I'm on a Boat!

Hey, y'all!

So for our first day in Northern Italy we went to visit the Scrovegni Chapel here in Padua, which is a very famous set of frescoes painted by Giotto at the turn of the fourteenth century.  It was actually one of my favorite things that we've done thus far on the trip; the chapel was really beautiful, even if we did have to be weirdly disinfected before entering.

After we finished with the chapel (the one thing we're actually doing in Padua, where we're staying), we took a water bus into Venice to go to a concert for music class.  It was just a small group of strings, and they performed mostly Vivaldi concertos.  The only bad thing about the concert was the cellist--in the words of our professor, he considers himself a "rock star" and totally stole focus from the rest of the group for the entire performance.  Although admittedly he does play very well, so whatever.

This morning we woke up early (again) and took the train into Venice as a group.  In the morning we saw the Academia museum... although they did have a very interesting collection, after seeing the amazing museums we've seen on this trip (we saw the Louvre the FIRST DAY, for goodness sakes!), it was nothing to write home about.  No pun intended.

After the Academia we had a big break, so we wandered around, ate lunch and gelato, and saw San Marco, the main square in Venice.  Honestly, I really think that Venice is the most beautiful city I've ever visited in the world--the architecture is gorgeous and it's an amazing place to just wander around and get lost with your friends.

After all the wandering, we went to see the Peggy Guggenheim Collection for art class which was also pretty sweet.  Modern art has totally grown on me during this trip--I love Kandinsky and Pollock and Warhol now, although the surrealists still really freak me out.  Looking at a Dali painting just tends to make me feel really uncomfortable.

After dinner we headed back to Padua, and now we're at the hotel studying for the music listening exam that we have in Vienna.  Tomorrow's a free day so we're planning on heading back into Venice and going to the Glass Island and eating more food.  Should be a good last day in Italy :-)

Dara