We're done with Italy...

So, after a week and a half (and what feels like a huge volume of pasta and gelato), we’re finished in Italy! We just arrived in Vienna today, and we’ll be staying here until Saturday—four full days to explore. I’m very excited…especially to have some protein in my diet again, haha ☺

So our last day in Venice was arguably the best day I’ve had in Europe so far. We got up fairly early (by teenager standards, at least), and took the train into Venice. We then walked across the city to the northern side and took a waterbus to Murano, the island in Venice famous for its glass. We saw a quick glass-blowing demonstration then wandered around shopping for a couple of hours. I bought some really nice presents (and a couple of things for myself, of course), and then we headed back to the main island for the afternoon.

Honestly, I’m not sure if we actually accomplished much of anything in the afternoon (besides eating our last gelatos, of course)—we mostly just wandered around the city exploring, but we met some wonderful people and saw some really great stuff. We found tiny art galleries and lots of churches and we even went back to San Marco one last time. That afternoon made me really want to go back to Venice someday; wandering around the city with absolutely nothing to do is even wonderful!

The real highlight of the day was definitely dinner—we found this tiny garden restaurant set back from all the touristy places that served incredible food for actually decent prices. A week and a half ago, when we got to Italy, we were totally stunned by the fact that restaurants expected us to order three course dinners…we would just order a pasta (first course) and then try to fill up on bread. By last night, all of us ordered three courses in addition to a bottle of wine for the table. It was incredible; my first course was the best pasta with pesto I’ve ever had in my life, next Amy and I split something called “Chicken with Rocket Sauce”—I kid you not—and then Bryan and I split the house cake for dessert. By the end we were all full and happy heading back to Padua to go to the hotel.

Today was kind of boring—just a really long drive to get to Vienna. After we arrived, we all met and went out to a Beer Garden for dinner. I had forgotten how wonderfully nice people in Germany and Austria are! Our waiter was delightful and uber helpful; it’s a very different feeling than Italy, where it just seemed like everyone was out for our money. Dinner was delicious (I had goulash and spaetzel), and I’m really looking forward to the rest of our meals here. (If you haven’t noticed, all of us consider food to be a very important aspect of the cultural experience)

We’re also staying at this amazing brand new hotel here in Vienna, which has a free spa on the top floor where my friends and I just spent an hour. Not gonna lie,

We have a response to our Venice concert AND a listening exam in our 8 AM music class tomorrow so I should probably head off to bed. Oh well.