So uhhh its freezing!! This southern girl was all pumped to see water, not even thinking it may be cold!! But we are surviving! Even the people from Minnesota think its cold! But today I like Venice a lot more than I did yesterday! It is so gorgeous! The only downside is that it is very touristy. I was expecting it to be a lot more quaint than it is. But this morning we went on a walking tour and got to go inside St. Mark’s Basilica. To get there we took a gondola which was SOOO cool! Except for that they are much like canoes which means they tip over so easily. We almost tipped ours getting on!! It was hilarious! St. Mark’s was the most amazing thing I have seen on the trip so far. It was so detailed. The ceiling, including 5 domes, all depict scenes from the Bible and are all done completely in small tiles with gold leaf painted over the top of them. Also, Mark is buried in the church and his tomb serves as an alter that is in the front of the sanctuary. We got to see his tomb which was crazy to me and honestly brought all the gospels to life. It definitely made everything a lot more personable and it was incredibly moving. There was so much detail and color in everything and it is so crazy to believe they built the entire church by hand. Also, the floors are very uneven in some parts because as a city, Venice is sinking! They are working on restoring the church now. After we saw that church, we walked along the Grand Canal before we got to another boat to take us to a separate island of Venice where we briefly saw another church then got some food at a little mom and pop pizza and pasta place! We then road a boat back to the main island where we all split up. My friends and I went back to the hotel to regroup! Justine and I went out for some coffee while everyone else was napping! After we got coffee downstairs (3.5 Euros for just a dang cup!!!) we went into one of the glass blowing shops down the road from our hotel! There I found the most beautiful wine bottle stopper I have ever seen. It was different colors of purple swirled with browns and blacks in a swirly shape. When we got back to the hotel everyone was awake again so we planned a place to go to dinner and set out! The place we went to ended up being small bites and a lot of bar drinks but it was crazy packed with the locals!! It was so interesting!! I would love to go sometime it wasn’t so packed! It seemed like the local hangout place. Instead, we found a different small restaurant near our hotel finally for reasonable prices. The food was not as good as the others but I guess here you pay for what you get and when the normal prices are 10-13 Euros and you get excited over a 6 Euro sandwich it isn’t going to be the best!! We then found a little convenient store where we got wine and chocolate. In Italy there are no open container laws so we were able to walk around with our wine and look at the gorgeous views while sipping on our bottle of wine!! It was so cute! Tonight was much better than last night and I honestly like Venice a lot more now. I do think it is a lot less quaint than I expected and a lot more commercialized. Which explains the high prices for food here. And probably explains why the locals are very angry all the time! Overall I did end up liking Venice, I would have really liked it if there were cheaper prices and nicer people! But overall Venice is absolutely BEAUTIFUL and it ended up being a very pleasant weekend!!