No way am I getting married without a hair straightener.

Venice has been the city of “Ask and you shall receive” lately it seems. (Also, “be careful what you wish for.”)
First I touched the stone heart of Venice, which is, what I believe, the smallest unknown attraction in the city.  It is said that if you are single and you touch the stone, the city will work it’s magic and find you true love within a year.  There is a longer story about the origin of it here (this is my first time doing a link, so let me know if that doesn't work).  Then a few days later, Laura and I met a guy that we ended up having coffee with.  Long story short, he decided that we were engaged, and now I have been avoiding the area where he said he works and the vaparetto stop where we first met.  Keep in mind, he did not ASK me to marry him, he was just like "And now we are fidanzato" which means engaged. It was a very weird day and I’m not sure there is any social media forum appropriate for this story.  I will just leave you with, Don’t worry, I am being cautious and smart.

Thursday Laura and I went to Murano.  Before I left I have many a conversation with my grandma about buying glass.  They went along these lines:
Me: I really want to get something from Murano.
Grandma: No you don’t.
Me: Yes I do!  Not something big, just a little trinket or something.
Grandma:  You’ll change your mind when you get there and see the prices.  We have a set of glasses from there and they cost too much when I bought it many years ago, now it will really be too much.
Me: Yes, but you bought a set of really nice glasses, all I want is a little something to put on my bookshelf.
Grandma: Ok, we shall see… but you’re not going to want o buy anything.
Well guess what, grams… It wasn’t nearly as bad as you led me to believe.  (Not that I should be surprised.  Basically everything my grandma told me about Venice was a lie.  I have not been robbed, every locale has told me how safe Venice is, there is no violent crime here, and no man has tried to trick or deceive me-at least not convincingly, I realize that maybe I should have put this before the story of my new “fiancé”.  Grandma however tried to tell me that the trickery that the men would try to pull on me would involve telling me I had to carry jugs on my head and then they would put snakes in the jugs.  Why I would ever believe something like that, I am unsure, but alas I promised to stay away from all men who were interested in water transport that didn’t involve the canals.)  We ended up not staying long, but are making plans to go back again soon.  We also want to go to Burano.

Now remember that I had written a post about not knowing how to order food in the grocery store.  Yesterday, we learned this in class!  Our whole lesson with Marco was about food and ordering it in different stores (ex: supermarket, bakery, butcher).  I am ready to try this again, now!  I will let you all know if I become successful.  Also, Slava and I were trying to decipher a term for weather with him explaining in Ukraini (sp?) and me trying to guess in English.  Then in our lesson with Claudia that day we talked different climates and about exactly what we were trying to figure out.  The word was humid, for those of you who were curious.

Changing the subject just a bit, not everything has been great.
I washed some clothes and my new salmon and blue shirts got runs in the sheer parts.  They are still wearable but still slightly upsetting.
Also, if I thought mosquitos at home loved me, they are getting a run for their money from the mosquitos here.
Then… my hair straightener apprently could not handle the convertor to Italian outlets and has decided that it will only heat to about 10 degrees before shortening out.  So, hopefully Monday we will learn how to say “My hair straightener broke. What is the cheapest one you have?” and also handed a map on where to find a place to buy one here.  I will not make it through the next month and a half without one, I have too much hair for this activity called travel.  Plan B will be to have Laura use her hair dressing knowledge to cut it all off.
Looking back to when I packed for this trip, I also should have been more proactive in planning outfits.  I simultaneously feel like I brought too many clothes and not enough.  This would have been prevented if I brought a few more sweaters, I could have cut a few of the shirts and had a good deal more outfits.  The silver lining to the last few of these things is that I will have less to pack up in my suitcase to bring home.  I will ship some clothes home before I agree to cart around my suitcase if it weighs as much as it did on my trip here.

Maybe today I will check postage prices.