VENEZIA

On Friday morning, Max and I awoke, eager to start our glorious bro-venture in Venice, Florence, and Rome. There were to be many delightful candlelit dinners, gondola rides, enchanted piazzas, and awkward moments when we would be confused with a gay couple.

With this anticipation in mind, we zombied ourselves out over 45 U-Bahn stops, plus another bus ride to Berlin Schonefeld airport. We would be flying Easyjet, my third budget airline experience, to Venice. The flight was fine, Easyjet being comparable to Ryanair.

Our nearly complete unfamiliarity with the Italian language showed itself immediately after landing, as we took a 10 minute detour to Parking Lot 5 of Venice Marco Polo airport, rather than Bus number 5, which would eventually take us to Venice, when we found it.

(To be fair, this was after we had to wait a half-hour to buy our bus pass because the only receptionist working decided to take a break shortly after our plane and a few others landed. True Italian service.)

The walk to parking lot 5 was nice, though, and confirmed one thing I had remembered setting Italy apart from other, more Northern European countries: the trees. Due to its Mediterranean climate, Italy's foliage looks nothing like France or Germany. It's not easy to describe, but it gives Italy a palpably different atmosphere.

At the hostel check-in, we encountered the first of many travel planning mistakes, as we had accidentally booked two beds in an all-female dorm. It was quickly resolved, though, and we took off on waterbus to see bella Venezia.

While we're on the subject of waterbuses, I would like to ramble a bit about their awesomeness. After 3 months of trains, subways, planes, landbuses, and god knows what else, it was endlessly refreshing to ride around Venice in a boat for three days, especially at a similar price to those other modes of transport. Not only can you chill in the deck and get a nice sea breeze while watching the beautiful buildings of Venice go by, but the system runs at the same or better efficiency than any other public transport system I've been on. Even though New York can't do it, Venice posted arrival times of boats at each stop. They were never late, either. And even though Paris can't do it, Venice runs its main transport system all night long.

Anyways, for the first day, Max and I were content to just wander around the streets and waterways. We grabbed some pasta for dinner and got to sleep pretty early, after a long travel day.

We started out on the second day at Murano, where we got a brief but exciting glassblowing demonstration. The island didn't yield much else, and we headed back to Venice proper, where we enjoyed some amazing pizza and wine in Piazza San Polo. Afterwards, we checked out the cathedral of San Marco, probably one of the two essential sights of Venice, along with the Rialto bridge.

After dinner that night, we ran into a group of students from the University of South Carolina who were studying in different cities across Europe. It was nice to hear some American, especially Southern, voices, and we wandered around for a bit before ending up at a bar in the one square in Venice that had them. I tried the Venetian signature Aperol Spritz, which was hands down the driest drink I've tasted. We eventually made it back to the hostel, where I got to sleep early, awaiting Catholic Easter Mass the next day at Il Redentore, a massive basilica.

To be completely honest, Catholic masses have always made me a bit nervous, just because it's a mix of familiar and strange experiences in an intimidating setting. I figured this would be worse in an Italian cathedral that could easily fit two or three 1st Presbyterian Church of Ramsey's in it.

It turned out not to be so bad. The church was fairly plain and airy for an Italian cathedral. The all-Italian service was accompanied by some sort of all-monk contemporary Christian band, one member of which played a mean 12-string guitar. I swear they played an Oasis cover at one point.

The service was about 45 minutes long, and walking out to a view of blue lagoon, brilliant facades, and immense sky was an unforgettable experience. It was also one last reminder of the beauty of Venice before our train ride to Florence.