L'avventura italiana: "Dove San Marco??"

Earlier this week, Amy and I decided that while we were in Italy, we had to see Venice at some point. So we found an agency in Florence that provides day trips to students or anyone that wants to sign up. Yesterday we met the group at the train station, and we took a bus for 3 hours to Venice! I was really excited because Venice is so unique, and seeing it in person after hearing about it and seeing it in pictures was awesome.
We got to Venice a little after 12:30, so we went right to lunch. We had lunch on the island of Murano where they have the glass blowing factory. During lunch, it was raining pretty hard, but by the time we were done eating, it completely cleared up! (Wish that would have happened in France...) For lunch I had real Italian spaghetti for the first time (Lexie!), and it was delicious. After eating, another girl (Carina) and I walked to the glass factory. Unfortunately since we weren't with a large group, we couldn't see the demonstration, but we did get to look around the shops to see what all they made! After going to Murano, we had to navigate the water buses to try to make our way to another island called Burano. This island was so cute! The houses and buildings on this island were painted in every color imaginable. Plus it wasn't too tourist-y, so it had a very relaxed vibe. We didn't spend long on this island because we just wanted to see the buildings. So after about a half hour on Burano, we caught another water bus to get to the main island where the Grand Canal and St. Mark's Square are.
The canals in Venice are spectacular, and we were all saying that it was a nice change not having to worry about being run over by cars every five seconds! I wanted to take a gondola ride, but not enough people I found wanted to take one, and they were crazy expensive anyway. I guess I'll have to settle with the water bus rides :p
I met up with a couple people and we were on a mission to find St. Mark's Square. We found the Ponte Rialto bridge no problem, and walked across it a few times. Then we followed the signs to take us to St. Mark's Square. Unfortunately, the signs disappeared after a while, so we had to ask for directions. Finally, we found the square (which shouldn't have been so hard to find since it's huge!). All of the buildings surrounding it were beautiful, and I did see the old clock with the sun revolving around the earth (Mom!). I'm a little sad that I didn't take a gondola ride while I was there, but now that will give me an excuse to come back someday so I can!!
Last night was another long night because we had to wait on the bus to leave for an extra 1.5 hours, since two people got lost and missed the sooner water bus ride. We ended up getting home around 1:30am. I was really tired...until Amy found a LIZARD in our room, and then I woke right up because I was freaking out! Lizards are cute when they are outside, but when they are in your room by your bed?? Then no. I cannot handle it! Thankfully, Ashley came over and caught it and let it go on our balcony. Hopefully that will be the last reptile wandering around our room!!