After a week of trying to recover from the exhaustion of our first 10 day break, we were all excited to go to Venice, Italy for the weekend to celebrate Carnavale! But first we had school (such a buzz kill) and we met our new teacher, Kent Nakamoto (head of the marketing department at VT) who was going to teach us Marketing Research for 3 weeks. We also had our first midterm on Thursday in the class that we started on Monday… talk about fast paced! We also celebrated Valentine’s Day on Tuesday! Since we couldn’t spend it with our valentines in the United States, we decided to do a secret valentine among most of us in the Montarina! The rules were simple; everyone drew a name out of a hat and then bought that person a gift under 5 CHF and then after dinner we all put the presents in the middle and you had to grab yours! I got a bottle of wine which was perfect for the weekend! It was a great way to spend Valentine’s Day with everyone!

 Surprisingly, by the end of the week we were dying to get out of Switzerland and go to Venice! After a very short day of school on Friday, we packed and got ready for the weekend and then headed off to the train station…. And then problems began. First we get to the station and realize our train to Milan is currently 50 minutes LATE! Ughhh! This meant we had to change our seat reservations for our other train from Milan to Venice because we were going to miss our original connection. After we sorted that mess out, I realize that we should probably figure out our whole apartment situation like how do we check in, do we need to call the owner, etc. So after taking quite some time to find the number of the owner, Olivia makes the call to find out that they have CANCELLED our reservation!! Now what are we supposed to do?!! We are about to get on the train any minute now and we have no place to stay!! We frantically try to figure something out but that proved to be quite difficult without any internet. And to make matters worse, it’s not just like a few of us had no place to sleep…. 15 of us had no place to sleep. Great. But thank goodness that Alex has a phone plan and could call his brother, who became our hero! By the time we got off the train in Venice he had somehow found us an apartment to stay at right in the middle of Venice! Perfectttttt!

 After we got off the train, we walked outside to start our journey to the apartment and we greeted with the most beautiful view of Venice! This was definitely the prettiest place I’ve seen immediately getting out of the train station! We started our way to the apartment but we weren’t exactly sure where to go so we ended up walking around for about an hour -____- And since there is really no nightlife at all in Venice, the streets/ alleys were pretty scary at night because they were deserted. But we finally made it! After Florence we figured that 15 in a 5 bedroom would be no problem and it actually worked out wellll… for the people not sleeping on the floor :) Once we were settled in we went and explored around Venice a little and realized that our apartment is about a five minute walk to San Marco Square where all the action of Carnavale was going on! How perfect! Afterwards we got dinner and one of the most annoying things about restaurants in Italy is that even though you don’t “have to” tip them… a lot of restaurants will charge you cover charge (for basically sitting there) and a percentage of a service charge …. So your 6 euro meal becomes almost a 10 euro meal -____- We tried to find somewhere to go out that night but ended up just back at the apartment because there was nothing to do! We all just hung out and enjoyed each other’s company :)

 The next morning we got up and met some of our friends in the San Marco square. It was BEAUTIFUL out! The sun was shining and it was the perfect temperature out to be frolicking around outside! We walked around looking at everyone’s beautiful and intricate costumes and masks! Carnavale is really a mix between Mardi Gras and Halloween in US. Along the way each one of us found a mask that fit us perfectly! Mine was red and silver with red feathers coming off the side! I love it! But after unfortunately getting separated from a handful of people, we headed to Murano, the glass blowing island of Venice. It was about a 35 minute ride by a very shaky water taxi, but when we finally got there we were able to go to a show room and see how they make the glass figurines and plates, etc. We walked around for a little and we finally met up with the other group!! That night we headed back to the main island, grabbed dinner at an osteria (our favorite!) where we got a pasta dish, meat dish, a side and water for 15 euros! Gahhh these deals get us every time! That night we ended up hanging out at the apartment again with a little trip to the San Marco square.

 The next morning we woke up early and left for the Venice train station which took us about half the time to get there since we actually knew where we were going this time! Luckily, we were able to hop on an early train back to Lugano. I loved the atmosphere of Venice, and even though there wasn’t a lot of night life it’s so cool to say that I went to Venice, Italy for Carnavale! It was such a beautiful city and I hopefully I make it back there again! Now we are preparing to go back to Italy this weekend! Ciao Romaaaa! :)

Xoxo,

Katie