February!: Exams, Venice, and Cardiff!

February was still a cold month. A very cold month, considering that all of my teachers have been saying for ages that it should be warming up by then.
Anyway, I finished the last of my exams in the first week of February just in time for winter break, which was a week in the middle of the month. For the first weekend, I hopped on a train to Venice for carnival with 4 of my friends. This train journey took 12 hours and opened my eyes to how different european trains are! I've taken trains in England, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Italy. English trains are amazing. They're clean, efficient, decent restrooms. Italian trains are horrible.

The bathroom literally consists of a toilet seat over an open hole. So when you walk in, you are greeted to shit all over, and a great view of the train tracks whizzing by. No bueno. Plus, our train from Ventimili to Milano was 30 minutes late, so we missed the connection to Venice. Too bad that everyone on that train was trying to catch the same Venice train, so the next train was so packed we had to stand in the corridor for the 3 hour journey! Insane!

In Venice, my friends and I had rented an apartment for the weekend, which was actually a great idea, since the cost each night for all of us was 20 euros - way cheaper than the 50 per nite each hostel in venice wanted! Venice for carnival was great; tons of people, and lots of families too, so it's not really the drinking/wasted/24 hr party i was kind of fearing. Loads of people in masks and beautiful costumes. The canals are really just as pretty as they look in all the pictures, it's soo cool! Plus, we did see the city start to flood a bit when the tide rose, very cool indeed! And, during the 2 week carnival period, it's the only time you can wear a mask in Venice. So of course, i bought a mask and wore it constantly!

After the weekend, I flew to Cardiff and spent a really awesome week with Luke. It was your general Cardiff trip: meeting up with old friends, nights out to fun bars, walks around the nice parks, and shopping.