They Don't Have Party Hats in Venice

Blakeley is old, no longer 19. She turns 22 today. When your birthday falls on a Sunday, it is a weekend long affair.

We began her birthday celebration with her parents on Friday night. We went to a lovely dinner in a small town just north of Venice. It sat upon a hill that overlooked the entire town. It was gorgeous. After food and wine, we went back to their villa and played cards. We all know how much Blakeley LOVES CARDS. She dominates. Teresa says Emily became a card shark. There was a peacock on the grounds of their villa. Blakeley slept with one eye open. Fortunately for her, it was no where to be seen. We returned to Venice on Saturday morning to prepare for the real festivities later that night.

We started off the night at our apartment. Everyone in our program came over and we had drinks and hor'duerves. It wasn't long before everyone started taking shots of grappa. Grappa claims to be wine, but has a 40% alcohol content. It tastes like monarch. Yum. Within an hour we were drunk. We polished off 12 bottles of wine and over a liter of grappa and decided it was time to head out...but where was ashkon?

The bathroom door was locked and we couldn't get in, but we knew Ashkon was in there. After many attempts at picking the lock, we succeeded. Ashkon was passed out on the bathroom floor cuddling with a wet towel. Everyone needs some love. Being the stubborn drunk that most 19 year olds are, Ashkon resisted us as we dragged him to Emily's bed. With him sound asleep, we headed out.

To Fabio's it was. On the way all of the street vendors were out. Venice doesn't sell party hats. What were we going to do? Emily found the solution. Sailor hats. We looked awesome. Pictures to come. There were also a bunch of vendors out selling roses. Being true gentlemen, Eskender and Jason bought the birthday girls 3 roses. Again, Seattle boys take note. Blakeley looked like a pageant queen walking around with her sailor hat and flowers.

We got to the bar and naturally took shots. Blakeley got some for free because it was her birthday and Nadia loves her. Too much wine usually leads to short nights. After about an hour, we were crashing. We decided it was time to head home. Goose and Jace decided to stay out, we could only hope they made it home alive.

We got home to find Ashkon on the floor in our bedroom. We still do not know what he was doing there, but he was awake. Poor Emily slept on the couch.

We found out this morning that we were wrong about Goose and Jace. Fabio gave them 2 free shots of god knows what and they blacked out. Jace called this morning to inform us that he was found sleeping on the porch ("pulling a Blakeley") in the courtyard outside of his house. He had used all of his cell phone minutes talking to his dad that night. Goose woke up out of his black out talking to the police. Oops.

Luckily for us, we woke up before our hangovers could set in. We left the house and did some shopping. We found sour candy in Venice, it's rare here. Blakeley bought a pretty dress for the opera and we bought matching rings. All in all, it was a successful trip and a fun morning. That's it for now. We have 8,000 pages of reading and dinner tonight.

That's what you get for waking up in Venice.

Ciao!

-Emily and Blakeley