Just my story through venice. Wasn't sure if you all wanted to know but here it is...
WARNING THIS IS LONG

Well the day was eventful to say the least. It started out rather lazily, as I didn't exactly want to get out of bed, even for free breakfast. I was forced out regardless, and the hotel's breakfast was your typical continental breakfast, so we as any good americans would do went back and forth between the table multiple times making sure we had our fill. After breakfast I felt like a nap was in order, so we rested for another hour or so, then we hit a little patisserie.

The patisserie (bakery) I speak of deserves it's own paragraph. The amount and variety of sweets there was amazing, and each of them were a sugar coated masterpiece. There were little cheesecake things, chocolate mousse things, apple tarts, strawberry-kiwi cups, chocolate and coffee filled cream puffs, normal creampuffs, and a menagerie of other sugary confections that I can't possibly describe or know the name of. The absolute best of them was called a baba, and was basically a rum soaked sponge-cake topped with cream. In addition to their amazing baked goods they offered a coffee and hot chocolate bar in the corner. The hot chocolate was literally melted chocolate, not really anything else. I'm not really sure how they kept the chocolate at that consistency, but it was drinkable cocoa, no doubt about it.

After we left the bakery we took the vaporetto (water metro/bus) over to murano. The boat was unbearably crowded, and we were stuck in a stairway. Regardless, it was a pretty ride over. I didn't get to take any pictures since we were in the middle of the boat. There was a large crowd of english speakers when we got on, from westminister college in england. We got to talk to one of them, Alex, most of the ride over. Alex and his girlfriend were originally from Boston and were taking a semester abroad to be able to travel and experience europe. We got to share a number of travel stories, and it made the cramped ride a bit more bearable.

In murano we spent most of the time shopping. We didn't get to see the glassmaking process, which greatly saddened me, but we did get a number of great glass pieces, some for an exceptional price. My parents got to reminisce a bit, since they loved murano the last time they visited and we actually ended up in some of the same shops as their last trip there. After we left murano we stopped by the rialto bridge for some pizza and a gondola ride.

When we went in the restaurant we found a canadian girl's passport. We looked outside for her but to no avail. The passport didn't have any contact info for us to reach her with, we only knew her name was Jessie Speers from Toronto, she's 16, and she's also been to St. Martin. Oh yeah, she also came in to europe at Frankfort and is passport less. So my parents went on the gondola and I waited in the restaurant in case anyone from her family returned and kept my ear open for english or french speakers. I met some american girls and a whole class of english students but no canadiens. Poor girl is going to have serious problems when she decides to leave Italy.

Well that is my venice story.
I have more to say but I'm a bit tired of writing and I'm not sure you want to hear it anyways, so if you want to hear about the alps or france or the amazing pizza man just ask.