What a day!!

Today, we left Forte dei Marmi and took the train through Pisa to Florence (Firenze) where we changed trains and headed to Venice (Venezia). When we arrived in Venice we exited the train station and immediately arrived at the Grand Canal. We purchased tickets to board the waterbus. Literally, a ferry type boat for people and luggage that travels the canal dropping people at each stop. We got on one boarding dock and sat for awhile - nobody else was aboard. A little later a man got on, he looked around and got off. Fortunately for us, he was really helpful. He got off and realized that the bus dock we were waiting on had closed for the day but rather than leave us poor, dumb Americans sitting on the dock, he came back and told us where to go instead. We followed him to the correct place and got on a dock just as a waterbus arrived. We all herded onto a bus and off it went. While we were sitting there a very eccentric gentleman and his wife boarded and sat next to us. We discovered that they spoke English and live in New York - but they are Venezians originally. They told us about a festival that was happening tonight with MASS amounts of fireworks and people.

We decided to experience the parties of Venice and joined the throngs of people headed to the other side of the island. We crossed the long bridge (which must sit on floating platforms because it was moving the entire time we crossed) and walked along the street on the other side. It was a PARTY to say the least. Imagine a river with boats lining the shore and many more in the river. People sat lining the shore (which is actually a road about 15 feet wide). In some areas there were tables and chairs with people having gatherings and meals. In other areas, there was music and mass amounts of people sitting on the ground and/or dancing. Totally insane... You have to imagine, literally 150,000+ people at this gathering. I took this picture of the bridge that crosses the river ... notice the mass amounts of people crossing and this was taken at 8pm ... the fireworks were at 11:30 and the bridge looked like this non-stop until at least 10:30 pm and many people didn't even cross the bridge - just watched from this side of the river.

It all ended with 45 minutes of fireworks that was equivalent to at least FIVE Stadium of Fires. Literally, the sky glowed with fireworks. It is like NOTHING I had ever seen before. There were 5 barges in the river with 3 smaller platforms in between each one all launching fireworks. This picture was taken during the finale which had about this many fireworks going off for a solid 10 minutes! Sorry the masts to these ships weree in the way!
Then the exit process. Imagine taking the largest football stadium you've been in, completely packed with people then multiple it by about 3 (if you are imagining BYU stadium, maybe more if you are imagining a smaller stadium). Now imagine them evacuating the entire stadium through ONE portal and sending you into a tunnel that is about a mile long ... wall to wall people for 30 minutes of walking, barely able to move and imagine 90% of them reaking of cigarette smoke and alcohol! : ) An absolutely crazy experience and evening.

We are already loving our time in Venice!

On a side note, we are really missing our girls now. LOVE YOU GIRLS!! Looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday night. Alyssa, sorry we didn't get to talk to you today when we called. Hope you had fun at the bday party! Hope you did your best at the swim meet too! We'll post pictures of Venice tomorrow. We didn't get a chance to take many tonight before the throngs of people started to gather and then it got dark.