Venezia, di dov´e lei?

After our arrival in Venice, we took a water bus to our little hostel in the middle of the city. We picked a perfect location. The room had three beds, a small, round table surrounded by three chairs and two fans, which I was thankful for.
The bedspreads were brown, and each bed had a night stand draped with pink fabric and a stylish lamp sitting atop. It was quaint.
We got settled, showered after our long, dirty ferry ride and set out to find food.
We ended up walking into this little pizza joint with the hugest slices of pizza I´ve ever seen. It reminded me of New York for some reason. I ordered a slice of cheese, and they took an already-cooked slice and threw it in the oven for a few minutes.
It tasted like heaven. And I was so hungry.
We walked around for a bit, to the train station to make reservations, through the shops lining the streets, which where packed with tourists.
And then we decided to nap.

We awoke again in time for dinner and walked in the opposite direction we had gone earlier that day. Spotting a cute restaurant with an even more attractive waiter, we sat down for some pasta and salad.
It´s funny ordering Italian food, because the Spanish language is so similar to Italian, so it´s relatively easy to pronounce the names of the dishes correctly.
Well, this got the waiters speculating where we were from. We thought we´d have a little fun with them.
So we started speaking in Spanish instead of English. Now they were really intrigued. We sparked their interest so much that one of them actually came over and asked where we were from. He asked Leslie, and she answered Mexico, and I watched as his inquiring expression quickly changed into pleasant surprise. ¨Oh, Mexico!¨ I didn´t bother pointing out that I was American. Sometimes it´s just better to be silent.

We strolled into the street again, admiring the amazing nooks and crannies of the city.
As we walked, we saw some necklaces we liked and I drove a hard bargain with the vendor. ¨Twenty-five¨ he told me in Italian. No thanks, I told him in Spanish, ¨I saw a similar necklace in the same box marked at 10, and I´m not paying more than that.¨
So he gave us two necklaces for 20.
Honestly, I wasn´t that sold on the necklace anyways, that´s why I wouldn´t take it for 25, or even 20 or 15. But I´m glad I got it for 10.

We walked to the Rialto bridge, over the Grand Canal and were awestruck. It´s just so beautiful.
We sat down at one of the high-end restaurants right next to the water for some wine and cheese.
We ordered two glasses of Sauvignon and two plates of cheese. I have never tasted wine that good. Our eyes widened as we took our first sip. It was delicious. The perfect complement to the array of assorted cheeses that our waiter brought out.
One of my favorite memories in Venice.

Deciding to call it an early night, we returned to our hostel and were about to go to bed when our roommate came in.
Earlier that day, when we had come back to nap, we had seen our roommate´s clothing drying and tried to speculate how old she would be.
The clothes were pretty plain, the small shirt hanging up was a light pink, and we concluded that she must be a little older to be traveling alone.

We were so wrong.

Our roommate was a guy from Japan, traveling after his studies in Europe. He was nice, on his way to Greece, and so we gave him some tips on where he should go and what he should see. He really appreciated that.

What a day.