Single gals in the city

My sister just informed me that her former roommate in Italy, a bubbly Korean girl named Jin, has arrived in Korea after a 5 year absence. I bet she's got some major adjusting to do after staying in Europe for the past 5 years. While Europe is socially and culturally liberated, Korea is very traditional and conservative. After coming back from Russia and Europe last November, I had a difficult time adjusting to a lot of common Filipino practices (e.g. traffic and non-queueing).

It seems the gals who rocked Venezia are all back in Asia (for now). I spent the Oct. 31-Nov. 1 holidays last year with my sister and Jin in Venezia. We had a fabulous time:




1.) We arrived at Stazione F.S. Venezia S. Lucia with Sakura, a Japanese friend. Her Venetian boyfriend was there to pick her up and she volunteered him to take us to our hotel. Venezia is a maze, and according to Sakura, her boyfriend is a whiz with directions. Well, turns out, her boyfriend is also a dunce, and as soon as he told us that "your hotel is just nearby, we can walk," he proceeded to walk off, expecting us to just follow him like lambs while we carried/dragged our suitcases with us. Did I mention that Asians are tiny compared to white people? Oh, did I tell you that Venezia is made up of dozens and dozens of bridges? We had to carry and drag our suitcases over those concrete stairs while the stupid Pinochio walked steadily infront carrying his girlfriend's tiny purse. I'm all for equal rights, but man and woman are not built equal, and nature designed that the men have the muscles, which this Pinochio used to carry Sakura's chihuahua-sized bag.






2.) Well, although Pinochio was an asshole, our hotel was cute and compact and located in a obscure little corner in the city. Best of all, the bathroom was modern! Sure, Venezia is hundreds of years old and is steadily sinking, but our bathroom was definitely 21st century.















3.) Food was fantastic! The only problem was, although we were 3 small-medium built girls, we all ate like truckers. So we ordered everything from pizza, to pasta, to risotto, and lots of red wine.














4.) We visited the usual places that people have probably read or googled thousands of times already, like the:
a. Doge's Palace (Palazzo Ducale): creepy and haunting and powerful after all these years. This palace served as the senate house, administrative center, hall of justice, public archive and prison up until the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797.

b. Grand Canal: We didn't ride the gondola because the Japanese tourists booked every single one. I'm kidding, but it was outrageously expensive, and we had no cute guys with us anyway, so we gave it a miss. Venice's main water thoroughfare, lined with great Renaissance palaces, is a colorful and busy spectacle of gondolas and vaporetti.
c. Saint Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco), Blending the architectural styles of East and West, Venice's magnificent basilica was consecrated in 832 AD as an ecclesiastical building to house the remains of St. Mark.

d. Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square): I have to admit, we still engaged in our favorite activity while visiting Piazza San Marco--we had mouth-watering gelato. Anyway, this is the most photographed and famous plaza in Europe, St. Mark's is in the heart of the city, surrounded by chic sidewalk cafes and boutiques

5.) We did the paparazzi thing: We pretended to be Hollywood starlets and took paparazzi photos of each other.














6.) We lost our hotel room: Yeah, we decided to stay another night, Unfortunately, our room was already booked for the following night. Our train for Florence already left when we decided to stay in Venezia, so we had no choice but to stay. It turned out, there was no hotel in the entire city that was not fully booked. We had no place to stay.
We decided to take the train to the closest town, Venezia-Mestre at the mainland, and try our luck there. We literally ran around town at 9pm to look for a free room. It was cold, we were starving, and we had to race against the other tourists who were desperate for a room. Fortune finally smiled on us and I got lucky and found one. Just seconds after I booked the room, a couple more people came in and asked for a room-- I got the last free room and there was nothing left for them.
Yes it was a close call, or else we would have slept at the train station!

7.) The clincher: The tourist information officer went berserk: She started yelling and throwing brochures inside the tourist counter because she was impatient of answering inquiries from the tourists.
Yup, she was tired of doing her job and went amok infront of dozens of people.