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Oh, how veNICE of you!

"Sometimes when you lose your way, you find yourself"- Mandy Hale

Whilst sitting in a Gondola, strolling through the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy, I had this sudden thought that life could not possibly get any better than at that precise moment.

It seems so surreal, this European adventure of mine. It's as if I'm constantly checking new cities off my ever-growing bucketlist, seeing things I've only heard of, planting my feet on ground I've only dreamed of. Venice marked the halfway point of our extraordinary month-long journey that will end up taking us all across Europe, and back again (we had poor planning, ok?). Halfway through a month of unforgettable shenanigans, memories, and stories I only hope people won't get sick of- honestly, I'm sorry in advance to all my friends and family who have to listen (over and over) about that time I did this in this country, and that in another country. 

But, for the past week, we've vacationed from our vacation. It's hard work planning an adventure this big, we deserved a little break, ya know? Venice was, of course, breath taking- but even better, it was a sleepy town. Just exactly the detox we needed from the riots of Budapest and the late nights in Barcelona. 

It's hard to tell for sure exactly, but it's up for debate whether or not we ate all the pasta/pizza/gelato Italy had to offer. We feasted like the Queens we are, and sipped on wine like true ladies, (ok, but who knew wine glasses weren't poured to the top?) and hopped on a Gondola only to pretend that we could afford a lifestyle lavish enough to have peasants serenade us on the Venice canals.

We even boarded a water bus that shipped us to the beautiful islands boarding Venice. We thought we were headed to Burano, the island of lace, but a few hours later, to our dismay, we discovered that we hadn't landed in Burano, but, in fact, we had been in Lido for the past 3 hours. Hey, we ended up finding a beach which was pretty neat, and you can never hate stumbling upon a beach. Ever. After eventually figuring out our whereabouts and what-not's, we headed off to Murano, the island of glass. A beautiful island, full of glass jewelry shops, and fun little restaurants. I could have easily stayed there forever, surrounded by waves and boats, and beautiful colored jewels, and even more enticing, the beautiful people.  

Venice has 200 churches, and 400 bridges, so as you can imagine- finding our way to and from was anything but easy. After constantly hitting dead-ends and wrong turns, we realized that getting lost in Venice, is truly the only way to find anything. If we had never gotten lost, we wouldn't have found the beach, we wouldn't have found the Irish pub playing sweet 90s jams, and we definitely wouldn't have had the photo opps that now grace Facebook. 

Although our hotel was technically a bus ride away from the actual island (and we hard core cheated the system and never paid), and our hotel may or may not have had prostitutes chillin at each corner, and the front desk staff didn't speak a lick of English- Venice was stunningly perfect, especially with all the wrong turns. 

















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