Venice (Oct. 9-10, 2010)

Venezia: a city of romance; a city of canals; a city of gondolas; a city of alleyways; a city in which to get lost. Venice is truly a beautiful city, and I am so thankful that I was given the opportunity to visit. 


I first visited Italy in 2004 with my family, yet we did not venture to Venice. We had plans to do so, but were so taken with the beauty of San Gimiagno that we decided to stay longer at Il Borgetto, rather than travel to Venice as scheduled. 


I next visited Italy with EF Tours in my sophomore year of high school. This time around, we did visit Venice! The most distinct memory I have of that trip is one my friends being attacked by pigeons in St. Mark's Square. We were doing a whirlwind tour (as I'm sure I've mentioned an annoying number of times), and didn't spend nearly enough time in the city. 

I was absolutely determined to visit Venice one again, and was given ample opportunity to do so during my semester in Florence. I was first given the opportunity to go through the student travel agency (FlorenceForFun), but due to timing issues, that didn't work. I was next given the opportunity to go with my school; that definitely worked! I was later given the opportunity to visit Venice with my parents, but more about that later.


Going to Venice with the Accademia Europea di Firenze was so easy. Like all school-planned trips, we simply met at the train station, and our transportation was waiting to whisk us away. We were all amazed at the city on the water, and took pictures every step of the way from the train station to the hotel we were staying at (Hotel Basilea). After settling into the hotel, we went as a group of 40 to several museums, including one on Leonardo da Vinci! It was really interesting to see his sketches turned into actual inventions! One hot chocolate later, we entered an amazing museum (Sala delo Scrutino) which had breathtaking paintings all along the ceiling of the second level. My neck began to hurt from craning my head backwards for so long!

It was Elsa's birthday on October 9, so we just had to celebrate it. I bought a bottle of Bellini to split with Elsa before our delicious dinner at improntacafe. I am still salivating (gross, I know) at how delicious that meal was. I had spaghetti carbonara (only one of my favorite pasta dishes ever), accompanied by vegetable tempora. There is nothing like coating and frying something to turn something from healthy to fattening, aka delicious.

After dinner, we went out to a bar and met up with the rest of the people in our program. It was a lot of fun, and I talked the bartender into giving Elsa many free shots/drinks, including a flaming shot of absinthe! She really wanted to go to a club for her birthday (it was only her 20th birthday), so we began the journey to find a club in Venice. I later found out that there is a grand total of TWO clubs on all of Venice! Luckily, we were able to find one, Piccolo Mondo. It was over-priced to enter, empty and dead in the beginning of the evening, too crowded by the end of the evening, and just not my scene. I would've left, but I promised Elsa that I would 'take care of her.' I say that in quotes because at the end of the night, Elsa was the one who led us home! She has an amazing sense of direction (direct contrast to me!).

As the evening wore on, I began to grow more and more weary of getting hit on by random Italian men, and my eye began to feel more and more irritated. I sat in a chair by myself waiting for my friends to grow tired of their new 'friends.' Eventually, one of them found me and said that she was ready to leave. Elsa's navigation skills are unparalleled and she led us home without any issues. Well, without any issues other than the increasingly painful sensation in my right eye.

By the time I got back to my hotel room, the pain was unbearable. I immediately took out my contacts and tried to flush out my eyes. I inspected  (I use this word because I was intensely looking at the contact lens for any rips or debris that would've caused the pain) the contact lens but found nothing. I tried to go to sleep, but the pain kept me awake. When I got dressed for Sunday's activities, the pain was simply unbearable, my eye was horrifyingly red and incredibly sensitive to light. If you're thinking what everyone else was thinking... I'll repeat myself, No, it didn't feel like 'pink eye'/conjuntivitis. I've had that in the past and know what it feels like. This was something entirely different.

I've had a ridiculous number of eye issues in the past, but this was without a doubt the most traumatizing.  My friends insisted that I show Dr. D my disgusting looking eye, so I did, with the intention that we could make a pit-stop at a pharmacy to pick up some eye drops. He agreed that I needed some eye drops and that a pit-stop could be made. Rather, a pit-stop could have been made, were pharmacies open on Sundays! I truly miss the convenience of 24/7 CVC & Walgreens. We rejoined the group and got on a water bus to head towards one of the islands of Venice... or so I thought! Dr. D had other plans, and when the water bus made it's stop at the hospital, I was informed that this was where I was getting off.

Despite my protests for hours on end, he maintained his position that I needed to be seen by a doctor immediately, and that he pulled rank and so I would be staying put. As a 21-year-old individual, it was fairly grounding to be told by an adult that I was to do something "because [he] said so." I thought that those days were long over. False statement. Long (yes, this story could be more drawn-out) story short, I had a massive eye infection from my contact lens in my right eye. The ointment that was prescribed to me by the emergency room doctor was later deemed to have been the worst treatment for my condition and the reason my vision had been reduced to blurred color. Two weeks later, and three bottles of antibiotic eyedrops later, my vision was all cleared up. Contact lenses will NOT be worn by me for the rest of my time in Italy.

Clearly, my time in Venice was dominated by my eye issue, so I felt it was necessary to return once more... with my parents. See this post for details on that trip to Venice!