Europe Trip Diary : Day 10 Part 1 (Venice)

Hey guys!

How y'all doing? I'm currently nursing a headache, i dunno why but whenever i work out, i'd be really sleepy afterwards. And after taking a nap, i'd get a headache! Dammit. Isn't working out supposed to be good for you? Why the opposite effect's always happening to me? Zzzz... Maybe because i haven't been working out for the longest time, ever since our (#Undecided, A and i's) old work out place shut down due to the instructor's health. Hopefully it'll get better as i work out more regularly *fingers crossed*.

Anyway, suffered from severe bouts of insomnia this week, severely sleep deprived zzzz zzzz... One of the side effect? Didn't feel like writing. Even today, but since i haven't been posting anything for a few days already, my OCD side won over the laziness, hence this continuation of my European trip hahaha...

First of all, i have to warn you... It was one of the day when i feel like every single picture of me taken looked horrible... LOL FML. I look fat and short in every picture haish. That happens. I think it continues until the next day LOLOLOL, come to think about it, my face also looked weird in the last two days' photos FML, but that's due to fatigue. Can't blame fatigue for the fat and short part LOLOLOL. I think i'm gonna blame it on the photog then HAHAHA.

So, it was Day 10 in Venice, Italy! Gonna have to split Day 10 in two parts again because of the crazy amount of pictures we took that day, mostly nonsensical cam-whoring though hahahaha.

Hmmm... from the picture you can already see my OOTD pretty clearly, but i dun care lah, i went through all the trouble for taking OOTDs so of course must put them all here :p.

Wah why my hair so messy in this one LOLOLOL

Tee+Knitted cardigan : online, Polkadot Skirt : Magnolia, Black Tights : Online, Grey Striped Socks : Sox Gallery, Sneaker Booties : Planet Surf

Actually hunny and i wore couple tee (it comes with a matching cardigan but with different colors), i tried taking selcas of the two of us but i think hunny was being annoying and impatient, the pictures came out extremely blurry -___-.. You'll see our matching outfits in other picture in this entry though. Meanwhile, he photo-bombed me again, and he somehow always managed to photo-bombed me in the nicest pictures i managed to capture grrrrrrr!!!

FOTD, extremely soft and simple make up :D... Don't think i even wore mascara that day!

As i said already, Move Hotel was my absolute fave hotel during our trip in Europe, not only it was the nicest one... They also served the yummiest breakfast!!! Finally, yummy scrambled eggs after days of horrible tasting eggs!

Best breakfast in Europe :D

I also snapped some pictures to show you the views we're seeing while having breakfast...

Breakfasts for tour group was in a different place from regular hotel guests, why the discrimination??? LOL. We passed by the regular dining room and saw more food varieties there :p, i guess we paid special tour group price so (as in much cheaper :P!!!)...

Sleek open bar section

Modern yet simple receptionist area

Then we boarded on our new bus (we're using a different bus during our stay in Italy)..

New bus was slightly crampier than the old one -___-

The journey to the errr... ferry station? I really dunno what it was called *LOL*... It wasn't long, in a flash we arrived already, too bad it was raining there :(! Thankfully hunny and i packed raincoats from Indonesia so we weren't wet!

We were immediately rushed to the waiting boat to cross to one of the biggest islands. Lots of us wanted to go to the bathroom but weren't allowed since the boat driver wouldn't wait for us! 

In the boat, blurry because the wave was quite violent and the boat wasn't exactly big!

That's Aunty KK, the loudest and most fun aunty in the middle

If you're wondering where Eek and L, they were in a different, front section (much smaller, they jokingly called it the VIP section haha) with Mr H's family. Since we were split in two, Kikie wasn't aware that... two of our group members were missing!!! OMG! Seriously panicking afterward! They made it across in the end, but they had to pay more for the ride themselves and later (much later, actually on the last day), the wife-Mrs Lyn told L and i that her husband was super MAD that they were left behind. I guess no matter how hurried you were, as a TL you simply cannot justify leaving a group member behind, no matter what your excuses are...

It was still raining when we arrived at the island! So we couldn't take pictures (but don't worry, as soon as the rain stopped we totally over compensating by taking way too much pictures hahahaha) because we didn't want to wet out cameras, and it was really hard to take pictures coz i hid my hands inside my raincoat (coz the raincoat's arms' wouldn't totally cover my hands so if i let my hands hanging out they'd still be soaking wet!), but hunny snapped a few using his Samsung mobile phone.

Yeah, that behind us was one of the canals we saw in movies *LOL*, finally :p

First destination : toilet. LOL. It was the most expensive *and still very packed* toilet we paid for throughout our European tour, EUR 1.50 hahaha. And no, it wasn't all that clean anyway, but all of us had to go! It was a pretty long walk from our starting point to the toilet hahaha. 

Once everybody's done with toilet business, we were given a few hours of free time to roam around the island! Yay! Happy :D! First we decided to check out some stores (lots of branded boutiques along the narrow alleys in Venice), Prada (for that bag that my niece wanted, yes, i was still looking by that time) and Hermes (because a friend of L asked her to help her buy this leather wrap bracelet). It was still quite early and none of the shops were open, i can't remember their opening hour but i think it was 11 AM on the dot. 

It was actually only 10 minutes before the opening hour, i saw the shop keepers already inside doing nothing, but apparently they couldn't (wouldn't?) open before exactly 11 (or was it 10?)... Wonder why's that? L actually gestured to one of the shopkeeper but she gestured back that we'd have to wait for another 10 minutes *LOL*. Since we were already in that alley with Prada and Hermes boutiques, we decided to wait there (coz once we made a move we're pretty sure we couldn't find our way back to that exact alley, there were so many alleys that looked the same there...) and cam-whored hahaha (it stopped raining by that time, thank God!)...

Super cute display in LV store

We got fed up of waiting so finally we wandered around and cam-whored some more :p...

 

Gondolas!

We were way too cheap to rode on any of those gondolas so we cam-whored with them as a background instead hahahaha

"Fabio" in striped that would serenade you if you ride in his gondola hahahaha

This one i stole from hunny's phone again..

The stores finally opened! Went to Prada and waited for a while for the sales person to check on the bag my niece wanted's availability. By the way, the sales people there sucks big time -___- they were super snobby and unfriendly, especially the male one! The lady that attended us was better but not exactly friendly either. The male attendant didn't even look at us when answering our questions WTF. The other SAs in Paris or Milan's Prada were so friendly! I almost glad didn't have the bag in the right color because i didn't really want to purchase it there, given the treatment they gave us WTF!

In Prada store in Venice, while waiting for the SA...

Went to Hermes store next. When i heard L's friend wanted to buy a leather wrap bracelet in Hermes and it was only around less than IDR 3.000.000, i was attracted as well. I mean.. I don't really like Hermes bags (yet), and i don't really want to blow my money on cray cray priced bags, but the bracelet sounded very affordable! And yeah, it wouldn't hurt to have something from Hermes hahaha... But when i saw the bracelet... Errr... It wasn't as pretty as the picture and well... It's so.... ordinary. So i backtracked LOLOLOL.

While L purchased the errr...less than attractive super expensive bracelet, hunny and i went loose inside the store... and we spotted the perfume testers. I cannot see testers and not spray myself, and it was Hermes leh, so i randomly picked up a bottle and spritz myself... only to immediately regret it OMG FML! It stank like nobody's joke +___+ huhuhu... I smelt some cray cray *albeit very expensive* aunty hahaha. Even my mum wouldn't like that perfume! OMG, i guess i am not compatible with Hermes in anyway FML :p.

My sis called this "the common disease of people who travels to Europe", but we weren't exactly interested to shop for branded bags or whatever (only to regret it once we go back home because of the crazy price difference on the same exact item...), so once we're done in Prada and Hermes, we chose to wander around, snapped pictures and played with pigeons *L, Eek and hunny lah, not me, i friggin' hate birds... Except fried. Yum*.

I think we were waiting for Eek and L exchanging money in money changer there. I spotted some Venetian masks' earrings and was madly attracted to it, but hunny and the rest kept on telling me to wait *because Kikie promised to bring us to a super cheap stall owned by a Chinese immigrant later*, you'd regret if it's much cheaper there, they said. I was afraid they wouldn't have the exact same thing, and my worry was proven to be right zzzz. They didn't even sell any earrings in the cheap stall, let alone one with miniature masks on it!!

 

Other than that, i was also very attracted to slim leather bracelets with the word "I Love Venice" and stuffs like that *such a sucker for those kind of things...* but L told me it's super duper cheap in China *we're thinking of going to Beijing sometime in the next year...*, like... with the price they were selling in Italy i'd get a dozen or two in China WTF. But later i bought some in Rome because, the ones in China wouldn't exactly say "I Love Venice" right??? Instead, they'd say "I Love Beijing" or something, and L said "well, yeah..." zzzz.... 

 

Seriously lah, everything was made in China *okay not everything, they also sells authentic made in Italy stuffs, even putting signs "Italy made goods are more expensive because it's of a higher quality than replica China made ones" hahahaha*, but  like i said before, we wouldn't be able to find the exact some ones *in this case, the writings in the bracelet lah :p* in China anyway *because they special made it for their European customers*, so even though it'd be so much cheaper in China... what's the point??? *Getting frustrated by their logic*.

 

Moving on! We found ourselves in Piazza San Marco next, warning : cam-whoring pictures maximus ahead!

St Mark's Basilica, it was on renovation :(

Then they began playing with those pigeons *ick*... Of course i refused to participate WTF, i happily played photog for them *and shriek and duck whenever a pigeon flew too close to me*.

HUAHAHAHHAAH look at L's face at the back!!!!

I think they fed the birds biscuits that we swiped from hotels breakfasts hahaha... Once the biscuit's finished, we decided to move on *but there's going to be part two of this bird feeding section +___+*. We wanted to get in the Basilica, but once we approached it we saw the super crazy long queue!!! We wouldn't have enough time to do anything else if we stubbornly tried to get in! So in consolation we took more pictures outside the Basilica instead hahaha.

Can you spot the queue behind us?

 

 

 

St Mark's Clocktower

Earlier we were told that lunch would be at the same Chinese restaurant where we had dinner the night before -____-, so we *except Eek who prefers Chinese food obvi* decided to have lunch ourselves. We kinda had to force Kikie to let us because he was very adamant for us to join the  lunch that time, saying there's a member celebrating his/her birthday that day *thought he was lying hahaha but he actually was telling the truth, more about that later*. But i was so sick of Chinese food *not to mention a bit traumatized with previous experiences when he made us had Chinese food even though there were local cafes surrounding the restaurant!* i totally refused hahaha.

Spotted a quaint little cafe just opposite St Mark's Clocktower, there's an empty table outside and L who was still obsessed of having a meal/drink in an outdoor cafe in Europe wanted to eat there hahaha...

Falciani. Again it's actually a restaurant, sorry hahaha

Showing off "our" new Hermes purchase ahahahaha

Sneakily snapped this picture of a very sharp-featured, aristoctratic looking "Fabio" waiter hahahaha

Eek wasn't interested in the restaurant's menu, instead he bought a slice of pizza in a little store just beside the restaurant

Was taking picture of the alley, got photo-bombed by one of the other "Fabio" hahaha, that was very very nice and friendly :p

Hunny's coffee

Eek's (of course) super thick and creamy hot chocolate

I was still very full from breakfast so i chose to have ice cream instead, Italy's famous by their gelato right!

I told L to make a very snobby face, like "Yow, i just bought another Hermes yow." LOLOLOL

L pasta that she loved :p

Hunny's ravioli

He originally wanted to order more risotto, but to our surprise, it wasn't actually that easy finding restaurants serving risotto! I thought every restaurant would have it!

L poured like, half a container of that parmesan cheese LOL

L and i went to the toilet later *whenever there's a free toilet, go!!! Whether you have to go or not, just try to squeeze whatever liquid you have inside your body out hahahaha*, some of the Fabios (waiters lah ahahaha) were sitting around in the restaurant and they called to us "Cici, cici... Ciao!", waving and smiling at us. LOL. No idea what cici means though :p. Don't think it was a bad word though coz they were winking and and smiling *hopefully* LOL. OK i was curious, googled and i think they said "Chi chi" LOL, which means pretty. That's good! Hahahaha

 

Three of them stole some more bread and biscuits provided free by the restaurant *sigh* and head back to the pigeons *haish*, they wanted to feed the pigeons some more. What's with their obsession with those pigeons anyway...

 

But before that we stopped by the little store Eek bought the pizza at earlier coz i wanted to buy something, i only had ice cream and was afraid i might *most probably* be hungry later.

Bought the roll, tortilla type on the first row

It was pretty good! And big, and costs EUR 3 whereas you'd have to pay at least EUR 10 for a plate of pasta *stingy* *i don't even like pasta*. 

Eek and L inside the store

Dunno why hunny snapped this picture but i uploaded this because i find the baby pink liquor to be very pretty hahaha

Okay, pigeon feeding session part 2 starts here *___*.

I guess the pigeons liked the breads they got from the restaurant better than the ones we got from the hotel because they got a lot more enthusiastic this time. They even tried to flock to me WTF, of course that resulted in me embarrassing myself by hysterically screeching and swatting them away FML.

The pigeon was so bold even perching on hunny's shoulder!

The pigeon really stayed there forever, i was able to take pictures from every angle LOLOLOL

The pigeon must be a girl LOLOLOL

They finally were satisfied playing with those pigeons, it was getting close to the meeting up time so we moved towards the meeting point, snapping pictures along the way obvi.

They said when you pass that bridge on a gondola you should kiss to ensure your love would be eternal :p, so yeah we spotted lots of couples kissing hahaha

Then hunny spotted some super cool artists..

Would've bought one if it wasn't such a hassle to bring, the picture would be ruined if they rubbed together since it was painted using some sort of a crayon...

While L and i were obviously more interested in cam-whoring...

I was attracted to her dress hahaha

You had to pay EUR 1 to take pictures with those people in unique costume. I had no more coins and trusted L when she dragged me to take pictures with these dudes..

L put 1 EUR there and walked away, those guys (yes, both of them were guys) called to us asking for one more EUR, 1 EUR per person they said, but L already ran away and i had no coin at all so i had no other choice but to run after L *___* seriously embarrassing... She also refused to leave tips on that restaurant in Milan haish!!!!

Couple outfits finally clearly on display hahaha

We reached the meeting point very early, there were a LOT of souvenir shops and stalls along the way but i didn't buy anything *coz i remembered Kikie's promise...*, until i spotted a bag for #Undecided (that she wore here) because i thought it was very nice and something she'd like, very reasonably priced as well, afraid they wouldn't have it in the cheap stall *they really didn't, phewwww!!!* so i thought, screw it i'm buying! *still bitter over the Parisian incident too, don't want to fail buying a bag for her twice!*.

 

Also bought a captain hat for Baby Boy hahaha..

Then since my feet was killing me, we decided to sit around while waiting for our boat that took forever to arrive...

Hahaha i wasn't pissed, more like... afraid of falling into the... was it a river?

Soaking in the moment...

LOL at hunny's expression, it was like i grabbed him and he was unhappy about it hahaha, actually he was just squinting against the sun lah :p

The boat finally arrived and we crossed back to the mainland, there were lots of other souvenir stalls *that we already passed when we first arrived in the morning*, and Kikie brought us to the cheap stall *which really sells cheap stuffs that you can even bargain for*, the attendants were mostly Malay/Indian and they all spoke Malay *LOL*, lots of Malays and Indian workers in Italy in general (mostly in souvenir stores and toilets!).

Even though i was annoyed they didn't sell the mask earrings or the swaying miniature gondola, i bought a few souvenirs...

Fridge magnets, i actually bought a lot more of those Venetian masks magnets but i already gave them to my mum, MIL and sis in law

Bargain real hard for this mask because i just wanted one for souvenir lah, wasn't willing to pay a lot for it. I think i finally got it for EUR 5 or 6, not so bad hahaha. It's the China made one lah, my sis bought an original Italian made one and it was super expensive. Of course it was a LOT nicer, but i'm not much of a decor loving person, i only got if as a token, for the sake of having lah hahaha and it's quite nice also!

Also bought some tees that i'll show you in the second part of Day 10.

Okay, i'm gonna stop here, it's very late already and i have to wake up super early tomorrow, we're going out of town to celebrate #Undecided's birthday! TTYL!

#Pink