I'm On a Boat!: Gondelas, Italian, and Venezian Masks

Buon Giorno! I'm currently sitting in an internet cafe in beautiful Venezia, Italy, and it is HOT! It's been around 90° here everyday, a big change from rainy cold Cambridge.
On Friday we left Cambridge around 6:30am and flew RyanAir to Venice, then spent about an hour getting to our hostel. I had my first water taxi experience!
Venice is gorgeous! It's a very romantic atmosphere, and our hostel is fantastic. It's right in the middle of the city, we live by the Piazza Rialto. Friday night we got legit Italian pizza at a restaurant by our hostel which was delicious, and then we walked along the Grand Canal and watched the people ride around in gondelas.
Saturday was extremely hot. We walked down to Piazza San Marco which has a lot of museums and walked through a few, and then on our way back, a gondelier stopped us and offered us a ride for an amazing price. It was so cool getting to ride in a gondela down the Grand Canal! The scenery was beautiful. We rode by Casanova's house too which I thought was pretty funny. And at one point the gondelier in front of us started singing boisterously to his riders and that was pretty funny. I got some video during the ride that I will show y'all when I get home
The shops here are FILLED with masks! Apparently Venizia is famous for its huge carnivale, where everyone dresses up in masks and costumes, so every single shop sells tons of different masks! We had some fun Saturday night in a shop trying some on and taking photos, although most shops don't allow photographs.
I really love speaking Italian. We had a little phrase book that we've all put to good use, and Sam speaks fluent Spanish, which is a bit similar to Italian, so he's also helped out a lot with if we need to ask a specific question. I've picked up a bit too. Actually, funny story, we were in one shop last night and Nika couldn't remember the Italian word for tomorrow (domani), and I said it to her and the shopkeeper was certain that I was Italian!! I was thrilled that he thought my accent was legit. I've picked up some phrases pretty well, but as far as understanding goes, I mostly just get the gist of what people are saying. I kind of want to take a conversational Italian class at MC, because I really love the language. Also makes me think of The Light in the Piazza. :)
Anyway I have to go, but I just wanted to leave a little update of my past couple of days. Tomorrow afternoon we leave for Flòrence! Ciao!