Exploring the World Marco Polo Style

The second stop on our summer adventure was Venice, a city I've been dying to see for a while now. It's a short train ride from Milan (though we traveled from Rome), and while it's incredible enough to spend a month visiting, it's also the perfect destination for a weekend getaway. Holly and I fell completely, head-over-heels in love with Venice. 

The hotel we booked was located perfectly, across the Grand Canal from the train station. It was super easy to find, but just a turn away the maze of tiny streets and canals that we couldn't get enough of. One of the first things we noticed was that there are truly no cars; everyone traveled by boat. The taxis, the police, the garbage and construction vehicles were all boats! We heard a siren at one point when we weren't next to the canal to see it go by, but assumed that even ambulances were boats. Craziness! 

I've said it before, but wandering is one of my absolute favorite things to do while traveling.

 Venice is truly a labyrinth, with a billion little streets, bridges, and dead ends to get lost in. *Side note: because my students all learned English as a second language, the translations were often more sophisticated than your average 9 year old's vocabulary. When telling me about their birthday parties at a laser tag facility they'd often discuss the 'labyrinth' that you navigate through as you play. Hehe cutie pies.* Venice, like Florence, is one of those cities where we'd be admiring the view only to look back and see that what was behind us was even more incredible. I'm not sure how to even begin describing it. The peacefully still canals, the waterlines creeping up the old buildings, the colorful flower boxes in each window, and the cobble stoned streets make Venice the perfect city to wander until you have absolutely no clue where you are.

The Bridge of Sighs

Interestingly, Holly and I didn't have any of the complaints many tourists have visiting Venice in peak tourist season. 

Maybe it could have something to do with growing up around lakes, but it didn't smell awful like I'd heard it would. The only place we felt was too crowded was right around San Marco's. Seeing the Bridge of Sighs was cool, and I'm again embarrassed about my lack of travel knowledge. I had thought the the 'sigh' part of the name came from travelers sighing in appreciation of the view from the bridge. That's partially true in that hundreds of years ago prisoners were moved between buildings on this bridge, and they would often sigh as they caught their last view of Venice through the windows before their incarceration. The area was beautiful, and I definitely will be doing some reading up on the history (I know, I know- I really need to do my reading before traveling), but we didn't stick around there long and instead kept to the relatively empty little alleyways. 

San Marco's Basilica

He had a friend paint this view for his
pride&joy/gondola.

We took a ride on a gondola, and it was definitely worth the price. 

The view from the boat was beautiful, and our gondolier was full of interesting little details on each landmark we passed, as well as Venice in general. He was very proud of his boat, and seemed to be friends with everyone we rowed past. My teacher side is coming out again: one of the most exciting moment of the trip was when he nonchalantly pointed out Marco Polo's house from the water. We spent a long time learning about exploration this year, and Marco Polo was one of our biggest focuses I'm class... *insert high-pitched squeal of excitement here!!* The most amazing part was that it just blended in with the surrounding houses. If he was born in 1254, that makes his house at least 760 years old, but it didn't look out of place or any more like a historical landmark than the others. We also passed Casanova's house. Crazy. 

Clearly he's thrilled.

Marco Polo's house! Ermahgerd!

Maybe a little research will help with this, but Holly and I kept wondering about the doors that led directly to the water. Sure, then you could access your front door from your boat, but what about when the water rose another two feet as our gondolier said it would? Were they all boat garages? Some looked like dungeon gates like you'd see in "The Man in the Iron Mask" or "Ever After" or something. Hmmm something to ponder and perhaps Google...

Embarrassing, hilarious, & so much fun!

Unfortunately for us the forecast called for rain during our brief stay. However, luck was on our side and the storm lasted for about two hours in the evening, and we headed right back out afterwards. It was dark at that point, and the street lights shining on the wet cobblestones added a very ethereal feel to the already magical city. We did some more wandering, and when we heard some music playing across the Grand Canal went searching for its source. It turned out to belong to a group of locals who meet each week to learn new dances. One of the men asked us to join in, saying that they learn dances from all over the world and practice in public in order to meet new people. We learned an Israeli dance that looked simple but took me forever to get the hang of. After finally remembering which foot to cross over and when to take the small tippy toe steps, I was very proud of myself. That is I was until I looked up from the guy next to me's feet at the graceful girl to his left and realized I dance like a broken robot. A French three-step dance came on next and I'm pretty sure I was worse at that one. But no matter- it was such a fun, spontaneous experience and from now on I'll always seek out the music!

Next time (it's pretty cool to be able to say next time and feel confident that there will be a next time), I definitely want to go inside San Marco's, the Da Vinci museum, and take a trip over to the island of Murano for a glassblowing demonstration. As for souvenirs, Venice is full of carnavale masks and figurines made from both beautiful Murano and cheap imitation glass. I loved all of the ornate clocks we kept seeing and bought a lovely little sundial, as well as little glass candy pieces that now fill a dish on my coffee table. Something for the grandchildren to play with :) Holly and I are now on a train to Nice, which should be nice (haha I'm so funny). I'm looking forward to Old Town, rosé wine, and combing Pebble Beach for sea glass. 

Hey, it's me! In an apparently see-through shirt...

Roaming Rome (hehe word play)

Who doesn't love souvenir shops?!

As I type this, I'm sitting on the top step of Palazzo delle Esposizioni, looking down on Via Nazionale in Rome. It's the last night of my third trip to Rome, and the three words that cross my mind probably 15 times a day are again going through my head: I'm so lucky. 

This is my first time traveling during the summer and it's much different. On one hand, packing is better because clothes are so much smaller and lighter. Seeing the different monuments surrounded by trees in full bloom adds an extra degree of beauty to appreciate, and it's pretty wonderful to find a shady spot to sit and write for a while. On the other hand, the amount of tourists (much as I hate to admit it, I know I fall into this category) that have flooded the city is astonishing. You're constantly walking around or stuck behind a crowd, and it's impossible to avoid walking through people's pictures. The heat is also intense and can make the crowds feel even more claustrophobic. 

Holly and I with our bud Pinocchio 

Usually when I've traveled I've been more of a follower than a leader, but for Holly's first trip to Europe I wanted to be as organized as possible. 

Rome has been a pretty easy city to navigate with a map and I've only taken us in the wrong direction a few times. Earlier when I was trying to find a street sign to pinpoint our location, Holly asked if the map on my phone was broken or something, and I know I could use that but it's actually easier using a printed map here and feels more authentic. I'm starting to get the hang of where things are. I'd love to really know a place, here or really anywhere, but have no sense of direction. I love showing people around and knowing where to go! 

Anyways, a few thoughts on souvenirs: I love objects with a story. I've mentioned it before for non-family readers, but some of my favorite memories growing up we're listening to my grandparents reminisce about their adventures in Europe. The time they spent in England inspired me to apply for teaching positions around Europe. Anyways, many of the stories were attached to things around the house. Grampy had a huge wooden desk with what seemed like a million little drawers and secret compartments, one of which was filled with coins from all over the world. As a Kodak man, his photographs were a point of pride and full of stories. The last time he and I spoke, I told him I was moving to Italy and he became very quiet. I asked what he was thinking about and he said, "All of the things I saw, all the pictures I took." His pictures contained memories that he held onto for his entire life. If I'd ask Grammy about her favorite places she'd take out her jewelry box or head over to a cabinet full of special knickknacks from all over the world. Their home was full of trinkets and little details that brought back memories and I hope that someday when my grandchildren (God willing...) come to visit they'll be able to point out quirky little things and I'll be able to tell them stories about all of my adventures. 

The Colosseum never fails to take my breath away.

This time around I bought a book on Rome (all I want to do after leaving a place is to read absolutely everything about its history. I wish I knew everything), and this cool hanging bead... thing. I'm also always on the lookout for gifts to give. One of the girls I work with has mentioned keeping a drawer full of gifts at home, buying them way ahead of time even if it's nowhere near a birthday or Christmas. I'm starting to do the same and now have some simple but nice little things from all over that I'm excited to bring home. 

The next few weeks are going to be busy ones! 

Last week, after the successful completion of my first year as a teacher (yay me!), I just about died of exhaustion and turned into a hermit. As boring as it sounds, I did everything I wanted: thoroughly cleaned and organized my apartment, wrote thank you notes to my extremely generous and thoughtful students, met my future husband Joe Jonas, and Netflix-binged on 30 Rock and Vampire Diaries. Now, after three nights in Rome, Holly and I catch a train to Venice tomorrow, then head back to Milan before traveling to Nice, Barcelona, and Granada. We're kind of all over the place geographically but I just want her to see everything!! After that I'm going home for an entire month to Webster, which will definitely include a weekend in Lake Wallkill for Regatta, many beachy afternoons and campfire evenings at Cayuga, and possibly a trip out to California to see Krista in her new habitat. It's a busy, wonderful summer and I'm loving every minute of it!

Wandering through the Forum feels like stepping back in time.

I Met Joe Jonas

I, Jesye Streisel, now a fangirl, met Joe Jonas at Men's Fashion Week in Milan, June 2014.
My life is complete :)

I almost took it off the list. I almost gave up and decided it was too far-fetched! I almost changed

"See a celebrity at fashion week" to just "See a celebrity." But I didn't, and now I get to check it off the list. I met Joe Jonas!!

In high school I dragged Holly to a Jonas Brothers concert with me, and while we made fun of all the screaming girls, not gonna lie, that was me on the inside. At the end of the concert, as we crankily tried to find our parents' car, the car the three brothers were in drove by us with one of them waving out the window and I made some sort of involuntary little screamish noise I had no idea I was capable of making. Joe Jonas was my laptop background freshman year, and now we have spoken to each other. Anyways, here's what happened.

School is out, so on Monday I went into the city to do some celebration shopping. Unfortunately, my other reason for going into the city was closed (panzerotti is basically pizza in a donut). Between that, the fact that I accidentally bought my new dress in the wrong size, and my complete lack of obligations, I headed back in on Tuesday as well. I was well fed, had a new dress, but didn't want to go back to Opera so wandered around for a few hours. Sometime around 2:30 I noticed a crowd of girls standing around, apparently waiting, but didn't really think anything of it. A while later, I wandered back to the same area and saw the same group. This time, I asked a cab driver what all the girls were doing and he said waiting for a celebrity but he didn't know who. A girl told me it was Joe Jonas, who I knew was in town for Men's Fashion Week. She told me that he had gone in a few hours before and had promised to take pictures with everyone when he came back down.

At this point, it was really a moral dilemma: completely invade a person's privacy by creepily waiting outside their hotel and take a picture with my longstanding imaginary boyfriend, or walk away and respect personal boundaries. The immoral side won, and I joined the girl crowd, waiting a full hour (I made a new friend to pass the time with. She wasn't a Joe-fan, but it was rumored that Dougie Poynter was in there too) for him to emerge. And oh, he did. I'm so lame. I thought I could be all cool and collected but completely joined the swarm and took a bunch of pictures. 

I know that these pictures are basically the same, but my kindhearted future boyfriend Joe
Jonas took a few so that I'd have options. Whatta guy <3

At first it seemed like there were too many girls to get through to actually meet him. But Anna (new friend) got up to him first and I took their picture. Then, it seemed like time went by really slowly. There were probably 3 seconds where it was clearly my time to move in but it felt like a few minutes. I jumped in there though and said (with my heart racing like... something really speedy...), "Hi, I'm Jesye, it's nice to meet you." I don't remember what he said but oh my God, he is adorable. Anna had disappeared, so I asked a bodyguard if he would please take our picture but he wouldn't, and that was when Joe said, "Here, we can just take it ourselves." And he took a few pictures with my phone. Then I was shooed away by the guards. 

I am now following him on Twitter, and watched Camp Rock last night. How on Earth did I turn into a fangirl? Ugh. Well, I think it's probably the fact that he was wearing a wolf shirt, and I've come to realize that that is my type in men. I use to think my "type" was dark hair, dark eyes, kinda scruffy, but both longterm boyfriends have been much more fair (light brown/blondish with blue/green eyes). My new theory is that it's all about the animal clothing.