My New Hobby

Alright, I know. I'm kind of all over the place. I get bored easily, and so I try lots and lots of different things. My latest obession? Bikram yoga. If you've ever heard of "hot yoga", this is it. Basically, you spend 90 minutes in a room that is 105 degrees Farenheit with 40% humidity, and then go through a series of 26 yoga poses twice each. Why am I doing this? Well, why AM I doing this? It might sound like torture, but it's actually amazing. With all of the running that I do, my muscles get SUPER tight. This is an amazingly great stretch, and having the heat there to warm the muscles first really helps... It's kind of like heating up a piece of metal before you can bend it - it just makes it a lot easier when things are hot. Being in the room this hot, you sweat. A lot. Supposedly, all of the toxins are leaving my body. Not sure about that, but I have more breakouts on my face than I have had since high school. According to the website, this is normal and will go away. Let's hope so. I'm trying to go three times a week. We'll see how long this new hobby sticks. :)

A city with no cars?!?

Yes, that's right ladies and gentlemen... there is a city in this world that contains NO cars! I visited Venice this weekend with my lovely friend Claudia (who I met during RoPa run). I think for the first thirty minutes, I just looked around with my mouth open. Water, water, everywhere!! There are no cars or bikes in the city, because the streets are actually canals. It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen!! When we arrived, it was "acqua alta", which means "high water". The famous San Marco Square was flooded - but, not to worry - this happens pretty frequently, and the city is always prepared. There are risers all over the city that are put down when the flooding occurs, and there is enough room for a single file line going each way to walk along without getting wet. You can either do that, or buy rubber boots. Claudia and I opted for the riser route. It was amazing - the water went about mid-calf on our last day there, and went into the entrance of Saint Mark's Basilica - amazing that this kind of thing occurs!

Anyways... we arrive really early on Friday (and I do mean REALLY early - we had to get up at 4:30 am to catch our flight). When we arrived to Venice via bus, we then had to take an hour long "vaporetta" ride to our hotel. A Vaporetta is like a tram - a means of transportation to move masses of people. We found our hotel, which was in a great location right near San Marco Square. Then, we hit the town - we saw Saint Mark's Basilica, which was great! It was kind of funny to read about it though - most of the things inside are stolen from when Venice was the most powerful city in Europe! We then checked out the Doge's palace, which was kind of a preist-governor guy. Beautiful inside! :) We did a bit of shopping, and then did my favorite thing - you guessed it - EAT! :) The food in Venice is a bit different than the rest of Europe - less pasta and more things like polenta & risotto, less olive oil and more butter. I have to say - the food here wasn't my favorite - a lot more heavy and less savory. But, hey, I didn't turn any down! ;)


KP in San Marco Square - FLOODED! (it gets worse!)


Doge's Palace


These are the roads - no cars, no bikes, no trams - just boats!


Dinner our first night - a regional specialty - pasta with black ink sauce - it turned my mouth BLACK - it wasn't just the pasta that was black like I had had before - it was actually INK on the pasta - kinda gross, but if there is a regional specialty, I want to try it! ;)

We had a pretty relaxing evening, and woke up around 9 to hit the town again. We did a walk over the famous Rialto bridge and saw the Rialto market.

Rialto Bridge

Rialto Market

We visited a beautiful church, and then eventually made our way over to the island of Murano, where the famous Murano glass gets its name. We totally hit the travel wall at this point, and made our way back to our hotel for a nap! However, we got a second wind on the vaporetto, and decided that we wanted to take a gondola ride before dinner. :) There was a gondola stand just outside our hotel, and about 5 guys were very excited to take two young ladies for a ride. :) We paddled around for about an hour. No singing, no guitars, just a nice ride on the canals.

Our romantic gondola ride. ;)

Claudia with our gondolier

We had another nice dinner, complete with lots more wine, and then proceeded to get completely lost. A nice man from Murano not only told us where to go, but walked us there. He wasn't creepy at all, just very nice and friendly. We found that was pretty much the case in Venice - a nice break from the grind of Amsterdam. :)

We woke up Sunday to rain, rain, and more rain. The square was totally flooded - I couldn't believe it!! :)

A couple trying the boot route to getting through San Marco Square in Acqua Alta - holy smokes!

All in all, it was a nice weekend. I have to admit, Venice was not my favorite city in Italy. It was charming, but I'm big on efficiency, and having to get everywhere either by foot or by boat takes FOREVER! Maybe there is a lesson in this for me - that I need to slow myself down. Anyways, I'm glad I got to see it, but I'll consider that box checked. ;)