ABBEY: "What's Torcello famous for?" JEN: "Malaria." ABBEY: "Oh good. Lets totally go."

The adorable island of Burano, with all the beautiful painted houses.
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Every week we go on a field trip with school, and this week we went to two islands in the Venetian Lagoon.

About 30 people from class came on the trip, which was fun!

All of us walked to the Vaporetto stop - we practically filled up the entire boat.

We took the first boat the San Zaccharia, where we got on a larger boat.

Andy, Abbey, Jen, Lu and Kevin, on the ferry ride to Torcello.
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Though the ride was long (over an hour - yikes) we did get to see beautiful views of the Lido, Murano, and other islands in the lagoon.

We also got to pass by the new and controversial Mose project - the government is building a giant wall around the lagoon to provent flooding, especially with global warming.

Now, everywhere we look on the island we can spot the "No Mose" and "Basta Mose" grafitti.

Most of the local Venetians hate the idea, since tides are changing in the canal, and many birds and fish are migrating.

The Bascilica de Santa Maria Assunto - the oldest building in the Venetian Lagoon - on the island of Torcello.
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It was pretty cool to see it during construction.

We finally arrived to our first stop of the day, Burano island.

This is Abbey's favorite - every house on the island is painted a different color - bright blue, bright yellow, bright orange and red and purple!

It is beautiful.

The view of Burano from the top of the Torcello bell tower.
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Like Venice, there are no cars, only canals running through the little island.

There is also a bell tower in the middle of town; it is very cool, because it is crooked!

Just like the tower of Pisa, only prettier with all the buildings and the water.

Burano is also the lace-making capital of the world - which neither Jen nor Abbey were that excited about.

The cute little Yoda priest - Abbey wanted to take him home.
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But, the local stores selling lace did have some lovely doilies.

From Burano, we headed to the small island of Torcello, for the bulk of our day.

Established in the 5th century, Torcello was the largest of all the islands with thousands of people, palaces, and churches.

However, after a horrible swarm of malaria mosquitos, almost everyone moved to Venice.

Hanging out at the boys' apartment!
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Not only did they take their families, but they literally took their houses and all the buildings with them.

Today, the only thing that remains on the island is a beautiful old cathedral - the oldest building in the entire lagoon.

The church dated back to the 7th century, and the original mosaics were still there - they were stunning!

One entire wall was covered with a mosaic of the last judgment - even Abbey the Jew was moved.

Jen, taking shots like a pro!
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The school had paid for a guide to show us around the church and the island, which was great to learn the history of Torcello.

The cutest little Italian priest, who looked strikingly like Yoda, was enthusiastically trying to explain the history through our guide to us.

He was so adorable, and really interesting as well!

We were able to climb the bell tower behind the church, which had stunning views of the entire lagoon.

Out in Campo Santa Margarita: Kelley, Andy, Abbey, JR, Jen and Vanessa
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We were able to take some really beautiful pictures of Burano (which we had just visited) and the unpopulated areas of the lagoon.

We headed back to Venice, and had no work to do, because we had no class on Friday!

Abbey passed out for a couple of hours, and Jen made dinner - what a lovely arrangement we have going.

Later that night, a group of guys from class that all live together had a party at their apartment.

Abbey and Abi - on the island of Burano.
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We walked over to their great apartment in the Dorsoduro district.

Almost everyone from school was there, so it was really fun!

After a while at the guys' apartment, we headed over to Campo Santa Margarita, an area pretty close to our apartment where the bars stay open until 2:30am.

A bunch of people from class were all in one bar, the Blue Bar, which was filled with Italian locals, and a few American students - it was very fun!

Abbey is hooked on the local prosecco - the Italian version of champagne.

We headed back to our apartment at around 2:30am - very thankful that we didn't have class the next morning!