Venezia

Off to Venice, the city made up of 163 islands. (I think... don't kill me if I'm wrong)

We had the worst bus ride ever because our bus is a piece of crap. The a/c wasn't working so we were hot, the guys were sweaty and smelly, and no one was in a great mood. Our bus was making some loud buzzing noise so none of us could sleep because our TM had the music cranked to block the noise. It was awful, but anyways...

We arrived at our camp on Fusina which is one of the biggest islands by Venice (about a 20-30 min boat ride). We had a bbq and then had a party at the bar with drinks called Attitude Adjusters. Any Contiki traveller will know what they are. Basically they're a whole lot of alcohol with little of any thing else, and they taste awful. They definitely changed some attitudes; hence the name.

I roomed with Trudi, who is sooo awesome. She's a professional L'oreal hairdresser from NZ and is so much fun. We chatted for a while because neither of us are big on the drinking... Oh yeah, funny story. Last night, Tim put Josh's mattress outside of the room. So tonight, Gareth put Tim's and Adrian's mattresses and bedframes not just outside but on top of the cabins! It was pretty priceless to see Adrian's face because he had no idea where his were (Tim had been forewarned).

The next day we rode to Venezia, which has over 400 bridges. We went to the famous square with all of the pidgeons... which by the way were really gross. We then went to lace-making and glass-blowing demonstrations. The lace one was pretty dull but the glass one was really cool. Italy is famous for both their Milano glass and handmade lace.

After that, I went to Rialto Square with Trudi, Lauren, Jackie, Kim and Jane. This is where they have all of the more touristy markets. They weren't that great, but I got a couple Milano glass necklaces and whatever else.

We were hungry for lunch so Lauren, Jackie, Jane and I got pizza with the thickest crust ever. It was literally 3+ inches thick. It was good but way too much; it got to the point where we just ate the topping. Then we just walked around and shopped and checked out the sites.

We met Ang at 4:00 for our Gondola ride -- the highlight of Venice!!! I was with Jared, Johan and Robin. Not the most lively of groups, seeing as Jared fell asleep, but oh well. The ride was so exciting and surreal; you don't actually feel like you're in a place unless you're there for a while so it was a bit harder to get in the mood, but oh well. the views were gorgeous, and it was interesting to go through the canals in the gondolas instead of just looking at them on the bridges.

That night we just hung out at the bar at the campsite again because we didn't have anything else to do. I was tired so I went and chatted with Penny (my Greek girly), Paul, Cathryn, Rebecca, Russell, and Kim. They're all so much fun, and really are nice. We had some amazing banana daquiris. Mmm... my new favourite drink. They were made with real bananas which made them sooo good.

Anyways, I'm off to Vienna (also known as Wien) tomorrow, so I'll talk to you all soon.

Ciao -- Larissa

Roma

So I left off with my little tour of Vatican City. Well... after that Trudi, Penny, Jackie, Lauren and I walked to the Spanish Steps. On the way we stopped to shop in only the most expensive stops where they serve champagne (aka Fendi). Mmm... We definitely felt out of place but it's all good.
The Spanish Steps were a bit of a disapointment because most of us were expecting flowers all over, but they were obsolete. We stayed there for a while and had some gelato in the hot sun.
We then met up with Kim and Jane who walked with us to Trevi fountain. We shopped on the way there, but then Penny and I left early to go back to camp. We took the metro back; however, we missed the shuttle when we got there because we hadn't anticipated the long drive, so we decided to go to the supermarket to get some fruit and snacks to kill time. We saw a bunch of the other guys at the station who came with us to the market. We figured we'd walk back to camp instead of going back to the station to catch the next shuttle, but we had no idea where we were going. Shawn, Jared, Penny, Annie and I decided to go back to catch the shuttle thinking we'd beat Reece, Gaby and David; however, they arrived at the camp before us. Oh well.
Anyways, we were all pretty wiped so we just sat at the bar that night. Wasn't anything too exciting.