After having a blast in Florence it was time to pack up and head to Verona. Our stop in Verona was extremely quick-only a few hours so we tried to pack a lot in very quickly. We stopped at some Romeo and Juliet thing, I don’t really know what it was but you went and touched the boob of Juliet for “good luck in love” which was weird but it was a tourist attraction so we did what everyone else was doing. Then apparently Verona is famous for having delicious strawberries so we got some of those which we smothered in chocolate. (Life hack: if you take something healthy and drown it in something non-healthy, you can’t even taste the healthy part! I practice this every time a bring a salad for lunch at work-throw some leaves in a container and then douse it in ranch dressing-I call it “ranch dressing with a side of salad.” Message me directly if you’d like the recipe.)  We walked around Verona but it was extremely hot and sunny and I was very thirsty AND I had to go to the bathroom so I was NOT living my best life. The one thing I didn’t like about Italy was that they charge you to use the bathroom and it’s very hard to find water. This was problematic for me because I am always thirsty and have the bladder the size of a peanut. So as we walked around Verona trying to find a bathroom and a place to buy water I was becoming more and more aggravated. “Ugh! I’m so thirsty! What does a girl gotta do to get some water in this country?! I’m straight up bout to turn into a raisin right now! And it’s not fair that they charge you to use the bathroom! I’m a human! I have to drink water and go to the bathroom, STOP CHARGING ME FOR BASIC HUMAN NEEDS, ITALY!” I said frustrated. “Yeah, well ya know,” Jane responded calmly. “You get charged to eat. You pay to eat at restaurants and you have to buy groceries at the grocery store. Eating is a basic human need.” “Well AT LEAST eating is enjoyable!” I said back. “Do you think using a public bathroom is enjoyable?! Do you like squatting above a toilet so your bum bum doesn’t touch a seat other bum bums have been on?! Do you think I ENJOY being thirsty all the time?!” So then that led into Jane and me having a heated debate over basic human needs and whether or not we should be charged for them.

Once we finally found a bathroom and water we decided we needed to do something that would make us happy since we were still both a little tense from our human needs argument. So we decided to go find a McDonald’s. I was thrilled because while I had been to an American McDonald’s I had never been to an ITALIAN McDonald’s so eating there had been on my bucket list for quite some time. Jane was happy because like my mom, she suffers from severe “Fry attacks” where she immediately needs some McDonald’s french fries. We believe this condition is unfortunately hereditary, but luckily so far only my mother and Jane have been diagnosed with having fry attacks. They have encouraged the rest of us to get tested though.

Well unfortunately we never got to experience the Verona McDonald’s because by the time we got there the line to order food was too long and we had to be back at our bus ASAP. We only had time for Jane to take my photo outside the McDonald’s. While I was pretty content just to get a photo, Jane never got her McDonald’s fries so her fry attack began to escalate to a critical level very rapidly. “AHHHHHH THERE’S NOT ENOUGH TIME HERE! I’M STARVING I NEED TO EAT LUNCH!” Jane yelled at me. I tried to calm her down, letting her know I had crackers in my backpack I would give her and that we could get food in a few hours after our bus ride but nothing I said seemed to help. I was worried she might flip our bus over, but to my relief, she managed to calm herself down and we boarded our bus to start our ride to Venice!

After a few hours on the bus we checked into our hotel and Jane and I COULD NOT figure out how to work the lights-and we really had no patience for this after the McDonald’s ordeal. Turns out you had to stick your room key in a slot on the wall to keep the lights in your hotel on? I was embarrassed that I didn’t know this, since I am an experienced business woman traveler having gone on two business trips, but I swallowed my pride and now I’ll know better next time! We only had about twenty minutes in our room before we had to meet back up with our group to take the ferry to Venice. The ferry took us around Venice so it was nice to see the city from the water, and our tour guide pointed out different landmarks and gave us a little history of Venice. While this was a very enjoyable boat ride, it did spark another stupid fight between Jane and me, what I like to call “The Winged Lion Statue Fight.” As we were boating around Venice our tour guide pointed out this Winged Lion Statue in Saint Mark’s Square and told us that would be our group’s meeting location for the next two days we were there. Everyone saw where she was pointing except Jane so Jane asked me to try and point it out to her. At this time of day the sun was low and blinding, and Jane can hardly keep her eyes open in the daylight anyway, her baby blues are so sensitive to the sun so I knew she was not going to be able to see the statue from the boat, plus we had already passed the statue so I told her I would show her when we got on land. Well Jane was not happy that I gave up in trying and she kept badgering me about it.

Jane: Come on just point it out to me now! I want to see it!
Me: Forget it, Jane! The sun is making it hard to see I told you I will show you when I get on land!
Jane: You’re being ridiculous I can’t believe you won’t just point it out to me now! You’re not even trying that hard!
Me: WE ALREADY PASSED IT! I’ve tried to show you! And it hurts my neck turning around that far I’m not an owl! My neck doesn’t move that way! And you can’t even keep your eyes open for pictures how do you expect to see that statue when the sun is directly behind it! I’m too tired for this!
Jane: If you just point it out to me one more time I can see it. You’re being dramatic!
Me: No! I don’t have the energy for this, I’m tired from my sun poisoning and now we are missing the other stuff she is telling us! I promise I’ll show you when we get there! It’s too sunny to see from here!

To prove my point, please enjoy this photo collage of Jane being unable to keep her eyes open for photos:

We sat in angry silence for the rest of the boat ride. By the time we got on land we were laughing about how stupid our fight was and prayed no one in our group heard our ridiculous fight.

Once we got to Saint Mark’s square and Jane FINALLY Saw that stupid lion she made such a big stink about we met up with our friend Meg and then our group did a guided walking tour of Venice. Honestly I learned zero things from the guided tour-I couldn’t understand what our tour guide was saying because of her accent/I am just deaf and the headset was hurting my ears. Plus I was so focused on trying to dodge those stupid pigeons that where flying so low! The nerve of those Venice pigeons I could not even believe! After our good for nothing tour we had a drink, got dinner and called it an early night because everyone was hot and tired.

The next morning we had to be up bright and early to catch a ferry back to Venice to do more sight seeing and I thought Jane was going to blow a gasket. Immediately when our alarm went off she started ranting about how tired she was of having to get up early, being on a schedule and being rushed to go everywhere. I just stared at her in disbelief, I could not believe how mad she was over being on a schedule. For a second there I thought I was watching Britney Spears in 2007 until I snapped back to reality and realized I was watching my own sister in a hotel room. Once she finished her rant I calmly said “And on the seventh day, Jane said, ‘I HATE being on a schedule.'” That got her to laugh which was a relief because otherwise I thought she might take out a knife and stab me she was so mad about getting up early.

After Britney calmed down we took the ferry to Venice and attended a glass blowing demonstration which was pretty interesting. After that we had some free time so we walked around and then Jane wanted to get a coffee and something to eat so we sat down at a Cafe so we could get coffee, use the bathroom (WHICH AGAIN THEY CHARGED US FOR EVEN THOUGH WE BOUGHT FOOD FROM THEM!) and hook up to wifi so we could contact our friend Meg to meet up with her. Jane went to the bathroom first as I got a table outside. Poor Jane had a cold and was tired so she basically sat there like a zombie sipping her coffee and eating her panini. I wasn’t too hungry so I did not get anything so I just sat there while Jane ate, and hands down, Jane eating that panini might have been the slowest I have ever seen anyone do anything in my entire life. Pretty sure there was a tortoise at the table next to us that arrived AFTER us, ate his meal, got the check, and walked back home before Jane was even halfway done with that Panini. I figured I had a lot of time to kill so I told her I was going to go inside to go to the bathroom. When I got in the bathroom I was annoyed because there was no toilet paper, of course! Here I am paying to use this gosh darn bathroom and they won’t even stock the toilet paper. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider writing a strongly worded yelp review on that restaurant. But I took a deep breath to calm down and decided against it because at least I didn’t get trapped in the bathroom like I did at the other restaurant. That puts things in perspective for a person. When I got back outside I shared my frustrations with Jane. “Ugh, they didn’t have any toilet paper in that bathroom, I’m annoyed!” I said. “Oh yea,” Jane responded in a monotone voice. “I meant to tell you that when I got back from the bathroom earlier.” I stared at her for a minute before I finally said “Are you serious right now?! Thank you for always giving me great advice AFTER the time period of when the advice would have been useful to me. Also are we moving in slow motion? Has time stopped? How are you STILL EATING THAT PANINI?! Our flight leaves in five days do you think you’ll be done by then or should I get you a to-go box?” Jane just laughed and said, “You know, mom is right, you are a little smart ass.”

After ten years had passed and Jane had finally finished her panini, we left the cafe to meet up with our friend Meg. This process was a bit of a challenge because Jane and I are dumb and did not get any data for our phones for this trip. We thought about it and then remembered what a HASSLE it is to speak to those darn cell phone companies so we just decided to not do anything about it and hope to just hook up to wifi. It’s shocking, I know, since we were so meticulous in planning everything else out for this trip, but we really dropped the ball on this one because we soon discovered Italy does not have the best wifi. So we really had no way of contacting Meg so meeting up with her took longer than we expected, but we found each other eventually! After that we did some sight seeing and then attended a lace demonstration. I thought this was going to be extremely boring but it was actually very interesting! Then we went on a gondola ride which was awesome and relaxing. Our gondola driver definitely hated us at first but he eventually came around and even sang, danced and talked to us. Then he wouldn’t stop talking to us about fish though so we kind of regretted trying to make small talk and get him to like us.

 

After our lovely Gondola ride we took a boat to this cute and colorful fishing village to eat dinner and enjoy some wine. After that we went back to our hotel-the Holiday Inn- and ended the night at the hotel bar!

Venice was fun but Jane and I had had our fill. Venice in a nutshell: Lots of people, lots of pigeons, lots of paninis, but only ONE Winged Lion Statue.

Stay tuned for Milan, Cinque Terre, Pisa and Rome in Part 4-Coming soon!