Jessica in Prague

Hey all! Well, I know you're all just dying to know what I did in Italy. Here goes:

Spent some 13-14 hours cramped in a 17 passenger van with 16 other people, stopping every two hours or so to stretch. It was horrible. Nobody slept, but we got to Venice at around 10 in the morning, so had no choice but to go on fumes. Venice is expensive! But extremely beautiful. It was nice and sunny, fed the birds, walked around, got hosed on lunch, and basically went to bed at 9 in a mosquito-infested room, got the bumps on my face to prove it!

Feeding the birds.. don't worry Meems, no bird pooped on your shirt!

Next day, we had a day trip to Verona where we say Juliet's (as in Romeo and Juliet) balcony, and a Roman coliseum, but not THE Roman Coliseum. It was okay there, lots of shopping, good gelato. Came back to Venice and had a great dinner of lasagna and pork. And some more gelato.

Juliet's Balcony... yeah, right

Day three: Put our stuff in the van at 10:30 in the morning and had until 11 at night before we had to leave for Prague... it was a long day. We took a gondola ride, fed the birds some more, had some more gelato and pizza, went shopping some more, and tried to sleep while walking. I have officially learned how to pee into a hole in the ground (yeah I know, eww), and am quite proud of myself. I don't think Italy believes in toilet seats.

Me on a gondola half way around the world!

Anyway, the whole place, at least the historical part of the city, is an island... no cars anywhere except for one parking lot where the buses take people. Taxis, public transportation, police, mail service, funeral processions (yep saw one of those), weddings (saw a couple of those too), are all on the waterways. There are over 400 bridges on the entire island. I saw Cassanova's house too.. not too shabby.

My battery recharger has been "replaced" by an old, non-working look-a-like and I have become dependent on Jamie and Wendy for battery recharging. My camera eats normal batteries within an hour so they are kind of useless. I'm tired, going to school kind of sucks (though we saw some filming going on right outside of school this morning... James Bond film maybe??? More than likely just a car commercial, but still neat!), and now I have to get ready for Krakow and Auschwitz. I'm definitely ready to come home. I'm tired.. It's finally spring here, tourists are in full bloom (they everywhere, they everywhere!). NO MORE SNOW! I actually walked to school today! Well, write again later, probably after Poland, but before France (ha ha yes I AM bragging!). Bye! Arrivederci! (sp?)