venice- italian dreams come true

we arrived in venice at night, and though it was a bit breezy i could still see the stars, so i hoped for clear skies. the free maps are quite vague(since the city is a mess of canals and alleys) but there are no cars, so we could meander through the streets. after arriving in our hostel (the strictest one yet- how can they expect abra and i to be quiet?) we ran into a guy we had met in florence. ofcourse by ran into i mean he was staying in the same room as us.
so after abra and i had dinners we went to a small irish pub around the corner. the bartender was from dublin, and i was able to deduce southern ireland nationality atleast thanks to accent lessons from dave! and we also met some crazy guys from liverpool and some canadians as well.
the next morning my prediction was right, and it was sunnysunnysunny. so ofcourse i climbed out onto our window ledge to get a picture, as well as weird looks from people below! but it was a good start to the day. since we had two days in venice and much less on the docket than any city up to this point we mainly wandered towards our goals. which led to many pictures, and lots of fun. we stopped in an amazing chocolate shop (ofcourse) and abra and i shared 3 expensive pieces. but the woman made them all herself and now it is my dream to be her apprentice someday. the cinnamon chocolate we had was phenomenal, but the one with absinthe liqueor (sp?) was pretty gross. then we went to the academy of arts, which was pretty boring. but still fun. we wandered more, and finally found lunch as well as peggy guggenheim's house.
which was a great museum, her collection was phenomenal, and we got a short tour on an italian collector's futurist collection. which just jogged my art history memory. also the tour guide gossiped with us later about peggy and max ernst and peggy's daughter. abra and i both plan on reading peggy's autobiography as soon as possible. we also started chatting with a kid who had taken the tour with us. his name was justiin and he was 18 and in venice with his guardians. he is from australia and goes to theater school in sydney, so he lives there with a couple as their ward, and they take him to europe and buy him theater tickets and audioguides. abra was very jealous and kept trying to get information on how to get a guardian of her own. i mostly liked talking to him about art and theater.
(also i must note that i picked up another rock in the sculpture garden, which gets my european rock collection up to 3, hmm not too impressive. atleast they all have cute names ;)
the next day we wandered as well (justin had recommended the dogue's palace as well as san marco). but we ended up finding the jewish quarter. abra and i got very excited and ended up poking around there most of the morning and having MATZO BALL SOUP for lunch. yumyumyum! then in the afternoon after more wandering we made it to st marks(san marco) and walked through there.
since it was my last day in italy i made it a point to have as much gelato as i could- 1 scoop at breakfast, 1 scoop after lunch, 1 scoop in the afternoon, 1 scoop after dinner. and since it was all at the same place i got to try a few other flavors and when i went there on the way to the train station i got 2 scoops- but they gave my a 3rd for free!
that night we went back to the pub, tried italian drinks(spritzes are gross, but crazy lemon foamy thing was good) and the bartender gave us guiness candles for free! then we grabbed our bags and headed to our overnight train!