Saturday, February. 17th
I went to Venice with the other international students. It was the last carnival weekend and the place was packed. We left on Saturday at 10 am on a train to Venice. Because it was a large group we were able to get a good discount. This was the first time I stepped on a train in my life. We were on a cabin and some people were playing cards and others sleeping. On the way there, I was able to see beautiful mountains and villages. The landscape is amazing, especially in Austria because they have a lot of mountains; it is breathtaking.
It took us around 3 hours to get to Venice and for me it was eternity because I could not believe I was actually going there. I was anxious to see the city surrounded by water like they show on the Discovery Channel. Yes, it is the truth. A very romantic city which is easy to fall in love with. The architecture gives a special touch to this paradise so much so that I could not believe I could be in such a beautiful place.
Carnival in Venice is different from Brazil in the sense that in Venice, carnival is more like masked people dressed like old times with white wigs and long dresses. The theme was ballroom type and carnival in Venice is one of the oldest ones. In Brazil, people dress with costumes (e.g. Indians, clowns, witches etc.) and some just paint their body.
No cars are in the old part of the city. You can buy a day pass for the water bus (boat) or you can walk, the sidewalks are connected through a bridge with one other. There are also taxi options, which are the private boat and they go way faster than the waterbus. A Venice trademark is the gondola. There are so many of them….but they are very expensive, for example for 30 minutes it costs 80 euros. One thing that I noticed in Venice is the leather purses. They are not expensive and they are so charming and cute, definitely good quality. I almost bought one but when I was going to the stores they were already closed. I guess I will have to go back to get an Italian leather purse.
Since it was carnival, all the plazas had concerts. The songs played were a bit old but it was great to dance and watch people dancing ‘Para bailar la bamba”. Everything was over at 4 am but our train back was only at 8 am so we went to the train station and there were people everywhere, especially on the floor sleeping and waiting for their trains. I just could not sleep there so we when to the waterbus and we ended up falling asleep until the guy (at 7 am) kicked us out. SO we went to the train station and waited for another half hour for our train to come back to Klagenfurt. It was a wonderful experience and definably I will go back again to Venice.
PS. I found 20 Euros on the street in Venice!
