Travel Journal Day 2

My mom always tells me to expect nothing and I'll never be disappointed. After my adventures yesterday, this is a mantra I probably should have adopted.

Then again, I rarely listen to my mother; and so I went into day 2 of my travels with high hopes.

I was not disappointed.

Not only did everything I had planned exist, but I even got a friend to come along with me!

We started off our Italian viaggio (aka journey) with a "gondola" ride.

Ok, so it was paddle boats in the Tidal Basin.

Sure, you have to do the paddling instead of having an Italian man in a striped shirt serenade you as he takes you through venice; but frankly I find that being serenaded is just plain awkward, and when I visited Venice (for real), our gondolier had a rather large hole in his pants, in a rather unfortunate spot. The paddle boats proved to be a suitable substitute though as we leisurely paddled around for a while, talking and being serenaded by the sounds of mid day traffic.

All geographical impossibilities set aside, after a leisurely walk across an unidentified bridge, we ended up in Rome at the Pantheon. Here in DC though, we call it the Jefferson Memorial.

Seeing as neither my friend nor I are Thomas Jefferson enthusiasts, we took a few pictures, basked in the glory of the cross breeze, and promptly made our way back to metro for our next stop.

Back downtown, we had somehow managed to make our way back to Venice. We headed for Piazza San Marco, or DC's version- Freedom Plaza.

Unfortunately, there were no pigeons.

However, we were quickly distracted from theme when we discovered that the seemingly arbitrary lines were actually a partial map of L'Enfant's original plans for the downtown area of DC. Since the best, complete view of it is from above, and I'm rather short, I snagged this from google maps.

It all looks significantly more confusing from an aerial view.

Hungry from all the walking, we began our search for one of the plentiful Italian restaurants. But short on cash, we had to settle for pizza from A Slice of Italy Pizzeria in the food court. The only Italian thing about it was the name and the oregano sprinkled on the pizza.

But it was good, and cheap, so I wasn't going to complain.

Our day was winding down as we headed to Georgetown for our 2 final stops. In spirit of the Murano Glass factory, we took a water taxi (drove in the rain) and stopped in the Maurine Littleton Gallery.

I was blown away (no pun intended)

After spending a gorgeous hour in the gallery, we finally stopped in Georgetown Tobacco to see the Venetian Carnival masks. We were not allowed to take pictures. But that didn't stop us from eagerly peering through the glass cases at the wide variety of intricately detailed masks, wishing we had the funds to buy one.

And so our trip was finished. Satisfied with the success, we said our goodbyes and headed home.

I can only hope the rest of my travels are as wonderful as today.

For more pictures, please visit my Tumblr

Ciao!