Choosing to Wear Golden Glasses: Days in Venice

March 6th, 2026 - Venice, Italy

Our arrival in Venice came with, as with many of our long trips this semester, an added level of nostalgia, as I had traveled to these places before in 2017 and 2021. It will always be weird to me to step into the streets I wandered around with my mom. In 2017, I recall fighting with my brother because, while we were in Venice, he kept crying and spending time on his phone, missing his girlfriend and wanting to go home. I remember

thinking, "dude, you're in Italy, what do you mean you want to go home? You're not appreciating things here by wishing constantly to be back home." This time around, we arrived on a Thursday. After the trip, we'd be released for spring break, and my parents were coming to visit me, and I felt the same desperation my brother had once felt. Still, after some time on the ferry, I remembered the same thoughts I once had and reminded myself to enjoy being here. However different it is, the experience and future memory will be mine, and I was determined to put a golden lens over it. 

The first commute from Lido to Venice felt eternal; it felt like I was there forever, and I felt like I was floating on water for the rest of the day. I told myself to imagine I'm walking on a trampoline to make fun of it. On our first day, there was a flood of mixed feelings of excitement and nerves because I had my presentation on St. Mark's Basilica. It is one thing to prepare a presentation; it is another to give it in person. What was initially a quick presentation became a full guided tour with multiple stops along the way. I was extremely proud of myself for how I handled the situation, given that we are a decently sized group in a very busy place. I made sure everyone could hear me and answered any questions to the best of my ability; I had too much fun holding the microphone for the whisper units. By the end of the first day, some of us from the COLFA group grabbed dinner together, and we were all so exhausted that we giggled at basically nothing. The giggles were followed by buying gelato on the way back to our hotel, making for a picture-perfect, dizzy night. 

Throughout our travels in Venice, we encountered a lot of graffiti (as expected in any large city), but here we found a lot dedicated to encouraging tourists to leave. It sparked a conversation within the group about understanding, and for some, about identifying with the sentiment, as they have lived in San Antonio long enough to dislike tourist seasons. While tourism back at home is not an issue for me, aside from perhaps a minor inconvenience that is quickly done and over with, I can understand how Venetians feel, considering there were multiple instances when I saw tourists littering, overcrowding, or being perhaps a little reckless in museums. 

We also attended a gorgeous Vivaldi concert, which made me fall in love with music all over again and even sparked in me the desire to practice piano and flute when I get back home. On the vaporetto back to Lido, the entire COLFA cohort had dinner, and later some of us got gelato —yet again. I think we got gelato nearly every day we were there. We even became good acquaintances with the lady who worked at the shop, and she helped correct me when I said 'copa' instead of 'vetro' for a cup of gelato. She was extremely kind. By our last day, we were all heading our separate ways, and since I was staying in Venice, I took the vaporetto one last time. I was oddly very nostalgic about it and thought to myself how much I'd miss it, and the feeling lasted for a few hours after walking on my trampoline world. I left to stay in a hotel on my own and prepped to pick up my parents from the airport the following day. Venice left a warm feeling and, oddly enough, a very pleasant experience of Lido. I do hope to return one day.