Venice-Burano

It has been an extremely long time since I have written. I know a lot has happened in the last two weeks, i'm just not sure where to begin. I'll start off with my trip to Venice with Jenn.

So first off, I definitely thought it was easier to travel around Europe. Everyone makes it sound so easy, and everything is just so close! But I have been finding out that this isn't really the case. Maybe it's just Florence, but no cheap flights fly out of the Florence airport. Everyone here uses Ryanair - which is an extremely cheap Irish airlines. They have deals that have it so you have fly from one country in europe to the next sometimes for only 50 euros. The problem is, Ryanair doesn't fly out of Florence, so you have to take a train to Bolognia. The trains are actually very easy here, but if you want a fast train it can get really expensive. 50 euros for a train ticket round trip. Nonetheless - it's cheaper than the US and it's worth it.

So....Venice.

Jenn and I decided to go to Venice, and take a boat to Burano for the day to take pictures. We woke up at 5am to get to the train station, and headed on the train for a few hours and ended up in Venice. Pretty simple! Burano is an island off of venice where they make lace. It was absolutely stunning. The buildings were colored pink, green, blue, and the water canals were running in between the buildings. I bought a mask for carnival for next weekend, and I also bought some lace scarfs. I watched the man hand make the masks in his shop, before buying the one i chose, so it's exciting that I know it's actually authentic!

So we get to venice, buy a day boat pass, figure out the boat lines, and head to the island. I gotta say that i'm pretty impressed and proud of us. Figuring all this stuff out and winging it the day off is scary, but everything worked out perfectly...other than getting on the wrong boat heading back from Burano to Venice. But honestly, it was a 15 minute boat ride, and we got dropped off and then hopped on the next correct train. All in all - if that was the worse that happened? I am very proud! We took a ton of pictures. Jenn took some amazing digital photos and I stuck with my film camera.

I came home and processed my film - and came out with some amazing close ups with my macro lens of masks, and lace, and textures that are just beautiful. I am going to be printing them with liquid emulsion - on lace and other textures/canvases. This will be my photo project for the semester. It's a bit complicated, and I'll have to work in a separate room than the regular dark room but it should be amazing. Basically i have to mix a certain liquid slush material, in the dark, because it's light sensitive - and then i have to paint in onto whatever surface I want, and then I get to print on that surface. I'll be doing macro pictures - and printing on textures and lace and other materials. It should be really amazing! I'll take some photos of what comes out and document my procedures!

I think that's all I can remember for now- I waited too long to write!