February 2

Island of Burano, off of Venice. What. A. Day. Today, we traveled to Venice (3.5 hour drive by bus from Florence) to see the city while it celebrates Carneval. Carneval is a celebration before Lent where the Venetians dress in masked costumes and par-tay. You can imagine my disappointment when the weather had a 100% chance of rain. And rain it did. It truly rained the entire day. And I'm not talking a sprinkle here and there kind of rain. I'm talking a wind-tunnel, "Is my umbrella about to break?," "Can anyone say 'flood warning' in Italian," "Can someone tell me if that's frostbite on my fingers?" kind of rain. The streets were littered with the metal frames of broken umbrellas--which actually was quite funny. Despite the weather, I loved the city! Just something about it. It's very secretive--lots of alleyways, tucked away restaurants, residents hidden behind masks, and hard-to-reach islands. The water taxis were a bit confusing, but very fun to ride from island to island. For lunch, we were hungry and cold and warmed up with pizza. But for dinner, my-oh-my was that a fabulous meal. Kelsey found a restaurant listed on a budget-eats list online (yes, Venice is ex-pen-siveeee) called Taverna del Campiello Reme that boasted a great happy hour deal--what the Italians call "aperitivo."  Dodging behind alleyways, we finally found the un-marked restaurant and Venetian standing outside applauded us for finding it. Upon ordering a drink (I got a peach Bellini) for 8 euro, we could eat at the buffet for no charge. Polenta, pasta, mushroom risotto, an assortment of crustinis. The ambiance couldn't be beat. It reminded me of a rustic, wooden barn--what copycat restaurants in the states strive to be, Taverna did effortlessly. We shared a table with a group of young Venetians. I would love to go back to Venice. Sometimes it was too hard to see the sights with an umbrella and hood blocking what was left of my field of vision. But, it was beautiful to the point that it seemed unreal.