Sara and Nadine in Venice

I would love to be able to say that everything went perfectly upon our arrival in Venice. That it was just a dream come true and that we spent every second of our time there to it’s fullest. But that would not be at all entirely true.

What is true is that Venice is like a dream. It’s a city like I’ve never seen before. It doesn’t look possibly real – like an exterior decorator came in and purposefully made the city look carelessly bohemian. Each street sign is an artisan decoration; mismatched bridges everywhere crossing you to your next path, ridiculously thin alleyways posing as roads leading you in directions you’re not really quite sure are right; but it’s okay because everything in Venice is right. If you can put all your faith in beauty you’d lose your life in Venice. 

And we did enjoy the beauty. I think that’s what kept us sane, because everything else went wrong. I won’t recoil every detail – it would require a post on it’s own, so instead I will rephrase Sara’s speech, given to me right before I decided to nap, defeatedly and depressingly, in the hotel instead of taking advantage of the minimal amount of time we had left in the most beautiful city I’d ever seen.

“Okay, yes. We missed our bus to the airport and had to pay 130 euros. And yes, a holland bachelor party hit on us during the plane ride and they were drunk and you were terrified. And yes! We were robbed on the train to Venice in the middle of our sleep, and yes it was raining and cold when we first got here and YES I booked the hotel for the wrong night, and yes, yes: We missed our pre-paid gondola ride because of all these things and yes that was the basis of our entire trip. But Nadine, we’re in Venice.”

What I can say is that we did recover from all of that and decided to put it behind us. And so we really did take full advantage of our next day in Venice, which was beautiful and warm and sunny. We did take our gondola ride anyway, and we saw the incredible Piazza San Marco like everyone suggested. Despite it all, it was an experience I will never forget.