Venice: The Land of Vino, Gelato, and Pizza!

I don't know why, but it has been one of my lifelong dreams to go to Venice.  Maybe it's because of the similarity between a city surrounded by water where one gets along by gondola and the pirogues in the bayous of Dulac.











...Or maybe not...

 Traveling to Venice was the first time I was officially traveling alone, so I was a little nervous.  That, on top of Venice being one of the most confusing cities to find your way around ever.   I didn't know it, but Venice is an island, actually like 177 little islands with canals dug through them.  There are no cars on it at all and you get around by boat or walking.  The public transportation is called the Vaporetti and it is literally a water bus.  If arriving by plane, you have to take a bus to the closest place that vehicles can go, the Piazzle Roma and then get on a Vaporetti.  

Here's the Vaporetti coming down the canal.

Then, it stops in front of you and you just hop on (well, for 6 euro or 32 euro for a 3 day pass)


Vendors all over were selling the Carnival masks.  They reminded me of the ones I see in new orleans except way creepier.  

My first day, I went on a boat trip to the three other neighboring islands near Venice:  Murano, Burano, and Torcello (you can see where they're at on this map).
The Island of Murano is known for its blown glass.  Back in the day, the glass blowers were exiled from Venice and put on this little island because the glass blowing would cause fires in the crowded city of Venice.  On Murano, we saw a glass-blowing exhibition:



After Murano, we went to the oldest island, Torcello, which is basically now just a quiet, nice park-like serene island with one of the oldest churches in Italy and some sweet old
 statues.

  After Torcello, it was another 15 minutes to get to Burano, my favorite of the three.  Burano is known for its colorful fisherman's houses along the canals as well as its' tapestries.  We went to a tapestry demonstration.  It takes this little old lady 10 days (!) to make one of these.  They were gorgeous, though.

All of Italy, and especially Burano had pasta of every single color combination possible.  I'll be the Jersey Shore cast would have gone crazy!  Especially on the little Italian flag colored bow-tie noodles. 

The hostel I stayed in was quite a unique experience and worthy of a blog in and of itself.  It was in an old museum building, the owner got arrested one night, I woke up to techno at 9am every morning, the people were amazing (especially my 2 aussie relocated in London who I tagged along with), and we made homemade authentic Italian pasta every night.  I loved it and hated it at the same time. 

The next day, I was so excited to meet up with Claire.  She's another Wash U law student who is studying abroad in Trento, Italy (I know, it's a hard life for us study abroad students).  She and I had an awesome day gallivanting around the streets of Italy stopping off for Spritz, Gelato, Pizza, Vin Brule (hot red wine with Cinnamon- sounds gross but is delicious), walking across bridges, taking a million pictures, getting comedically harassed by gondola men, and venting to each other about our experiences with the European law school system.  It was a great day and overall an amazing trip to Italy.
Some more random pics;  I could not get enough of it.

Halfsies done!

Thanks everyone for the well wishes for the half-marathon yesterday!  After 9 weeks of training, running along my river every day, one time in hail, a few times in rain,  and often times to quite interesting sitings, our hard work paid off as Margaret (my running buddy) and I crossed the finish line right in front the Monastery Jeronimos.  

Here, you can see the 25 de Abril bridge where we started and the track along the river where I did my training. 

It was a gorgeous day for running- 65 and really sunny- I have the horrible tan lines to prove it.   You really couldn't have asked for better running weather.  The crowds were cheering us on and there was live music along the route motivating us with their Portuguese accented American rock songs.    I distinctly remember hearing "I'm Walking (Running) on Sunshine" and getting a little extra boost in my step. 

Some differences from races I've run in the US: 
First, the race started at 10:30am- awesome!  I've been to races at home where I had to line up before the run was even up.  No one likes running 13 miles at that time, right?  Who does that?  It was quite nice to get a full 8 hours of sleep, wake up at a normal time and have breakfast before having to make it to the race start. 

Second, I think there were more people in this race than any races I've run in the US, probably for a few reasons.  First, there is a meia maratona (what I ran, a half-marathon, 13.1 miles) and then, there is a mini maratona (half of a half marathon, so about 6.6 miles), which about 80% of the people did.  It seemed like a big family event.  Old and young were out walking it.  A group of what I assume is similar to our girl scouts was pushing people in wheelchairs.  The prime minister if Portugal always runs the race too.  It's the largest half-marathon in the country and this was the 20th anniversary.  It seemed to bring out half of Lisbon and people from all over the world.  I even ran into 2 girls from St. Louis!  They saw my race shirt from the half-marathon in St. Louis and had actually run the same race there.  It's a small world, after all! 

Third, they didn't start us off staggered.  Usually in races, you line up according to how quickly you will be running.  Doing so allows the race to run smoothly without you having to dodge people who are going too slow or be in the way of those people who are going faster.  Well, they didn't do that here and it lead to an annoying walk run pace for the first 10 minutes when we were going over the bridge. 

Here, you can see how crowded it was trying to go over the bridge:

Oh, and one really cool thing.  Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea smashed the World record in the Half Marathon on Sunday, clocking 58:23 at the EDP Lisbon Half Marathon.  He ran it in less than an hour!  That means he ran less than 5 minute miles for 13 miles.   That blow me away and I think it's pretty cool that I was running in the same race as the guy when he broke the world record.  Maybe some of this racing karma spread to me :)

One thing you will only see in Portugal.  You can't really carry anything when you're running, so you are limited to a little band that holds your keys, money, and other necessities.  For one girl on our train, that was a pack of cigarettes.  All donned in her race gear and ready to run, she was sure to have her pack of cigarettes for the run.  13 miles can be stressful, you know. 

Thanks again to everyone for the motivation and support.  Also, to Margaret for being an awesome running buddy.  I see you other marathon trainers.  You can do it!