Venice Imagined

The original draft of this post was written on notebook paper, on my flight between Chicago and Paris. I got so busy with the preparations for my trip that this assignment fell by the wayside. Luckily, I'd printed most of the emails with information about Venice, so while I didn't quite meet the "before you take off" deadline, I was reminded of this in time to think about it and write something before I actually made it to Venice. So. I imagine Venice in the romanticized way it appears in pictures on calendars and shows on the travel channel- a bright, sunny Mediterranean city where the people are friendly and the pace of life is slower. I expect to find outdoor markets, street musicians, and quaint little cafes. I also know that Venice is a huge tourist attraction, so I expect to find plenty of shops packed with souvenirs. There will definitely be gondolas; I think that's what everyone associates with Venice. I hope that because it is a tourist attraction, there will also be plenty of people who speak English. I don't know any Italian yet, and while I have been in places where no one speaks English and gotten by with gestures before, it would not be my first choice. I know Venice is an old city, so I expect to see lots of pretty old architecture, and because there are no cars, it should be relatively quiet. Overall, I'm looking forward to something very different from life around Lafayette and Purdue.