Ooooooooookay. Big breath in, big breath out. This is gonna be one honkin post. Stop procrastinating - just get it over with. Sorry for taking so long to update!

Saturday, February 18: We took the bus down to London late afternoon. (Our flight was out of London Stansted.) Me and Jo were sharing the headphones on the way down and possibly talking/singing loud enough for everyone to hear - but oh well! We got there around 9:30pm and our plane didn't fly out until 6:30am on Sunday. Since we would have to leave at like 3am to get to the airport we didn't think there was much point in getting a room for the night, so we ate some food and then headed to the airport. Thankfully this ride to the airport took half the time it took to get to it when we were trying to get to Germany!
When we got to Stansted we staked out some space to sleep/make our signs for the game. We ended up staying pretty much in front of the doors...which I actually don't know why because it was really cold there from the doors opening all the time. And it was really noisy because cleaning machines kept going on. So needless to say I got no sleep that night. The benches there had armrests that separated every seat so you couldn't even spread out across them to lie down. We did a good job with the signs though I think...bought a bedsheet and folded it half and then did a message on either side::
Sunday, February 19 - a.k.a. My 21st Birthday!: So our flight left fine and we were actually ON it this time! It was only a 2 hour flight but I didn't sleep at all, unlike the other 3 Canadians I went with. I just suck at sleeping on public transportation. So by this time I was really tired. The view was really good though when we were flying over the Alps! Very nice! When we got to the Venice area there was too much cloud and the pilot couldn't land the plane, so we circled for about 3/4 hr. waiting for it to clear - which it didn't - so we had to land at a place called Trieste. The name kind of reminded me of the French word for sad - triste - because this place was like...well you know when you watch Eurotrip and they end up in Bratislava? Picture what the airport would look like in that scene if there was one. That's what this place looked like. The sketchiest airport I've ever been to! Apparently Italy, Austria, and some Eastern countries (likely Slovenia since it's right next door) have been fighting over this city for a long time and Trieste has only belonged to Italy for several decades...if I were them I'd give it back! The airport didn't look so bad once we got inside the terminal though. The airline had arranged a coach bus for us to take to the Venice Treviso airport. This airport was also sketchy because it's not the main Venice airport, just a small one. You may be wondering why we're flying into these crazy places....the answer is cheap tickets my friends, cheap tickets. Then we took a bus from the Venice airport to the city. Our hotel was a lot better than I was expecting. There aren't a lot of hostels in Venice, and nothing is really cheap, so we ended up staying in (I think it was) a 3-star hotel in Mestre Venice, which is the modern part of the city (not the part with all the canals and stuff). It was about 10 euros cheaper a night than places inside the old city and the bus to Old Venice came really frequently and was only 1 euro (or free at night) and took about 15 minutes.

We were really exhausted when we got to the hotel, so we napped for a bit, which was amazing!! Once (somewhat) rested we went to get some supper at a ristorante that was kind of like a Movenpick/Marche thing but with less variety. The pasta was amazing though...I had fusilli with spinach cream sauce and grilled salmon...MMMmmmmmm so yummy! Ooh, and you can get Nestea in Italy, which you can't in England, so I had iced tea.

Then we headed into Old Venice. It was really nice to see it at night, but I think it would've been good to see it in the daylight first cuz we really didn't know where anything was. We went to this bar/pub thing called Cafe Blue and had some drinks - this was my official birthday celebration...I spent my 21st in Venice = YAY! So we had some cocktails and we also had some absinthe. Ooooohhh. I just shared a glass with Jo though so there are no crazy hallucination stories from Kirsten. It tasted a lot better than I thought though. Just like black licorice. I don't like black licorice really but I'd prefer that to the taste of say, vodka. And it didn't really leave an aftertaste which was even better! I think the stuff we had was 60% plus the wormwood. And it actually did glow!
While we were in there the Olympics were on the big screen and there was another group of Canadians sitting beside us. So, we were talking to them about what they were here to see and stuff...and the lady in the group was the mother of Canadian bobsledder Morgan Alexander. [OOooh when I was looking up the link for him I just noticed that he has the same birthday as me!!! COOL!!!] Anyways she was really nice and took this picture for us (Tanja, me, Jo and Dave):A bunch of Morgan's friends were also there and we ended up seeing them again in Torino, but I'll talk about that later.

After drinks what did we do? The same thing every student does after they've had some drinks - GET PIZZA!!! (Careful you don't get a headache when looking at the picture...pizza man didn't have a very steady hand I'm afraid!) And where better to get pizza than in Italy? The pizza in Italy tends to be all thin-crust pizza. It was really good, I'm not complaining...just an observation. Oh and if a pizza is "pepperoni" it has no meat, just peppers. Dave found that out the hard way.

Once the pizza was deliciously consumed, we started wandering the streets/canals. Lucky for us we were there during Carnivale, which is their version of Mardi Gras. So there were tons of people wearing masks and costumes and stuff....some masks were really creepy though! The ones that really freaked me out had really long beaks or noses on them, or the ones that were cat faces. They had a lot of artwork in Venice that had cat heads imposed on people's bodies which also really creeped me out.

There are lots of "piazzas" in Venice...basically they're just squares. Some are really busy, some aren't. We stumbled across a small barely-lit piazza by accident, and there was a band of masked people playing really medieval kind of music, you know with lutes stuff like that. And it would have been cool if they were playing for an audience...but they were playing for themselves. There was a group of non-musician mask-wearers who were dancing like medieval times...not sure if this translates well into words but it was where they put their right palms together and dance in a circle facing each other and promenade and stuff....ANYWAY it was creepy since we were like the only ones not partaking in this craziness! So I snapped a picture anyway before we left:
We also walked over the Rialto Bridge...a really pretty bridge that crosses the Grand Canal. Venice has a bunch of different canals, but the Grand Canal snakes its way through the centre of the city.
A couple more of my favourite pictures from that night:
*View of the Grand Canal from the Rialto bridge
*Most people dressed up in masks and cloaks, these people chose to be Darth Vader and Star Troopers!

Sleep that night was the best thing ever! I was sooo tired!

Monday, February 20: So I said that sleep was good...it was quite entertaining the next morning when we had reports of snoring...
The beds that Dave and I slept in were next to each other...this is how two separate conversations went:
Tanya and Jo: Did she really snore?
Dave: Yes, like a train.
Later on...
Me: Dave, did you know that you snore?
Dave: Did I really snore?
Me: Yes you did snore, like a dinosaur.

The buffet breakfast (which was included) was amazing! When I stayed in the hostel in London I was happy cuz we got toast and cereal....here there were pastries and cakes and really good cheese and meat and buns and fruit cocktail and an espresso machine! Basically we got there at 7:30 and ate til about 9...cuz it was free, so we might as well stuff as much in as we could!

Monday was our big sight-seeing day since it was our only full day in Venice. So, we did a lot of walking! The big thing of the day was the Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square), which is home to the Basilica di San Marco and a kajillion pigeons! You could buy birdseed to feed to the pigeons (I didn't - what do you think I am, stupid?!) and it was so funny when people would make the effort to get the birds to land on them but then when the birds wouldn't leave they'd start freaking out...so funny! I have video footage of this lady who looked kind of like Jennifer Coolidge (a.k.a. Stifler's Mom) freaking out, which someday will be part of the Oscar-winning video I make of this trip...Umm, just to clarify, that picture is of us being gangsta, although Jo seems to be a bit out of the loop on that one.
There was a runway set up in the piazza as well...for some kind of fashion show...but we didn't know if it had already taken place or whatever so we didn't stick around to find out.
The Basilica was huge though! Inside it was very dark because I don't think there was any electricity in it. The floor tiles undulate a bit from so many years of sitting on top of water. The walls and ceilings were covered in mosaics which must have taken forever to construct. This mosaic is part of a series found on the outside of the building depicting Biblical scenes (we weren't allowed to take photos inside). And also, this may sound really boring of me, but check out the marblework on the side of this place!
I took a walk up to the top of the Basilica to get some views of the square. Luckily it wasn't too far up. At the top of the Basilica they also had a museum with old church artefacts and stuff. And they had these bronze horses there that had been stolen from Constantinople during the 4th Crusade. It always really phases me when I see really old stuff. I mean, in Canada, nothing is old. Well, I mean you get arrowheads and stuff but that's pretty much it. Everything here is old. So you see stuff like the Basilica and the horses and think back to what it might have been like before. It's crazy!
I bought a lot of postcards that day...which I haven't sent off yet. So some of you might get a postcard...sometime. haha.
Now if you go into my picture section, you may wonder why I have pictures of Jo with this random Italian lady....well this is Wanda. She's been making leather-bound journals for like 30 years and apparently when she makes them she shouts out greetings from her attic to the passersby. But she wasn't making journals when we were there, just selling them (because her husband was away...he usually sells them because he can speak English). She was really cute though. Jo found out about her in her travel guide so it was a bit of a mission to find her. When we finally got there, Jo bought a journal and got Wanda to sign it, as well as the page in her travel guide that mentioned Wanda.

Unfortunately it rained quite a bit while we were there so we didn't get to go on a gondola ride. Boo. Oh well. But we did see someone get proposed to!!! We were standing on top of the Rialto Bridge when we saw a guy put a ring on this girl's finger. It was so cute!

While we were walking around we passed all the huge overpriced shops like Armani and Prada and I took a picture of the merchandise in the Versace window, along with its corresponding price tag:
Um can we say YIKES??!! And the thing is, one of the stores (can't remember which) looked like they had just taken freyed pieces of dull beige linen and sewed them into some ugly dress and then decided to sell it for a kajillion euros! Who would buy that?! Fortunately for you guys I don't have a picture of the hideous thing. Be happy that your eyes have been saved.

That night we decided we were gonna go to this one restaurant, so we were walking around forever trying to find it. At one point we thought we'd found it, but it said it was closed...even though there were people in it...and it didn't have the same name as the one we were looking for....so there was a lot of walking around in the dark, being hungry, looking for food. We walked over canals, through ghettos (but don't worry, ghetto didn't mean sketchy, just an area with certain nationalities or religious type people), and in a big circle really, before decided to just get pizza again cuz we knew where the pizza place was. And the guy there made our pizza from scratch...it only took about 10-15 min. from start to finish! And the pizza was, again, really good. I was a little disappointed at the lack of throwing the dough in the air (he didn't throw it in the air...not once).

We couldn't make it a late night though because our train left for Torino at 7:52 the next morning.

Some more of my favourite pictures from that day:
*I'm pretty sure this is a science museum...it's some kind of museum anyway.
*Cute little canal
*Colourful pasta
*In Canada, condoms are available in pharmacies or drugstores. In Italy, you can buy them from random vending machines on the street! I guess they're just being safe?

Tuesday, February 21: Okay so the plan for this morning was to be out of the hotel by 7:15 so that we could catch our 7:52 train, which left from Stazione Santa Lucia in Old Venice. The buffett breakfast was supposed to start at 7am, hardly enough time for us to eat...so we brought bags, and got breakfast to go. It probably looked kind of bad, but hey, we're students, we're hungry, and that breakfast was paid for already. It's not our fault we had to leave early.

The train ride was 5 hours long but only cost us 10 euros! It was great! We got to sit in one of those train cubicle thingies like in Harry Potter. It was a cubicle of 6 seats, but there were just four of us, and we were listening to music and being crazy...and then two Italian people came in. I thought, Oh crap, now we can't be stupid cuz they're gonna thing we're crazy! But it was fine...they were the same age as us and also slightly crazy at times. The girl, Carlotta, was a huge Avril Lavigne fan. Apparently Avril was supposed to be performing at the medal ceremony that night, and she was going just to watch her. As we pulled into one of the stops there was a sign on the side of the tracks:A bit drastic I think. Usually our signs feature a not-so-injured person behind the circle with a cross...but here I guess they just come out and tell you you're gonna lose your leg!

I'm glad we got on the train at the beginning of the trip, because by the time we hit Milan it was packed and people were crunched in the hallway. We managed to maximize our space by spreading out a bit:When we got to Torino, we first went to the Piazza San Carlo, which was one of the main shopping plazas (it was also where NBC had its headquarters).We were going to try to get last-minute tickets to the awards ceremony so we could see Avril and also watch the women's hockey team get their gold medals, but they were all gone. We agreed to meet the Italians we'd met, Carlotta and Tomaso, after the game for a drink. After getting food we hopped a bus to the Palasport Olimpico, where the hockey game was.There was a beer tent in the grounds so we went there for a bit before the game to paint our faces and stuff. Everyone kept taking pictures of us! It was crazy...obviously we didn't know these people! There was a live band who were really good. They played mostly classic rock like Bryan Adams and "Sweet Home Alabama" and stuff like that....stuff that everyone knew.

We ended up getting into the arena just in time before the puck dropped. Our seats were pretty good. We were in the corner of the arena, 10 rows up. This was our view:So it was high enough that you got a good overview of the rink but not really far away at the same time. The only thing that sucked about our seats was that we were on the same side as the media, which meant that we had no chance of getting on tv....which sucked soooo much cuz we'd spent all this time on our signs and we really wanted to get on CBC!!! Oh well...
As for the game, I'm sure you guys saw it. I was really afraid Canada was gonna lose because they'd just lost the previous two games to the Swiss and the Fins. And Canada really wasn't playing that great. The Czechs had SO many more shots on net than us...Martin Brodeur was just amazing. It was so frustrating cuz I had my camera but I can only take a minute of video at a time so I would take a minute of video...usually starting it when Canada would start getting offensive...I kept hoping that I would catch a goal or something exciting on video. But I didn't. One time I was really mad because I had recorded Canada coming down the ice...and then they missed the shot and the Czechs got the puck and then I stopped recording cuz I thought, I don't care to watch the Czechs playing well...and then right after I shut off the camera the Czechs shot and Brodeur made this AMAZING glove save!!!! I can't believe I stopped recording...that would've been awesome footage!!! SO MAD!!!

It was awesome to see everyone dressed up in their country's colours and stuff! There weren't too many Canadians in my area though...lots of Czechs.

After the game we took a whole bunch of pictures of the Olympic Rings and the torch and the Stadio Olimpico (where the Opening Ceremonies were) and then headed back into the beer tent, where there was mucho celebration and mucho Canadians.Beer was 4 euros a pint, but for the occasion it seemed worth it. It was so fun! Everyone was so happy and everyone sang the songs and then someone started the "Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, good bye" thing and the band joined in and it was awesome! I have that on video too! Someday you'll see it...
This guy was so drunk! He kept going around and shaking everyone's hands...I think he shook our hands about 3 separate times. He was pretty funny though.
Here's a picture of us with some random Canadians in the tent. Actually, I think the guy on the right sat across the aisle from us at the game.:
Once the beer tent started to die down we went back to the Piazza San Carlo. It was packed with people! They had a huge screen up showing the medals ceremony for the night, and we got there just in time to see Avril's performance....and we belted out the songs along with her...some people looked at us like we were crazy, some people took pictures, some people laughed...whatever. I thought she did a really good job. It was all acoustic. I'm not sure if you guys got to watch it or not. She played quite a few songs too!

Then began the walking...which was pretty much what we did for the rest of the night. We walked around the piazza...and felt like celebrities! We still had our facepaint on and signs from the game and people would shout "Yeah Canada!" from across the street...even if they weren't Canadian, and people kept asking for a picture of us, and one couple even asked us to let their child pose with us!! It was amazing!