I think that this was the city I was most excited to see, more then Rome or any other city. I feel like from all my history classes this was the place that presented Italy the most or at least my idea of Italy. Elizabeth and I did not come from the school like everyone else did from class. We spent the weekend with Elizabeths family in Pordenone which was a lovely small town outside of Venice. I wondered before going to Venice if i would know when I was in the city. There is no way we could have missed it. The train travels over a small body of water and you know then that you are in the city on water. The train station is like any other station but a soon as you get out of the train station there were boats everywhere and little bridges and big bridges everywhere. Matt, Danielle, and Michele met us to take us to our hotel, because Venice is a maze. You think you can navigate that city without a map is impossible trust me I tried.

The reason we came to Venice in the first place was mainly for the the Venice Biennale. It was the 55th Venice Biennale and I had no idea what to expect for this. We the art students explained it to Matt as the Super Bowl of the art world. To be honest I had never heard of the Venice Biennale before hearing about it in class. I love the idea that I was introduced into something so big and important that I really had no idea about probably because I am not from Italy. We took what I like to call a water bus on the first day to the Venice Biennale because we thought it would be to far to walk, which we later found out was not that fair to walk to.

The group spent the day looking at all the different pavilions that were at the first location like the british pavilion which had a lot of political statements to make. The British also had free english tea which was awesome. There is no way that I could sit here and write about every single pavilion. So I am going to talk about what I thought and how I felt. Seeing that much art in such a short period of time was unreal. It was inspiring to see so much, I feel like it had a stronger hold on me because I am going into my independent studies and have to come up with ways to express my thoughts and ideas better then I ever have before. I saw a lot of things that changed my mind on how I thought about certain issues. I also decided that I will not use long videos to display any of my work, because people rarely spend the time to enjoy it. I saw this amazing piece in the Venice Pavilion which really took my attention and i hope to use in the future. It was a silk fabric hanging from the ceiling that the artist had sowed a drawing into it. I graduated from sowing school and I think it would be a fun way to get my Ideas out there. Then next day was like an over load of art, sometimes seeing to much art in a short period of time can hurt your brain. I did not enjoy everyones works of art at the Biennale I thought some artist I had no idea what they were talking about and how to react to their work. This brings me to my thought that sometimes art  is made for only people who study art because it is to complicated that the idea is lost to the viewer. I am not saying that everything needs to be dumbed down but at least artist should understand the audience they are communicated to.

We got to do a lot of shopping in Venice walk around a lot as I got us lost thinking I could get us home without a map. It was great my one and only purse I brought to Italy with me broke and that meant I had to get a new one. Yay! New purse I do not normally get myself nice things I get me something that is just going to do the job, but Lizz pointed out this really nice white leather purse and I wanted it so I got it. I also got Lizz a Pink purse for her birthday. Danielle pointed out that I should look for a tag that said Italian leather so I knew it was real and not just imported from another place. I would have never thought to look for that.

The group went out for dinner and also got to eat this amazing Pumpkin soup. I went there more then once just for the soup. Real soup is a hard thing to come by in Italy, it was nice to get some there. Lizz also got pomegranates which I have never had before. I think she introduced me into my new favourite fruit.

I also got to see the Doge’s Palace which was amazing and I got a lot of photos of. I did not go inside as I wanted to save some mystery for a future trip. It was weird to see these things that look like tables all over the city. At first I had know idea what they were until I saw them heading into the Doge’s Palace and I realized it was for flooding. When the Piazza floods the people walk on the table things to keep dry. Such a different way of living from anywhere else not just in Italy but in the whole world.