A long overdue blogpost

Its Wednesday night and I’m writing a long overdue blog post on Word, Ill hopefully get a chance to put it online at some point tomorrow. I apologize for the long delay in contact over the past few days. Between all of the amazing sites, late night concerts, enjoying the complimentary gym in the last couple of hotels, and studying for a music test I took yesterday, getting online has taken a backseat for the past few days (especially because you have to buy it by the hour and I haven’t had nearly that long of downtime in the last few days). I hope nobody was too worried about me during this short hiatus in contact.
Anyways, on to the important stuff, the trip that has only gotten more incredible as it has gone along. Venice was every bit as beautiful as I had hoped it would be, we took a water boat into the city and it absolutely took my breath away. It was the first time I had gotten a chance to see so much water since making the trip over the pond and it was really something special. Canals run through every part of the city with people riding along in them on the narrow Gondolas. Their was also a large main river, where you had to take a boat to get around anywhere in the city, as the only other legal alternative was to walk. Riding around on the boat was not only a great way to get around, but also an awesome way to see the city.
While in Venice, we got a chance to also see some live music. We saw a group called Interpreti Veneziani, a thirteen musician miniature string orchestra who did songs by some of the great Baroque era composers, like Vivaldi. The star of the show was a cellist by the name of Davide Amadio, who would get taken away in his music and gesticulate about wildly. He was very entertaining to watch and the group got a big photograph with him at the end of the show.
Some other things we saw in the area were Giotto’s Scrovvegni Chapel, which was small but so rich and ornately decorated that it still made my jaw drop, which is saying a lot at this point of the trip because I’m beginning to grow numb to the overload of incredible sights I see every day.
We also got a chance to see the Accademia collection, which had some interesting older art work, as well as the Peggy Guggenheim collection, which contained mostly modern and contemporary pieces. Of the two I definitely enjoyed the Guggenheim more. Even though one of the highlights of the Guggenheim was the Pollock collection (I never have been a fan of Pollock), the rest of the works were certainly interesting enough to keep me interested. I got a chance to see a couple of more works by Kandinsky, along with some pieces by Salvador Dali, Duchamp, Mondrian, Magritte, and Brancusi.
Sunday we got to enjoy a free day and a group of us took the train into Venice and took some time in San Marco square, which has more pigeons than I have ever seen in one place in my life (that’s saying something considering I go to school in the heart of Atlanta). People would throw out food and hundreds upon hundreds of pigeons would gather around for food. A lot of people could be seen holding feed in their hands and taking pictures with several pigeons all over their bodies.
After San Marco we took a boat over to Murano, famous for the glass masters who make all of the glass sold to thousands of tourists every year. As soon as we got off of the boat we were directed to a free demonstration of the glass making process. It was pretty cool to see the family trade of glass making, passed from father to son for generations, was done. The glassmaker used his bear hands while he crafted molten glass into shapes.
Venice was a remarkable city, but we soon had to leave it behind along with the rest of Italy (where we had been for over a week) as we headed to Vienna, Austria. My expectations for Vienna were not extraordinarily high, but so far, it has been easily one of the coolest cities I’ve been to. The world may be going through some tough economic times, but they appear to be having no effect here, where beautiful architecture, expensive shops, and construction can be found all over the main square of the city. I can’t wait to see what the city has in store as we stay here for the next few days.
Ill be sending my next post from Prague, given that there is internet available there), and then after that I go to Bruge for the last stage of the traveling portion of the trip (I can’t believe how fast it is going by!) Anyways, Ill be in Prague Sat and Ill hopefully have another post up by the end of the weekend so keep an eye out.