Venice, Italy

Today is Sunday. Which means church. So we drove to the other side of Florence to this small building and went to church. 
It was really crazy because sacrament meeting was in 3 different languages. Spanish, English, and Italian. We had a translator sitting next to me but I couldn't even hear her much less anyone else around me. It was a nice effort though. 
By the way...we live in such a Small world. Of course Tyler knew someone. He served there and his branch president Was someone he obviously knew so that was cool. Amy also had a friend from back home that she knew on his mission there that she saw and he translated for us. Chelita found someone that she's worked with before from like south America or something crazy like that. It's crazy how small the world we live in is. 
It was fast and testimony meeting so McKay, Ryan, and Todd bore their testimonies which were then translated into Italian. That was cool. It was all really awesome but their testimonies were the best. Todd is going to be a general authority. There's that story. 
After church we got on our Dutch bus with our Dutch bus driver, Peter, to go to Venice. 
As soon as I thought I got away from the humidity, Venice brought it all back. When we got there it was raining and beautiful. 
Venice is 117 islands connected by canals and bridges and such. Venice- great but no sewage system. Well sort of. The sewage goes into the water surrounding the city and the tide of the ocean carries the sewage out. So there is sewage all around everywhere. But I don't know how much I believe that because when you walk around and go over the bridges, there aren't little floaties everywhere and it doesn't smell that bad. Italy in general isn't the most pleasant smelling place but that's life. And you know that if the sewage emptied straight into the canal without any sort of filter or something that there would be little "presents" everywhere. But it's mostly true. And there is water everywhere. No cars. Just boats. And bridges :)
We drug our luggage over bridges everywhere and up innumerable staircases until we got to our hotel. I swear that I will have done at least a half marathon with my luggage after this trip. 
My room overlooked a canal and a pretty busy street. And a bridge too. And we had a loft in our room. It was pretty cool!
I went with Melanie and Kelly to walk around cause it was like 6ish when we got there and we were hungry. We found some pizza for a euro 60 and bought it. It was real good. We also had some gelatto. Yum. 
Then we just wandered. No map, no water taxi, no nothin. Just us and Venice! When 10 rolled around, we decided we needed to go back, asked some people where we were and realized we were on a completely different island almost off the map. Yay. So because I have been designated the map quester, it was my job to get us back. We were VERY lost. And I didn't have my water taxi pass to get on the taxi. Whoops. 
We asked around, went in circles and got made fun of. Several dark ally ways and nearly two hours later, we got back. Getting lost in Venice is all part of the experience though. It was fun. 
Venice is known for it's glass. Beautiful glass and there are also tons of masks everywhere. Every design and color one could imagine. They're very pretty and all over the place. 
Today is a special Sunday because it's Tay's birthday!! I have to give another shout out to my girl Brontay Dickson. She's 19 today and I love and miss her a lot. I hope you have a fantastic day. I wish I could've sang to you and celebrated with you but we'll do plenty of that this fall :) love you lots!!
I won't have Internet for a while so this will be late. I hope y'all are safe and doing well. I'll see you in a week :)
While we were wandering today, I saw a bridge with love locks on them. You write your name and the person you're in love with and lock it on the bridge. It's super cute. One of them said "never give up. It's such a wonderful life. " don't forget that!