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Italia

On Saturday, we headed through the Alps in order to get to Italy! We got a hotel in Udine, a small town that is close to Venice. Udine has it's claim to fame due to Attila the Hun living there for a bit. It's an incredibly small town, but we enjoyed walking around, getting locked in a church yard, and eating gelatto.

What we really loved was our whole day in Venice on Sunday. Venice in one word is "amazing." We ate gelatto, had REAL pizza and spaghetti. We walked around the entire day and enjoyed the gorgeous views. The Venice marathon was also taking place, which was interesting to watch. We walked into one of the many masks shops in Venice where a worker gave us the history of these gorgeous masks and the holiday they are worn for. These masks are worn for Carnival, which ends with the celebreation of Lent. Venetians still dress up and wear these masks.

We had the chance to marvel at the Ca'd'Oro (Palazzo Santa Sofia) on the Grand Canal. This palace was built around 1430. There is the Doge's Palace (Duke's) that overlooks the lagoon. Of course, we saw the Piazza San Marco with St.Mark's Basilica. Laura was able to use her art history degree. The Basilica was designed with a Gothic and Byzantine style, which was evident with the gold mosaics. Inside the basilica were the famous 4 horses of Venice (Horses of St.Mark or Triumphal Quadriga). The ones outside are replicas so the real ones could be protected from the element. There were loot from the sack of Constantinople in 1204. However, it is believed they were built in the 4th century BC by a Greek sculptor named Lysippos. The porphyry Four Tetrarchs dating from around 300 AD was fixed to a corner of the facade of St Mark's Basilica since the Middle Ages. It most likely came from the Philadelphion in Constantinople.

We also passed the infamous Bridge of Sighs. Legend states that prisoners would pass through this bridge on their way to jail. They would look out the small windows on the bridge and sigh as they looked upon the beautiful city one last time before going into eternal darkness.

Of course our nursing school came into play. Something we kept thinking during our day are the wise words of Ms.Lee from Adult Health II, "smoking is bad." So many young people smoke in Italy. We wanted to do some patient teaching! Do you know what the plague doctor is? They were doctors who wore a special mask as they treated those with the plague. These masks had a beak that held herbs to protect them from putrid air that was the cause of the infection. Majority of these doctors were not even real doctors and provided false cures. They tended to do bloodletting, which is when they take blood from the patient in order to cure them. Good thing medicine has evolved. Plus, the masks are scary looking!

We ended our day having dinner on the grand canal next to the 16th century Rialto bridge. It was perfect! We head to Linz to on Monday in order to begin our clinical at the Wagner-Jauregg clinic on Tuesday. It is going to be a long day. We spend a 8 hour day on the floor and also join lectures that normally will be in German. Laura will aid Rachel as much as she can with the translation. However, during the day, we will be split up with different students. We are very excited to experience clinical in Austria and are so fortunate to be staying with a PMU nursing student!

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