Venice Carnevale!

So yesterday, I took a nice three hour bus ride to VENICE for the infamous Carnevale (that's Carnival in Italian)! I didn't really know what to expect, I heard from some people it's creepy, some people it's beautiful, some people said it was a huge party like Mardi Gras and others said it was a family-friendly festival. So I went in with an open mind and a sweeet mask that I bought in Florence. We got on the bus at 9 AM and arrived in Venice at around 1130-12. The sun was shining and the scenery was absolutely stunning.

After buying 3 euro boxes on vino blanco, all the PC girls (and were there a lot of us there!) took the waterbus over to Burano to see all the painted houses. The ride was long but we really got to see the whole city from the rivers. Fun fact I learned: Venice is a city built entirely on water. It is actually not one land mass but composed of hundreds of mini islands. They are connected by 409 bridges, I think I saw about 30 in my day there!

We had lunch in Burano, margherita and brie pizza, in a small cafe. Since everyone in the city was in San Marco square for the festival it was very quiet and a nice place to enjoy lunch. We then jumped back on the waterbus and attempted to head towards San Marco. Since the map was literally indecipherable we decided to just jump off at any stop and follow the signs to San Marco- apparently you can walk around all of Venice in 45 minutes so we knew we weren't far away. Also, we banked on the fact that everyone in the city was heading towards to festival and worst comes to worst- we just need to follow the masked people. 

Luckily enough, we found some intricately dressed people in almost immediately after found a piazza filled with tourists and locals all heading down side streets! We ended up in the square in no-time!

Rachel, Meg and myself posing with masked locals.

Then we just started people watching. Not everyone was dressed up, but there were some awesome costumes. Not only were there people dressed in elaborate dresses from Victorian times or Zorros running around in capes, the Venetians use this as their Halloween! We saw bunnies, fairies, snails, a ghostbuster, Teletubbies, Shrek & Fiona, fat ladies and other hilariously dressed oddballs. We spent a lot of time wandering and observing and shopping and laughing. It was definitely a good time. 

Around seven we got hungry and found a small restaurant where we were rushed in and out in under a half hour! We then got gelato and shopped in all the Murano glass stores, all wishing we had more money to spend on the beautiful trinkets. 

I just thought this was gorgeous!

We then decided to wander over to the Rialto Bridge since it's famous and beautiful and even though it was getting dark out- how many times are we going to be in Venice. By this time, the whole city was alive. Many more people came out in masks and you could tell the parties were starting all around. Once we crossed the bridge, we heard live music blasting. We followed the sound and found this small piazza with a stage, a live band (playing American music) and dozens of people jammed in dancing and drinking. How could we pass that up? We stayed for a good while, making idiots of ourselves dancing around in our masks. It was so fun! After we left we caught the waterbus back to Tronchetto to meet up with our tour guides and get on the bus. We thought we were going to be really late, but ended up being one of the first ones on the third and last bus (so, the earliest of the latecomers, if you will). We ended up having to wait for AN HOUR AND A HALF after departure time for two girls who were drunk and lost in the city. It was horrendous. I was livid but luckily fell asleep on the ride home. We got back to Florence around 3 AM and didn't get back to sleep until around 430 AM. Needless to say, I slept until 2 PM this afternoon but I'm finally rested enough to do some homework and cleaning!