Oh, just a final day in Venice

So I woke up for my last day in Venice with a few things on my mind. It was Sunday so that means I'm going to mass. Plus it was our last day so we had to check out of our rooms. So I showered, went down for some breakfast, then packed up and checked out. We hopped on the water bus but we were going in the wrong direction so it took us about forty-five minutes to get to St. Mark's. I was so lucky I was able to go to mass there. St. mark's body is actually a pilgrimage sight for many. The mass was in Italian but it was still a nice service. The church was stunning and filled with beautiful golden mosaics, so that way when I zoned out during the homily (which was in Italian), I was able to stare at them:

I paid a euro for one of these candles and said a quick prayer for my friends and family back home before I lit it and left it in the cathedral:

After mass we tried to decide what to do. We just watched these pigeons fight over a fountain because they all kind of liked the bubbles for some reason. It was actually pretty entertaining (I know, we're in St. Mark's square and Venice and we decide to watch pidgeons):

We eventually got separated so Matthias, Lauren, Darcy and I went off on our own to explore the city on our last day. We stopped by a small pizza/ sandwich shop by the Rialto bridge. They were kind of expensive (probably because they're by a big tourist attraction like the Rialto Bridge) but they got really excited when we spoke Italian to them and they were really nice. The guy recommended I get the prosciutto sandwich which I did and it was pretty good. We stayed there a little bit and talked getting to know each other a lot better: it was nice. Afterwards we went right outside and were dazzled by this amazing 500 year old bridge:

We walked through a lot of the shops where I saw a lot of cool things (beautiful silver spoons, elegant carnival masks, and t-shirts made for American tourists). As we were continually exploring we ran into a gondola dude who gave us a really cheap price of only 70 Euro for a gondola ride (they are normally 100 and there were 4 of us to split it). We took advantage of it and it was really fun. The guy's name was Luca and he was born in Venice and the part of town called Castello (Italian for "castle") and he was really nice. Apparently just a few years ago there were close to 150,000 people living in the city although now the city only has 40,000 residents. This is because the price of living there is too much for anyone to afford, even for gondola guys like Luca, who now lives outside the city on the mainland. Most of the stuff is vacant and the city is almost all tourists. It's almost kind of sad, because when the local people leave they take their culture and traditions with them and the economy caters to the tourists, and there is no more Venetian culture. Essentially the only thing to see there is the canals now. You can easily live like an American in Venice if you have enough money but no matter how much money you have it's almost impossible to live like a Venetian there. Because there aren't really any left. It's hard to enjoy a place like Venice for me because everyone is a tourist! I visit places with the idea that I will act like the people that live there, but you can't here. So while it is a beautiful city, it is way overpriced and almost completely American. Don't expect amazing food (everything is shipped in cause it's in the middle of the sea), and don't expect to see many Italians, even one of the Vendors didn't know Italian! It is truly an amazing and beautiful city with a lot of interesting history (the average building is 500 years old, they were once the strongest city in Italy, and Marco Polo hailed from here) and I think everyone would enjoy it if they visited once for a day. However in conclusion, wouldn't recommend visiting Venice for a long period of time and I would never consider living there. 

Even with all these negatives the gondola ride was fantastic. It was a beautiful warm day and Luca was really funny:

He took us by the beautiful Rialto bridge and under it. The grand canal actually had a lot of waves:

There isn't many boats in this picture but there were actually a lot on the grand canal! Darcy and Lauren really liked the gondola ride:

Even though I've done one ride before this was still really fun:

And I even touched the water and it was as bad as I thought but my hand still smells... (I'm just kidding):

After the ride we were headed back but we decided to stop at a place called the Most Beautiful Bookshop in the world (it was so accurate). There were so many books! There were books in Italian, Spanish, English and others:

My favorite part were all the beautiful old time naps sprawled out on the walks:

Yes there was actually a gondola filled with books in the middle of the store! And there were figures dressed in Carnival outfits on top of the books:

There was also a wall in the back with a set of stairs of books that we could walk up to see the canal from above. It was so cool!!!: 

The canal was beautiful and if you were not down to climb the books there was a ledge that you could see the canal from the ground level. There was even like a table and chairs set where you could sit and read by the canal. It was so great. Definitely a hidden gem in Venice:

After the remarkable bookshop we headed back to our hotel where we would meet our AIFS person where they would take us back via train to Florence. We purposely took the wrong way on the boat so we could see more of the canals in Venice cause we had extra time. When we got back I grabbed some Nutella gelato (not Florence quality but still good). Then we headed to the train station. We had a few minutes and some Cali kids decided to get food 3 minutes before the train left. They missed the train. I did not. They had to pay for another one at 11 p.m. (Can you say 50 Euros and that was a struggle cause I heard they were terrible at Italian), but we learn from others mistakes as well as our own. I personally enjoyed the train ride. It came with WiFi, even though I couldn't get it to work, and I was able to charge my phone and sleep a little. The train reached speeds of around 200 mph and we got to Florence in about 2 hours. The train was pretty comfortable: 

After the train, I was so drained, I went home and slept for a good long time. It was a good trip. I don't know if I would go back to Venice unless I was with someone that really wanted to go.  But everyone should see it once.