Venice Carnevale!

So Saturday we woke up early to go to the Santa Maria Novella Train Station to go to Venice. I don't think I was prepared for how cold it was there. The bus ride was 4 hours and they played The Mask for us, which Ashley later figured out was because of the masks we were about to see in Venice. Clever.
They took us on a water bus to Piazza San Marco where the main celebration was, and the three of us right away found a restaurant where I got tea and lunch. Afterwards we started looking for masks. Ashley was pretty quick with her decision and bought a really nice red one, while it took me a couple more stores to find mine, which is gold and has a black feather.. Katie ended up going back to the first store to buy a blue one she knew she liked best. Afterwards, we walked to find the music and watched the people all dressed up come down through the parade. It was interesting, but not very exciting. I expected Venice Carnevale to be crazy with people drinking all day and dancing in the Piazza, but the cold weather was just not doing it for the majority of the people there I think. We tried taking a water bus to Murano to watch a guy blow glass but by the time we got there, after 4:00, everything on that island was closed, so we walked into a glass store and I bought a bunch of things for myself including a picture frame, bracelet, and earrings. Everything in there was so nice, I just kept wanting to buy things!

We took the water bus back to the Piazza, which by the way took almost an hour, and were SO cold that we ran into the first restaurant we saw---which happened to be somewhat fancy and a little overpriced. So unfortunate, since all I really wanted was pizza. This random guy tried to come into the restaurant and one of the waiters tried to tell him all the tables were "reserved" and the guy got angry and punched the door before leaving... it was a bit frightening. After dinner, we walked back to the Piazza and tried to have fun, but we were all so cold and I was feeling a bit miserable and not in a celebratory mood. Ashley and I had bought little bottles of wine because we are allowed to drink openly but we didn't end up buying more because everything was just so expensive. The music at the Piazza wasn't even that great, so we just wandered trying to find a bar where people seemed to be but then took the water bus back to the bus stop. I did take really nice pictures of Venice because I knew I'd regret it if I didn't. We also missed out on going into the Church in Venice because I learned about it in Art History and the inside is all golden mosaics and supposed to be very beautiful! The lines were sooo long though to get in, so we just didn't bother. On the way home, we ended up getting to see The Shawshank Redemption which I had only seen once before in high school so it was nice watching it again. Our bus made a rest stop so we didn't end up getting back home till 3ish! We were so tired and went to sleep right away after snacking.

Here's some pictures from Venice:

some of the more intense costumes

our masks!!!