The beginnings

Having Kristina over for a quick breakfast at Lots of Lox with my dad made me much less nervous.  She helped me do some last minute packing, cracked a few jokes with my dad, and then once she left we headed off to the Miami airport. I had my last American coffee that I'll be having for a long time, and then at JFK I bought a black and white cookie for the plane ride to Venice just in case I was feeling homesick and wanted to eat my feelings.

I won't bore you with all of the mundane transportation details. Besides getting dripped on by the AC on my New York flight, and a nerdy study abroad student (also from NY) hitting on me from the seat in front of me the whole way to Venice, traveling was not as bad as I expected.

Arriving at the Marco Polo airport in Venice was a joy. I got my bags, had to take a 30 minute bus down to the Piazzale Roma, which was actually so relaxing. The surrounding town was so quaint, lots of farmland, but you really get a sense of holy crap I'm in Italy.  From the Piazzale Roma I took a vaporetta, which is essentially a water taxi, to the Accademia stop in Venice. I took the "scenic" route suggested by my professor and it was well worth it.

You'll probably hear me say this more than once in these posts: Venice looks fake. Like, Disney World fake. There can't possibly be a functioning city, with every day people with every day problems, that looks like this. All of those postcards and corny paintings you've probably seen a million times are not touristy over exaggerations - they are the real deal.  Here are some pictures I took to prove it.

Mom, since I know you're about to complain, click on the pictures to see them larger! :)

That little teeny door at the end of this dead end street is the door to my apartment! The first time I was taken here by my roommate, and with his assistance we managed to find it, but it took about half an hour to try to find on my own. Venice streets are not in any kind of logical order and maps are usually totally inaccurate for the more local areas. Although today I did some exploring and think I found an easier way to reach it, thank goodness. 

This is a bridge I cross to get to my apartment. It really looks like this here.

One of the many winding streets in the area where I live. No one uses dryers in Venice, everyone still uses the old fashioned clothes lines. I think it makes it that much more picturesque. 

Picked up some gelato while I waited for one of my roommates to arrive at the boat stop. As wonderful as this picture looks, I think it was from one of the more tourist-trap gelato places along the canal. I'll definitely let you know when I come across the good stuff.

Some seriously eclectic Venetian glass chandeliers in my apartment. Although judging by the rest of this building I'm prettyyyyy sure they're knock-offs of the real deal. 

Just some more holy cow this is actually what it looks like here pictures.

Well, there ya have it for now. I'd promise I'll update regularly but I had to buy a wi-fi USB card from an Italian phone company, and not only did it cost me 49 euros, but it's fairly slow and just by posting this I've already used 4% of my allotted time. This thing is supposed to last me for two months, but WE'LL SEE ABOUT THAT. I'll use the wi-fi at the building where I take classes if I can, but it's pretty far - several boat stops away, so I'm not always going to be able to (or want to) make the trek over there.  

Leave me a message! Calls and texts are expensive so it would be cool if you guys wanted to leave me some messages on here to communicate :)