Day 5 – Saturday 25th June, 2005
Itta – Venice, Italy


We drove for all of the morning and some of the afternoon, and made it to near Venice at around 3pm, where we caught our pre-arranged motorboat over to the city of Venice. We went straight into a glass-blowing demonstration just off of St. Mark’s Square. The demonstration only lasted about 10 mins, but it was really good, they made a vase and a statue of a horse right in front of us. As usual, after the demonstration, we were herded into the sales department, where they showed us all their special offers for the Contiki groups they get through there. Even though it all looked like a pretty good deal, it was still out of most peoples price ranges. I don’t know if anyone bought anything there, I don’t remember seeing anyone looking too interested anyway.

After that we broke up into small groups of the friends we’d made to go explore on our own for a few hours. We were held up by some people who decided to go find the public toilets, but didn’t end up returning for at least 45 minutes. Eventually some of us got pissed off and just started walking off, so everyone followed. Our aim for that day was to make it through Venice to the main canal where we could catch a water taxi back around to St. Mark’s Square. However, because of the delay we had caused by the toilet people, we started wandering, made it to some well-known bridge (although I don’t think any of us actually figured out what it was called), then realized we had to get a move on if we were going to make it back to the meeting point in St. Mark’s Square for 5.45 to meet up with everyone for the gondola ride.

So we made our way back to the Square, got there early in the end. Kirsten & I went to a shop on the edge of the square and bought a bottle of wine to drink on the gondola ride, then realized we didn’t have a bottle opener, so went up and down the square until we found one. After that we just waited around watching people with pigeons on their heads, getting quite grossed out by them. Never go there if you hate birds, because those bloody pigeons are everywhere, and a cop can actually fine you if you kick them. It’s actually really hard not to step on them as you walk, so I just dragged my feet along the ground so it’d scare them off in front of where I was walking. Before we got there, Amanda hadn’t helped much by telling us a story of when one of them flew up the skirt she was wearing at the time. Anyway, we found Amanda and the rest of the people who were going on the gondola ride (some people actually passed on this!) and she walked us to the place where we would get on the boats. Getting on them was hindered slightly by a bunch of Japanese tourists who tried to take over our pre-booked & organized gondolas, but in the end we just had to elbow them all out. We’d passed around sign-up sheets on the bus, and there were six of us to each gondola. Unfortunately, we ended up with the inevitable tour pain in the ass on ours, Mary-Helen. Pretty much everyone hated her, not because she was mean or anything, she’d just lived such a closeted life that she didn’t understand how to talk to people without talking about herself all the time, and she was forever pushing in toilet or food lines when there were 20 people behind her. Apparently she was home-schooled, so that would explain a lot. Anyway, Kirsten & I nicked the comfy seats at the back of the gondola, and started trying to open our bottle of wine. We didn’t have much luck, and in the end our gondola driver dude opened it for us! So we relaxed back, started drinking and taking a heap of photos as we floated around there. There was a wedding party we kept running into (not literally). It was very relaxing, going around the canals, although I suppose half a bottle of wine helped with that a little. Towards the end of the ride, we convinced Mitsu to sing for us, so he started singing an Italian song. He has a really great voice, we’d already heard him Yodel a few nights ago, and he was just as good at singing in Italian. After the song (and nearly hitting his head on a few bridges), we tried to convince him to sing another one, but he realized the boats on our tour that were following us had heard him, and he wouldn’t sing anymore, even after we tried to pay him, and Kirsten & I gave him some of our wine – which was a pretty funny photo, cos he didn’t like it much.

We got of after about 45 minutes going around the canals, and by this time the wine had started to take effect on Kirsten & me, especially as we each had half a glass which we downed because we knew we had to get off the boat in about 2 minutes. Getting off a boat, especially a tiny one that tips a lot, is actually pretty fun when you’re starting to become tipsy. So we got off, dropped some tips in the tip bucket (I have a feeling I ended up tipping about €3), and followed everyone back to St Mark’s Square. Those who were going to the optional dinner that night all parted off, and those of us who had opted to wander & find our own place split off into small groups and started walking. I wasn’t paying too much attention at this point to where we were, I have a feeling I was hugging Mitsu to say thank you for him singing for us – whilst we were walking. I wasn’t exactly drunk, just going through the tipsy 10 minutes that drinking quickly gives me before it makes me sleepy.

Anyway I think it was Emma in the end who spotted a nice little restaurant with a decent selection on their set menu for only €16.50, including service charge. So we sat down there, I think I ordered a pasta starter and a salmon main. After we’d been there for a short time, but I think before we’d ordered, another few people from our group found us, so in the end about ten of us ended up at the same restaurant. So we sat around there for a few hours eating, and after our mains had been taken away, our waiter came back out with free desert for us. We were all shocked, and he saw that, so he said something like “You not in New York anymore, this is Venice!” – meaning that we’d get better service! Anyway, even with our drinks being expensive (about €5 for a coke), our dinner still only came to around €22 each, which was still cheaper than the optional dinner, and we’d had the fun of finding the place ourselves.

So after we finally convinced ourselves to pay and had the effort to get up and leave, we all walked back to St. Mark’s Square to meet up with the rest of the group, but we were pretty early, so I got some people to come with me because I wanted to go and take photos of the Bridge of Sighs, which wasn’t far away. It was getting darker than I’d thought by this time, but I hadn’t changed the camera settings, so my photos didn’t turn out too great.

After that we wandered back to St. Mark’s Square to meet up with everyone else for the motorboat ride back. Most us were pretty quiet on the boat ride back, occasionally talked about dinner and about the slight bitch fest that had happened on our gondola ride – some people thought it was major, personally I didn’t care and it was nothing compared to what I was used to from St. Rita’s. But, the peoples involved wanted to hug and make up, so they did; it was up to them.

When we were off the boat came the first time we really started to understand what Amanda had said about loving the tour bus. It had been a relatively hot day, around the mid-30’s (Celsius), and a long evening by the time we all got off the boat. So when you see a comfy, air-conditioned bus drive up as close to the pedestrian area as possible, you really do just stand there wanting desperately to get on it as soon as possible.

From the boat place I think it was probably around ½ hr to the hotel. I didn’t take a photo of this one, and actually I can hardly remember it. All I do recall is that this is the night where we all had to be split between hotels, because the main one wasn’t big enough to hold all 42 of us. Apart from that, and the odd discussion out of the windows, that’s all I can remember – I don’t even know if there was a bar there or if anyone used it. I have a feeling Kirsten & I went for a walk downstairs to re-check the daily sheets that were put up in the lobbies of hotels because we forgot the wake-up call time (or was it the breakfast location… I really don’t remember much from this place); and from that, I’d assume our rooms were next door to each other, because after a long day I doubt either of us would have bothered to walk and find each other’s rooms. Oh, and I think this is the day we all started comparing heat rashes on various parts of bodies. My roommate, Kate, had horrible rashes on the bottom half of her legs – it looked like someone had tipped boiling water over her.



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