Venice!

Buongiorno!
As you are well aware, I haven't blogged in a really long time. Mi dispiace! Quite a bit has happened. On the 29th of September, I went to a Champions League soccer game in Florence. Fiorentina vs. Liverpool. In the afternoon I went to Florence with a couple friends to find some purple attire. As we walked around we saw a ton of people preparing for the game. I've never seen so many people wearing purple in my life. We arrived at the stadium that night and joined the huge crowd trying to get in. We went through more security than we did at the Rome airport for customs. haha! The game was a blast, Fiorentina played great that night and won 2-0. Some of the players for both teams play for national teams. Anyway, I had a blast at the game and I took some pictures and videos.
This past weekend I went to Venice with a group of 14 others. We planned to take an 11:50 AM bus up the hill. We got a call sometime in the morning from our RD (who had left for a different trip that morning) telling us that there was a protest downtown and we should give ourselves more time. We got up to the bus stop about an hour earlier than planned. We waited for 20 minutes (2 busses should have come by then). So we didn't miss our train, we decided to start walking to town and hope we'd see a bus. Basically we walked and walked and walked and walked. It rained and we kept walking. We split into 2 groups somehow. My group ended up walking all the way to the train station in Florence. We'd walked an hour and 45 minutes! It was exhausting, but now I can say I did it. We ran into the protest at one point. Mostly it was just a bunch of people holding flags and yelling.
Anyway, when we got to the right train station we found out that after all that our train was 65 minutes delayed!!!! Ugh. When we finally arrived in Venice we took a ferry to our hostel. That night we ate pizza and wondered around Venice. Over the trip we traveled with a priest and a brother from Florence. It was cool because the priest could explain pretty much everything to us. He got us into a lot of great places. It was so much fun! Over the course of the trip we ate some great Italian meals, saw some beautiful views, and explored a castle. We got back to the Villa around 10 PM last night. Let me tell you though, I still feel like I'm on a boat!!!! Wave lag...
There's much more to tell about that trip, but I don't have enough time to get it all out.

This week is pretty uneventful so far, though I guess it's just started. It's raining a little today. I hope all is well back home.
Love you all,
Anna