1/24/2005: Home Sweet Home!

Sorry I haven't been here since Thursday, but haven't had any Internet access. Suffering withdrawal...just kidding. Kind of.
Anyway, Friday morning we left Rome for Venice, which is an extremely beautiful place, if a bit smelly (if you get past the occasional whiff of something resembling rotten eggs, you'll be fine--I've heard it's a ton worse in the summer though). However, I guess you could say I am a bit of a germophobe, so Venice is not the ideal place for people like that, what with the probably polluted water (it's so pretty though--a very nice bluish-green) and the pigeons everywhere, especially in St. Mark's Square. If you don't want to feel threatened by pigeons flying at you from all directions, then avoid walking through the middle of it if at all possible. Oh, and because it's on water, the wind can be kind of cold, and the weather was cold enough already, although I think from what I heard the weather was much colder and in general worse at home. We were lucky that it never rained on us while we were there. I can only imagine how much more beautiful and pleasant it must be in the summer there (minus the tons and tons of people and the smell).
We didn't stay in St. Mark's very long, but the church itself is beautiful. I've heard it's even better when it's lit up on the inside, but they only do that for a certain number of hours during the week or something, and I didn''t get to see that.
Saturday we went to Murano, where they make the famous Venetian glass, and let me tell you, that stuff is absolutely, incredibly amazing (amazingly expensive too, but we''ll get to that in a minute). One of the workers made a vase and a horse figurine in the ten minutes that we sat there and watched, and it was so awesome. My mouth was just gaping open in awe of what he was doing. That was probably one of my other favorite parts of the trip. Of course, they have to let it cool for a certain period of time, and then it gets gilded (they put 24 karat gold on it) and enameled. The end result is breathtaking. (I know I've used all these adjectives already, and although I'm a creative writer and I should have more of them in my vocabulary, no others are coming to mind right now, so please forgive the repetitiveness.) The showrooms there are filled with colorful glass creations--shot glasses, vases, sculptures (including a really big, really cool sculpture of some turtles swimming--only 87,000+ Euros (yes, you did read that right), jewelry...there was just so much to take in. The glass is harder to break because of the way they make it (I think that's right, but I could be wrong). When our tour guide was showing us some of the pieces, he was just kind of throwing them around, and we were all pretty nervous about that. Even though they may not be as easily broken as regular glass, we were all still very wary of breaking anything, because as I mentioned, things are very expensive there. A small shot-glass sized chalice that I wanted was 96 Euros. I kind of wish I had bought it because it was so pretty, but it was so pretty that I think I would have been afraid to use it--after all, how do you wash this stuff? It's not like you can probably just use dishwashing detergent on it--at least I don''t think you can. We were all terrified that we would break something, so the "Look, but don't touch" rule was very much in effect. We were also informed that things were so expensive because lots of pieces break while they are being cooled, so only a small number of pieces exist compared with all the ones they've made. I wish I could have taken pictures of some of the stuff in the showroom, but they didn't allow it sadly. Oh well, you'll just have to go see it for yourself--I highly recommend it.
We had a long, long day yesterday. I woke up about 5:10 a.m. Italy time and didn't go to sleep until 2:30 this morning EST time, so I had a nice 27-hour day. Don't know how I'm awake right now, actually--I think the trip screwed up my sleep schedule or something. I just hope I'm not going to become an insomniac. Yikes! Anyway, a lot of the group split off from us at the airport--some went straight home from Dulles, others left with friends or family who had met them there. At any rate, I have never known a group of people so glad to see home again when we got back at 10 p.m. EST last night (so weird dealing with two different time zones--much less two different continents--in one day). So weird, but I have to admit, I was more than hyped about returning to normal life. I love traveling, but I could never make a life of it as I once thought I could. Too much time spent in strange situations, or being cramped on a plane (especially during turbulence--we experienced some nasty stuff on the way home yesterday) or bus can make you a bit crazy, to say the least, so returning home was very very wonderful. Also, the abundance of English spoken and the overflowing amounts of free water available in all restaurants is very very welcome too. Let me explain: the tap water in Italy isn''t great (well, it's not really great anywhere), so you end up buying bottled water, and that gets pricey after a while (make sure that you get "acqua naturale," and not water "with gas," a.k.a. carbonated water--that stuff is SO NASTY). The strange thing was how much more it cost some places than others. I asked one of the guys in the group what he missed most about home, and his answer was "English, free water and rap." I have to admit, I am just now realizing how wonderful and glorious free Internet is. I am ashamed of how much I spent on Internet in Italy.