Day Twenty Five : Venice

Date :  Saturday 25th January 2014

Time : 11.18

Location : Fleet Street, Birmingham

Birmingham's Canals

OK, so the title's a little misleading, but there is relevance. Allow me to explain. 

This morning, I (badly) played football, and on the long, aching walk home I stumbled over this nice bridge, overlooking one of Birmingham's many canal routes. It reminded me of my time in Venice, which I enjoyed almost a year ago to this very day. 

It's a well publicised fact that England's second city boasts more canals then Venice - though I'm sure anyone that's lucky enough to have visited both will agree the route quality, surroundings and climate are fairly incomparable. 

And it was actually in Venice, 364 days ago, that I wanted to start a blog. Yup. It's taken me nearly a year to start. That's dreadful. It's easier now that I have a challenge that I've set myself, whereas in Venice I just saw a bunch of things that I was interested in / made me laugh that I wanted to talk about. 

I ended up taking loads of pictures there (something I didn't ever really do), but didn't have the attitude to blog. I will now share with you some of those moments from northern Italy. 

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Hannah had amazingly surprised me with this trip for Christmas, it was amazing. Inside a small box she brought green, white and red crepe paper and organised into the Italian flag, with a message saying we're off to Venice. What a present. 

The flight was standard RyanAir, no leg room, rattley compartments and awful food. I did find it quite funny that they seemed to ridicule themselves in their in-flight magazine. Pages were laden with jokes like -

"There's no extra cost to turn the page"

"Free printed receipt with every purchase"

"Great for scoffing if you've been separated from your friend!"

For the record. I won't be flying RyanAir again. Too cramped and too stressful!

Then we arrived in Venice. It was January. It was cold. 

When the thought of Venice first sprung to mind, I thought lovely canals, amazing architecture, gondola's by the dozen. 

What I actually found when we were there, was - 

- Graffiti-filled walls

- Penis shaped pasta on sale in every shop

- Pigeons flapping ON people

- A furniture shop called 'Fart' (once a child, always a child) 

There was one thing that startled me about Venice, and I still can't quite believe this, I actually had to go back through my pictures to ensure that my facts were correct - they are. I will list 3 items, and in your head, when reading this, you should think in your head. 

"I think that, costs €XXX"

Here goes. 

A bottle of vodka. 

A standard deck of Uno cards

An actual stabbers knife

OK ...

Ready ....

Vodka - €7.50

Uno - €19.00 - REALLY!

Stabbers knife - €10

Just to put that in perspective, my Big Mac meal (which I attempt to have in every country I visit) cost €9. 

Is Uno really expensive? Or are weapons and alcohol just dirt cheap? What is wrong with the world! 

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I hope everyone enjoyed my memoirs from Venice. Think I might do a bit of Netflixing tomorrow! So you can look forward to some recommendations! 

Lesson of the day - Always pull through with plans - even if they are 364 days late!

BONUS PICTURE 

OK so maybe this is cheating a bit, but I make up the rules, and I really wanted to share this amazing picture which I took on my phone (really) during the flight to Venice.

Date :  Saturday 26th January 2013

Time : 11.23

Location : The Alps, France (maybe)