jeff, pretty crazy eh?

Jeff made it no problem, and we checked into the BaxPax hostel (hard to find, their sign was 1 inch by .5 inch) and woke up Peter and Magda. We all went out to check out the city itself, which is like a fantasy come true. All the buildings look like they would have hundreds of years ago, and the small amounts of modern looking buildings stick out like sore thumbs. We took the Vaporettas (water buses) all around the first day, down the grand canal and over to Murano to watch glass blowing. We also say the Basilica San Marco plus its associated Piazza (feeding the million+ pigeons there). We tried to go out at night but soon found that everythings closed around 1 or 1:30am, including the best "club" Venice (Casanova, also an 24hr. internet cafe... which was closed?!). The next day we took our time getting started, I met with Kathleen & Birgitte for espresso, then Jeff and I went to the Peggy Guggenheim modern art museum. The art was great, but the employees were even better (Chiara, the baggage-check girl, was gorgeous)... we met up with them later on in the evening for a drink :)

After two days in Venice, I left and made my way to Rome, avoiding an Italian railway strike by flying on a Ryanair public bus again. Rome has been a blur, I met up with Nathan minutes after checking in to the hostel. We ran a blitz on Rome yesterday and today, seeing such greats as the Coloseum (on a tour), the Forum, Palatine Hill, Circus Maximus, the Baths of Caracalla, the Trevi Fountain, Coloseum-after-dark, the Spanish Steps (all that in the first day), Vatican Museum, +Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Square, Pantheon, Piazza di Venezia (with the great big white monument that the Italian saw looks like a type writer... the tomb of the unknown solider is a part of it), and some cat sanctuary in the ruins. Whew. Time for a nap then off to party tonight!

I'm potentially off to some place near Siena (south of Florence) to meet up with the Tonini's tomorrow... depending on when I leave I may go attend mass at the Vatican before leaving. If I am meeting with the Tontini's, I'll be mountain biking from Florence down to wherever they are (like 40km, and no, I won't be bringing my big bag!!). Wish me luck.