17.10.06

Venezia: Giorno due e tre

Tuesday
Today we took a tour of Basilica di San Marco. It was obvious the line was going to be long so Sharon and I worked together to get everyone to Piazza San Marco at a good hour. This however, fell through and I ended up taking a later vaporetto to show the remaining students where to go. We walked around the square with Paolo until time to go in. Upon entrance, I found myself amused by Julia and Jere regarding various aspects of the cathedral. We all got a kick out of the security- or lack thereof. Paolo wanted us to say until the lights came on in the ceiling. Once they came on he said everyone was free to go. The next tour was of the Doges Palace about two or three hours later.

The Doges palace was very adventurous. We saw furniture, weapons, tools, paintings, sculptures and a prison. It was a well rounded tour that everyone could enjoy. It was given Sra. Pietroboun again, but this time we were able to keep up. This tour turned out to be nice and no one was happy that it was over. This is because we had to rush over to do another tour with Peter. He wanted to take the students to a few modern housing developments. When we reached the first place, a number of the students thought it was great. I thought it was horrible. Yet others, thought it was a waste of their time. We spent the majority of the time here before moving to the next area. Students kept disappearing and reappearing. By the end of the night I just wanted to get back to the hotel. After Peter sort of abandoned us at the University, we made our getaway. I called Amber and Mark to make sure they had eaten (they were both sick). I had pizza, then we got gelato and turned in for the night. It was a great way to end.

Wednesday
Today was the day we went to the Biennale. It is an exhibit similar to the World's Fair. However, the Biennale hosts architecture exhibits from all over the world. One aspect of the show (the Arsenale) contains models that can be the size of an entire room. This years Biennale focused on cities, disaster and planning. I wasn't that impressed, but it was impressive. I was told Marc Boles had an exhibit (he is a student of Zaha Hadid), but I never found it. I was most impressed by the exhibit that was put together by the group from Cuba. They constructed an environment in which the workers lived. They worked, slept and ate there. It was constructed in the Francia pavilion from scaffolding. It was fully equipped with a kitchen, sleeping quarters, shower, t-shirt workshop, office space, steam spa, swimming pool and look-out tower. It was really fun.

After the biennale, the only ones that remained together were Dan, Mark, Christina, Brandi and I. We decided to do a bit of shopping. I was able to pick up my hoody. Mark checked on prices for a Rolex. Dan got to go to (and was disappointed by) the Diesel store. Christina and Brandi were happy after spending way too much in one of the glass shops. After the vaporetto back to the hotel, we had an early pizza dinner. We fell asleep in my room while waiting on some of the others to return from dinner. Upon their return, we were going out. However, I did not want to go back to the mainland. I quickly lost interest and decided to go to my room to rest up for our trip tomorrow.

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