Venice

We only spent a day in Venice, so this will be a short post.
We stayed at a hotel just outside of Venice called Villa Dori, which was cheaper than some of the hostels we've stayed in so far. The young man who checked us in was a HUGE help and pretty much customized a map for us pointing out his favorite and cheapest places, including a sandwich shop that sold basic meat sandwiches for .80 euros each (I did not have one) and an excellent chocolate store that had treats such as balsamic vinegar-flavored dark chocolate. For the record, that particular flavor was very good, probably one of the best pieces of chocolate I've ever had.

We are finding that some things are consistent throughout Italy, such as passionate graffiti and dressing in all purple. Jack's sense of direction kicked in unexpectedly while in Venice, which was nice as I was at a loss reading the map. We experienced high pressure sales tactics when we left San Marcos and went to Murano, which is really just a bunch of houses and glass shops. Most of the glass items were gaudy but the smaller pieces were interesting, such as the model of a full symphony orchestra featured in a display window (picture included). We saw the typical Venetian scenes and I was particularly impressed with the gondoliers who were able to multitask and chat on their cellphones while working. We skipped the basilica and opted for a few smaller exhibits such as The Inventions of Da Vinci and the Vivaldi Violins, which is exactly what it sounds like: a small museum of violins, violin cousins and a continuous Vivaldi soundtrack.

The one mistake we made in Venice was buying the all day bus/ferry pass, which everyone recommended. There is no system of checking tickets and it was a complete waste of 32 euros. Overall, we both really enjoyed the city and for the most part, were able to avoid the more costly side of visiting such an expensive city.

Italy Day 5 or 6... it's hard to keep track.

Things started off with a bang when we arrived in Torino, Italy a few nights ago. Sacha got the email detailing our train arrival time about 2 days after we settled in with her (and Galo), so needless to say, there was some confusion when our cab dropped us off at their apartment. It was raining pretty hard that evening and we were unsure if the buzzer worked or if anyone was home, so Jack decided to walk around the neighborhood to see if there was a dry place to wait. I stayed behind with the bags and was invited inside their neighbor's apartment by a real Italian hunk, an offer I declined by the way. When Jack returned, he informed me the only place still open was a bar called "The Texas Ranger"... so we kept ringing the buzzer. Long story short, Sacha woke up and answered the door, we settled in, and nothing of note happened until 2 days later when we experienced our first bit of of anti-American sentiment in a bar called "Cafe des Artes." It was so scary! However mean the woman who expressed this was, I have no regrets as I got to pet her four month old Border Collie puppies while she affected an English accent and yelled at me about Bush for a few minutes.

I was surprised to see dogs in a bar, but even more surprised to see a dog in a nightclub later that evening. It doesn't seem like this is exclusive to Tornio either, which makes me very happy and may turn me into a lush, you never know. Our days with Sacha and Galo were spent eating, eating, eating and wine tasting. Oh, and to bring things full circle, the Barilla pasta theme song has been stuck in my head since day 2 of Italy because it turns out the hunky neighbor spends the afternoons singing old Italian songs to the plants on his balcony. Galo seemed really annoyed by this guy, but in the neighbor's defense, he had the most amazing garden in their neighborhood.

Monoprix

We found the french equivalent of Longs, it's called Monoprix. It's huge and smells slightly fishy and would bring Blair to tears with its random, enormous, bizarre selection of items. I tried to take a picture but the security guard yelled at me. Sorry.

Nice Day 2

Well, we're back to our old ways. We took a nap yesterday after the Chagall museum (wonderful cat experience included!) and woke up for dinner right before midnight. Lucky for us, there is an inexpensive Italian restaurant across the street from our hotel that is open late, so we were able to order a pizza and a cheese plate for Jack. They had a large t.v. in the restaurant and we watched the French version of "Cheaters" for a while, but that ended once the older staff came out of the back and saw what the young staff was up to. They switched the t.v. off and put on a mixed cd of artists such as Boys II Men which was entertaining, Celine Dion which was funny, and Dr. Dre which just made me homesick.

It was overcast today so when we woke up at noon we packed some lunch, went to the beach and played with rocks. The beach was filled with teenagers making out and old men sun bathing- needless to say, the people watching was pretty good. The best was probably watching a girl try to maneuver through the rocks in heels, which was only funny until I realized she did this better than I was able to in flat boots. I tested the water- it was cold- with what was surprisingly NOT the palest foot on the beach and we walked along the rocks for as long as we could. The beach is coated in a fine white dust so by the end of the walk my boots looked like relics from an old western movie, and I must say, I am happy with the results.

We saw some weird street performers on our walk home through Old Town Nice: two Native American musical trios competing for viewers on opposite corners of the street, an "acrobat" who looked JUST like a Finnish Brad Pitt and of course, more crazy street dancers. Our favorite dancer was a guy who was more than likely very stoned, dancing to music I would describe as "spaceship-acid-trance." [Video included in this blog] He was really getting into his moves on a bench where five or six kids were having a conversation and it should be noted that not once did they stop their conversation to acknowledge his presence. That may have been more impressive than the dancing. It seems random, public dancing and an open love of Orangina is equally strong in Nice as it is in Paris.

We're checking out tomorrow, taking a train to Monaco to go to the Jacques-Cousteau aquarium and to visit the site of Grace Kelly's death, and then hopping on a night train to Torino, Italy where we'll be staying with Sacha and Galo for about a week. Here's hoping we will actually make our connecting train this time and will not have to repeat our experience of sleeping in the Marseille train "station" (it consisted of a roof and two walls- technically outdoors in my book) amongst gypsies and a homeless or two.

A quick thought regarding mannequins.

While in Spain mannequins were often no where to be found (their bodies/heads replaced by magazine cut-outs stuffed into outfits), in France they lack heads but have decorative nipples.

Nice

Everyone can stop worrying now. I have confirmed that scrunchies are still popular in the south of France.

Real Paris

So I guess I should mention that we did not in fact go to Disneyland Paris. But we had you guys going, right? We had a great time and it was filled mostly with things we cannot do at home.

We had a pretty steady diet of at least three baguettes a day. Cynthia seemed to get sick of this towards the third day, but I still have my eye out for bakeries as we walk down the road. It's nice having the price of baguettes fixed by the government. There was also a cheese shop about half a block from the apartment.

We saw the Eiffel Tower at a pretty excellent time of evening, got there when it was light out and walked around as night fell and saw the tower light up and do its little light show. The view, however, was much better from Sacre Coeur which was about a seven minute walk from our apartment. It was there that we were treated to our first French mime sighting. We also did Notre Dame and Ile St. Louis (don't worry, we got gelato).

On a side note: I am not sure what it is about the French that makes them want to dance around in crowded public areas with their headphones on. But we saw an old man doing this below the Eiffel Tower and then a young guy (who did a considerable more number of flips and had his shirt off) in front of the Louvre.

As for museums: We did not see all of the Louvre, we stuck mostly to the Italian paintings, which took a good three hours as it was. The D'Orsay had some interesting exhibits, one on early photography focusing on Italian peasants, and one on shadow theater at Le Chat Noir full of set pieces other zinc cut outs from many of the plays. The Pompadou had a Kandinski exhibit while we were there, not to mention a pretty good street show in front of the museum (Cynthia missed it because she was getting post cards). I have to say what I found more interesting than most of the museums were the buildings themselves.

We are now in Nice, after a pretty awful night in a train station. Our flight was delayed and so we missed the last train to Nice where our hotel is. We couldn't get a room in the hotels nearby because of the soccer match (sorry, football match) so we tried to sleep on the benches of the station. But we eventually made it here. We are going to go check out the Chagall museum in a bit.