Rockin' Croatia and the Regatta Storica

Hello!!

Okay, biiiig post and update today. First and most important:

If you want to send me mail, you've got to send it to...
Ally Dall
c/o Ali Damico
4660 Castello
30122 Venezia ITALY

The reason that you have to send it there and not to my apartment is that it turns out that we don't have a mail slot. If you feel the need to send me a package, send it to the Istituto. For the select few of you choosing to send a package, lemme know and i'll give you the address.

Okay, now that that is done, on to more interesting things. First, Croatia.

We all headed over to San Basilio, which is the port for Venice, and got our tickets. Now, I have no problem riding in boats. I mean, let's be real, I rode in a very big boat from Athens to Naxos (9 hours) and I had zero problem with that. I ride boats all the time in Venice. I had no problem with the boat we were about to get on. It's just that there had just been a storm in Venice and in Croatia. But, that didn't bother me. I had snacks, a fully charged ipod and a window seat.

So, we embark and the first bit of the trip isn't too bad, the part where we were still in the lagoon. Once we ventured out of the safety of our tiny lagoon into the Adriatic, that's when things got nasty. We were pitching and rolling like nobody's business. There were points when you couldn't see the horizon out of the window because it was completely facing the water. Anyway, after 3 and 1/2 hours of horrible boat riding, we arrived in Croatia, no worse for the wear. Well, we were fine. There were a few people on the boat who lost it.. food, that is... lots of sea sickness on the boat.. yuck.

We de-boated and they stamped my passport cause Croatia isn't an EU country. Sweet. Anyway, Rovinj (the city we came into) was amazing. It is this tiny, beautiful Croatian port village that is magical. There is this beautiful church up on a hill and it was all lit up and lovely. See next post for facebook links. (By the way, facebook tells me that if i give you these links you can see the pictures. can you?) We wandered around the town looking for a hotel. Turns out Rovinj, Croatia is a huge tourist destination the last weekend of August. EVERYTHING was booked. Eventually, Ali's dad called some places from the states and got us in at this really cute little hostel. However, we never would have found it cause it was about a mile from town. (I would just like to state for the record that I did in fact find us a place to stay, but her dad had already booked the place. I wanted to do it on our own, but no biggie.) So, we go up to the hostel and turn in, as it was almost 1 and we were EXHAUSTED.

We got up early the next day and our hostel owner made us breakfast. Yeah, it was that cool. We spent the day in the town shopping and wandering. We were on our way up to that really cool church when it started POURING rain. We took refuge in the church for a while and then just wandered in the rain. It stopped raining long enough for my camera to break. Good. Great. I ended up buying a new one (the whole transaction done in Italian, sort of. They speak Croatian and English and Italian, but not everyone speaks English). I bought a new, really nice one that is compatible with my old memory card, so I didn't have to buy a new one of those.

Anyway, after that unexpected financial blow, we discovered that Friday night was, in fact, Rovinj night. It was their yearly festival. Sweet. So there was all this traditional dancing and singing and grilling and there was CORN!! Allahna and I both ate some corn on the cob cause we're from the midwest and we miss corn. It was not as good as home, but decent.

We spent the whole evening in town and went back to our hostel waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay late. We then woke up about an hour and a half after we got home so that we could make our bus back to Venice which left at 5:40. EARLY. We got on the bus and it was a long, hot, long ride. Plus, the kid sitting next to me across the aisle got motion sickness. Seriously? We passed through Slovenia (EU country) and I got my passport stamped (sweet) and we proceeded back to Italy. Got off the bus at Mestre and took the train back to Venice. Got on the Vap. Collapsed at home.

We napped for a few hours and then all headed over to the Colonette, one of the other Colgate apartments, so we could hang out before going to San Servolo for the opening party for the Venice Film Festival. It was basically a huge dance party. We drank prosecco and danced until about 4 am, when we fought for a spot on the Vap back to San Zac.

That was all in Friday and Saturday. Croatia = check. Now, onto the Regatta Storica. Sunday morning, Ali, Kathleen and I went to church at San Zulian. San Zulian is this really adorable little church near San Marco with an english mass. It's so nice. I like it. After mass, went home and packed a lunch and went to the Rialto to scope out a place to watch the regatta. We ended up sitting across the Grand Canal from the Palazzo Ca'D'Oro, so all of my pictures (again see: next post for facebook link) have a sweet background of the Palazzo.

The regatta was so cool! They had the whole canal wired for music and played really cool instrumentals while the boats processed by. They were beautiful and the rowers were all dressed in really cool clothes. I can't even describe them! I have tons of pictures, though.

Today was the first real day of semester. We had Italian, which we have every day, and Italian Lit (in english, thank god). It's gonna be a good semester, i think. I like our professors a lot so far.

I guess that's all for now. I think we're gonna go see the Woody Allen movie that's playing tonight. Nothing else other than that!

Un bacione,

Xoxo,

Ally