THERE ARE STREETS MADE OF WATER😱😱😱

That was the most awesome thing ever. Second to maybe only people living in caves for thousands of years. Like, who says, "I need to build a city! Hey look there's a group of tiny islands over there let's stick giant trees into the water and make a platform out of hundreds of trees that way and then we'll build our city on top of that!" I mean, it's not the most obvious decision. Which is probably why Venice is so unique. It's not very often that people think outside the box that way.

SO CUTE!!!

Anyway, as you've probably inferred from my previous post, my title comes from the first thing that I said when we arrived to Venice. Over the course of our next five days in the city we went to a few museums and walked around and enjoyed the sights. To be honest, the museums we saw weren't all that great, but the food was AMAZING, the views gorgeous (as those of you who have seen my Instagram are aware), and it was really fun to visit with our relatives in the city. See, my uncle Chuck (my dad's eldest brother) is married to my aunt Gioia, who is Italian, and her brother Alessandro (Sandro) and his wife Roberta (Robi) live in Venice with their kids Filipo and Margerita (who are 17 and 14). (Yeah that was a lot of parenthesis in one sentence. Sorry about that.) So we got to visit with them, and then Chuck, Gioia, and my cousins Giulia and Ella came in from Milan over the weekend.

As you can see Milan and Venice are both in northern Italy.

Of course, the first place we really went to was Piazza San Marco, the famous plaza with the clock tower, the Basilica San Marco, the Doge's palace, and iconic winged lion statue(s). Unfortunately we didn't go inside the Basilica and it was under restoration, but oh well. The lion statues were everywhere, constantly being used to symbolize the city, but the most famous one was on top of the column in the piazza. 

So picture perfect!

The Doge, by the way, was the elected leader of Venice who got the grand honor of wearing a really, REALLY ridiculous looking hat FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE. 

And, of course, running the city and stuff like that, but come on, you cannot honestly tell me that the hat is not the first thing you notice. Guess you'd be able to tell him apart as soon as he entered a room. Anyway, Venice was considered a republic, but the only people who got to vote were wealthy male members of aristocratic families. Anyway, we got to see his palace, which was very interesting because it was not only the home of the Doge and his family, but it was also the political center of the city. So we got to see how the Venetian government worked, because all of the government officials' offices and meeting rooms were housed there. And, of course, to top it all off the attic and basement of the palace were the city's prison! Believe me, you did NOT want to land yourself in prison in Venice, because the cells were extremely small and cramped, the treatment was poor, and whenever the city flooded the poor guys in the basement would get most of the water. Imagine having to stay in wet clothes for days on end! Sounds terrible. 

The Doge's palace.

So the Doge's palace was pretty fun. Another place that we went, which was my favorite by far, was Murano. Murano is one of the islands of Venice (it's made up of hundreds, including one which is completely dedicated as a cemetary) which is famous for its glass blowing. One hardly ever comes across traditional glass blowing; I don't think it's even possible to find in the United States, and it's extremely rare even in Europe. Originally one of the doges (I'm not quite sure which) moved all of the glass blowers of Venice to the island of Murano for fear of fire. Now glass blowers continue to work there, using original methods. It's not even possible to go to a glass blowing school or anything like that; learning is only possible by apprenticeship and their techniques are a closely guarded secret. So we walked around the island for a while and looked in the shop windows, and eventually decided to go to one place to watch professional glass blowers do their work. It was AMAZING. They formed the glass really quickly, and we even saw the guy make a glass horse in probably a minute and a half. We all really enjoyed that.

Then on Friday night my cousins Giugi and Ella arrived! We had a lot of fun with them on Saturday and Sunday. It's funny though, my brother and Giulia have a really close friendship but every time they get together they just play video games on the various Apple products lying around the house. The current fad is Minion Rush; last time it was Candy Crush. Maybe that's the key to a great relationship--play video games together all the time. ;D 

What else was fun in Venice? Gelato. We literally had gelato every single day, and on Friday I tried the best dark chocolate ice cream/gelato that I have ever had in my entire life. It's a pretty indulgent habit, but boy, do Italians know how to make good ice cream. They invented gelato, after all. 

Anyway, those were the highlights of our trip in Venice. We also went to the Naval History Museum, which wasn't nearly as interesting as we expected. My parents were going to have me write about how "Venice conquered the seas," and although we didn't enjoy the museum as much as we would have liked, the answer to that question was given as soon as we walked through the doors. 

STUFF LIKE THAT.

Overall, Venice was a lot of fun. And seriously, it still stands: THERE ARE STREETS MADE OUT OF WATER. AND THAT IS AMAZING. On Monday morning we got up and said our last goodbyes to the city (we had said our goodbyes to our family the previous night) and walked to the bus stop on the mainland. We then took a bus to the place where we had parked our car two weeks previously, on our way to Istanbul, and picked it up and drove to our next destination: Florence.