Eurotrip: Venice (and some Mainz)

Hey guys. I have been really bad about updating you, which is bad for me now cuz I have two weeks of awesomeness to blog and it's a lot of information. Here goes.

So Jana and I did a two week tour of Europe. Well, a small part of Europe. We went through Venice, Florence, Rome, and Athens. It was amazing! I'll try to keep the blog posts succint but we'll see how successful I am at that. So, Venice.
Getting to Venice was kind of an adventure. Because Munich is no fun to fly in and out of, we went up to Mainz to fly out of Frankfurt Hahn. We knew it was Carneval season, we just didn't know Mainz enjoyed Carneval so much. We also didn't count on Rosenmontag. I'll get to that. So we get in on Sunday, crash with our CouchSurfer, and decide to walk around a little bit cuz it was still early. We ended up walking into this massive celebration, complete with the weirdest costumes, a live band, and lots of carneval rides and lights. It was sensory overload. I had no idea what to do with it. So cool to see. The live band was really good too. We retired early cuz everything was winding down and it was a Sunday night.
The next day we get up, pack, head out to figure out how to print tickets and catch the bus to the Airport. Turns out it's Rosenmontag. Rosenmontag is the Monday before Ash Wednesday and basically the most important day of Carneval. So the entire city of Mainz was shut down and there were people everywhere! It was a madhouse. After several hours of trying to find a printer (successful) and trying to figure out how\when\where\if the airport bus came (also eventually successful), we end up at the Airport and fly to Venice.
Venice. Absolutely beautiful. We get in, find our hostel (near the Rialto Bridge), drop our stuff off, and go to dinner at this restaurant called Pane e Vino (bread and wine). The food was really good and the waiter fell in love with me. Well, my hair. He kept running his hand over whenever he would walk by. It was amusing. We then found this little street party in one of the squares and danced for a bit. It was a lot of fun.The next day, Fat Tuesday, we got up early and went to San Marco Square. We saw the Basilica and the Doge's Palace. The Basilica is stunning! So beautiful. The entire inside, all the murals, are made of tiny pieces of tile. So so meticulous. The sketches and models for it also blew my mind. Just a really cool place in general. We bought some sandwiches and ate lunch in San Marco Square and walked through the Doge's Palace, which now houses four museuems. Really cool, extensive collections. That more or less took up our day and we cooked dinner that night, basic pasta (which we were embarrassed about it Italy, cuz you know, it's Italy and their food puts my cooking skills to shame). We went out later with Alex, the owner of the hostel, who was a mask decorater and artist and who fell in love with Jana. We went to San Marghareto, where there was a massive street party. Again, lots of fun. We got dressed up for Carneval even though it was kind of cold outside. We danced for awhile then went back and crashed. Carneval in Venice is ridiculous. So much fun and ridiculousness.
On Wednesday, we were supposed to meet up with someone from CouchSurfing who would show up around but that didn't work out so we walked to the Jewish Ghetto ourselves and wandered around for a bit. We again ate amazing food (the seafood is great in Venice!) and the Jana proceeded to get us lost. That meant that we walked ALL over Venice. ALL OVER. It's a great place to get lost in because everything is beautiful and all the canals are fascinating. It's really unlike any other city in the world. However, that much walking hurts. I was so happy to get back to the hotel room. We found a little restuarant to eat at, where apparently Jana discovered how good Lasagna could be. Then we went on the hunt for internet. We ended up stealing internet in a back alley near the morning fish markets. It was quite amusing. We go back to the hostel and hang out with Alex for a bit. We painted glue masks and he showed us some of his designs. We had to get up mad early the next day to go to Florence so we went to sleep early-ish and were very sad to leave Venice. It was a beautiful place.