I could not have been more excited for my trip to Venice. My friend Chris from Barcelona was meeting me in Venice and we were going to spend the weekend there. Prior to leaving, we had a few minor freak outs, housing numbers came out (I will not be getting housing this year), and the airline changed Chris's airport in Barcelona at the last minute. This was a sign that the weekend was going to be a hot mess.
My train arrived right on schedule at 10:30. Chris's flight was supposed to get in at 10:00 and his airport was 20 mins off the island, which meant this was perfect timing for him to meet me at the train station, which was in the area we wanted to be in. Sounds like a perfect plan right? 10:45 rolled around and still no Chris.... I thought, "Maybe there was traffic?" 11:00, no Chris, I knew he had to be lost. He knows no Italian, so I obviously began to worry. 11:30 and finally I see Chris. I told myself that my first words to him couldn't be 'where were you?'. I spot him and the first words out of my mouth, 'where were you?!'. The airline had again changed his airport to one an hour away; however, this time they did not notify him ahead of time. Thank God, he somehow made it to me in one piece! Chris, who is not the best with figuring out directions (sorry Chris), bought a bus ticket, found the bus, and figured out the directions to the train station and then walked there. I was so proud! This was a BIG accomplishment. We were both starving, so we decided to go get lunch before our 2pm check in at our Bed and Breakfast. We ate at Ginos, Ginos: A Place So Nice They Named It Twice!, then we visited St. Lucia Basilica, and bought our 18 euro bus passes. So far things were going smoothly. Headed to our bus...and this is where it gets rough. I asked the lady at the station where we had to get off and she wrote down a bus name. We got on that bus, rode it for about ten minutes and then realized we had no idea where to go from there, or what stop we needed to get off at. Luigi, our Asian host living in Italy told us it would be a fifteen minute walk...lies. We got off at the second stop just because we figured it couldn't have been that much further away. Ha! Texted Luigi and he said in regards to which stop to get off at, "Stop is hasn't name. Look for Chinese restaurant." Thanks Luigi.... We decided to walk. It couldn't be that far right? We walked for about 20 minutes, decided to get back on the bus, and we ran into the same person that was on our original bus. So weird. Rode that bus for a while then decided to get off at a stop that had the street name we needed, but ended up not being it. Walked some more in no mans land where they probably haven't seen civilization in 20 years. Now this was backpacking! We decided to get on yet another bus and again there was someone from our original bus. Now this was too much. Fate was really messing with us. We rode this bus for one stop and then saw the Chinese restaurant In total we walked about 14km, which I averaged to be about 9 miles, for 2 hours. What an adventure! It's all about making memories. At least now I can say I sorta backpacked.... As Chris said, "We have to be some of the best looking back packers around." After we settled in to our Bed and Breakfast, we got on the bus and headed back to Venice.
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The number one thing that Chris and I wanted to do was take a gondola ride. This was our first order of business. By this point it was sunset, so the gondola ride was perfect. We got on the gondola and our Gondolier asked us where we were from. United States. He then asked, "So, are you on your honeymoon?" Uh, nope. "Romantic vacation?" Nope. After the gondola ride, we figured out that our expensive bus passes worked on the water taxis too. We rode the taxi around, with really no destination. We knew we wanted to have dinner soon, so we got on the taxi back in the direction we wanted and we headed to dinner and got something to eat. One of the things that makes me laugh about Italy, and all of Europe, is that they don't understand social cues. Numerous times I made eye contact with our waitress for our check. She just didn't get the memo. Social cues! She already thought I was a crazy American, who put the bread basket in her lap to get the crumbs off of the table. You would have thought I had three heads with the look she gave me. We were falling asleep at the table and all we wanted was our check. We made it back to the room by 9:30, and we crashed.
The next day we got up early, had breakfast, checked out of our Bed and Breakfast and decided what we wanted to do for the day. The main place we wanted to see was St. Mark's Plaza, and Cathedral. It was beautiful out, so we decided to take a scenic water taxi ride. Check out the views!
After the water taxi, we ended up at St. Marks. There is a bell tower at St. Marks, and I said to Chris, "Wanna climb it?" His response, "Oh, we're climbing it." We bought our tickets, and unfortunately, you couldn't take the steps, you had to take the lift. We were disappointed, but the views were still worth it! Afterwards, we went into St. Mark's Cathedral. We couldn't go in with our back packs, so Chris and I went in shifts. Besides seeing St. Mark's, there was nothing else we both had our hearts set on doing. This was probably my favorite part about this trip: there was no pressure to rush around, we both saw what we wanted to see, and, at times, we just walked around and looked on our map for cool things we hadn't yet seen. Later we walked around, and by walked around, I mean got lost at every chance possible; yet, we always got where we needed to go. We had lunch and then sat down near the Rialto Bridge so Chris could sketch. As I sit next to Chris sketching, which came out awesome btws, I am in utter bliss. I am so lucky to have been given the opportunity to study abroad. Here I am sitting next to one of my closest friends, as we overlook the water and he sketches in Italy! Unreal.
We ended our trip back where we started, Ginos, Ginos: A Place So Nice They Named It Twice. I was taking the night train home at 11:00 and Chris's flight was at 9:30. I tried to get my train switched, but they said I would have to pay. I waited to make a decision, so we then bought Chris a bus ticket to his airport. I told him I was going to buy my ticket for my train and that I would be right back to help him find his bus. I came back, and no Chris. I am hoping he found his bus to the airport and is safely spending the week in Germany on a class trip.
"Do great things in your life, but do small things as well."
~ Anonymous.
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