Venice Day 4

Yesterday, I left you with some cliffhangers :p Now I shall fill in the gaps.

Our fourth day in Venice was very relaxed, as we only had one thing planned before our flight at 10:30 pm. After we checked out of our hotel, we went across the street to the supermarket for our usual breakfast of chocolate chip rolls and milk (they're so good that Adrienne brought a pack of rolls back with her.) Then we hopped on the bus to Venice where we attempted to find the Jewish ghetto. Despite the fact that we kept choosing landmarks that weren't on the map, we found it pretty quickly.

It was a really interesting sight to see, though it was a much smaller area than I expected. However, never having been to a ghetto, I'm not sure what I was expecting in the first place. They had a good number of memorial plaques on the few walls that were there; they've taken down most of them. I was surprised that people still lived there, many (possibly all?) of them Hasidic Jews. Adrienne observed that the ones that lived in Venice were much less somber than the ones that live in Brooklyn :p



We weren't sure what we wanted to do once we were done at the ghetto, but we didn't want to waste our last day there, so we ended up strolling around and using a very advanced system of choosing which way to go- were there stairs or not? We always chose the way with the least, because after three days of walking over bridges, you kind of hate them, as pretty as they are.



After wandering around for a bit, we decided to go back to Mestre, where our hotel was, and explore that, since we hadn't really done so except to find a restaurant. By this point, it was about 4:30 pm. We planned to have dinner around 6:30, grab our luggage from the hotel, and head to Venice to catch the bus to the airport. However once 5:50 arrived, we were both collapsed in front of our restaurant of choice and after awhile, decided to just eat then and go to the airport early (the fact that we really needed to use their bathroom might have had something to do with it, too- you have to pay to use public restrooms in Italy.) But when we tried to get into the building, it was closed. So were all of the other ones. The only eateries open were cafes and "snack bars" (they looooove this name for a place to eat. It's everywhere.) But a cafe or snack bar was not exactly what we were looking for. We needed dinner, not a pasty. But the Europeans, they dine at odd times.

In the end, we grabbed our bags from the hotel, and headed for Venice, deciding that we'd head to the airport now and eat there, since it would be dinnertime by the time we got there. As it turns out, it was really good that we headed out at the time we did, because some problems ensued.

We got off the bus in Venice, and I told Adrienne she could wait at the edge of the crowd for me to get my bus ticket to Treviso rather than drag all of her bags through the big crowd, since she already had her ticket. The queues were really short, and I got in line behind a French couple. Bad decision. They spent far too many minutes ordering two hundred euros worth of tickets. Besides it being a big order, they couldn't understand the ticket officer and vice versa, so it took about five tries for them to get their order across. At this point, Adrienne probably thought I had been kidnapped. When I finally got up to the window, I found out that it was the wrong company. I had to get my ticket somewhere else. Where? "Over there," was the only answer I got before I was dismissed. I asked another worker and was given the actual place to go- across the street. I went back to Adrienne to tell her that we both had to get new tickets and, short story shorter, we did.

Now the next problem- where was our bus? There was one labelled as going to Treviso, but it was the wrong company. There was one with the right company, but there was no destination displayed and no bus driver. I asked someone if they knew where we should go and he told me "D2." We didn't see a D2 parking space, so I thought perhaps I had misheard him and it was B2. We looked for that, but the parking spaces went from B1 to B8. After wandering around more, someone else saw our confusion and pointed out our bus- a vehicle labelled with the name of a different company, that was at the edge of the parking lot blocking a sign that did indeed say D2.

All of this took about half an hour. It was another fifteen to twenty minutes before the bus left for the aeroporto. Yet our adventure was still not over. Once we got to the airport, Adrienne and I had to split up, since she had to check her suitcase (which she has lovingly named Louis. If you've seen Leap Year, you'll appreciate this.)

I got through more quickly and went up to security. This time, I had packed all of my liquids into a properly closing bag, and I thought I was set. Then I walked through the detector and it alarmed. I realised I left my cell phone in my pocket and put it through the proper way, but I still set off the alarm. They used the wand thingy and it beeped. This caused them to look very concerned and I was sternly called signorina and pointed to a corner, where I was patted down and my bag taken away to a security station. They opened it and were very confused by my travel water bottle and retainer case and wiped it down with some sort of paper, which they ran tests on. Through all this, I was being shoved around in a way that suggested they expected me to detonate at any second. They looked kind of disappointed when the test came back negative for whatever substance they were testing for, and I was allowed to go. I still have no clue what set off the alarm- maybe because I had a euro coin in my pocket? I don't know. Either way, this kind of situation is like being carded at a bar or for an R-rated movie (which happens to me more than not)- it's actually sort of amusing when you know you're in the right.

When Adrienne got through, I grabbed something to eat and then we went through the second-to-last bit of security, passed through the last about forty five minutes and then got on the plane. I've heard some not so great things about the company I used, RyanAir: that they nickel and dime you, that it's unsafe, this and that. But I was never charged a penny (or, I guess, pence) more than I paid a month ago and I never felt unsafe. Maybe I just got lucky, but I had a very good experience.

We were very happy to be back in London- if I was happy, I can't imagine how Adrienne felt, since she was away for a week longer than I was. We had an hour long bus ride back to our road, and then we were finally home, both of us exhausted.

Regarding my pictures, I've decided to just add them into the original entries, so check look back to those to see some pictures :)

Today I did some errand-y things- a small grocery shopping trip since I'll be leaving again in two days, the library, where I got some hopefully awesome books, and printing out my documents for said trips. Going to another write-in tonight!

Zzzz

I am home in London!

I am, as they would say here, knackered. I have not the energy right now to describe to you ou last day in Venice and our trip home, but fear not. Tomorrow I shall regale you with tales of path-choosing, European dining times, and how I was almost labelled a suspicious flier. Yeah, I bet after reading that, you're checking back tomorrow.

And now I must go sleep.

Venice Day Three

Probably our worst day in Venice today, and even that was pretty good! We decided to spend the day touring the Lagoon Islands, specifically Murano, Burano, and Torcello.

Murano started off the day on a not-so-great note. We went into a lot of shops, almost all of which were of course selling glass, which Murano is famous for. As soon as Adrienne and I would enter the shops, we would be followed by a shopkeeper. I understand that they wanted to make sure that we didn’t break anything, but there were signs everywhere telling us not to, and we didn’t even point at the pieces, let along pick them up. Nevertheless, in nearly every shop, we had a person literally a step or two behind us, and we noticed that it was always the two of us that were followed, never any of the older adults.

But while this was irritating, nothing topped us getting thrown out of a store. Toward the end of our time in Murano, we went into a building that doubled as a shop and a glass “show.” They had really good prices, and Adrienne was trying to decide between two pieces. The shopkeeper came up right behind us and asked if we wanted anything. “We’re just browsing right now,” Adrienne told him. We hadn’t been in the shop for five minutes, but he kept following us for about two more minutes and then he said, “Well, since this is boring for you, good-bye,” and pointed us out the door! At first, we didn’t really grasp what he said, but went to the door. It wasn’t until we were standing in the threshold and catching up with what had just happened that we realized that we had just been essentially thrown out. The man was so annoyed with us, for reasons unknown, that after dismissing us, he immediately went into another room and so never found out that we had been thinking of making a purchase. This left us pretty angry for awhile, especially since we were followed around in every other store we went into after that. I understand that we’re young, but nothing in our mannerisms suggested that we were going to break anything, we weren’t dressed like derelicts, and we were respectful to the people. But no matter what we did, we were watched so closely that someone could have robbed them blind and they never would have noticed.



We left Murano without any regret for doing so and headed for Burano, which was completely different. Besides the fact that the shopkeepers were all very friendly and when they did follow us around, it was in hopes of making a sale (which is still annoying and deterring, but at least it’s not insulting.) The big item in the shops here was lace, and it was all really cool to look at. The houses, too, were really picturesque, painted lots of bright colors. We noticed that over their doorways, in front of their house doors, 95% of the residences had long lengths of fabric that tied at the sides. I’m not sure what this was actually for, but I think it may be so they can open their doors in the summer without everyone seeing into their house. Europeans aren’t big on screens on doors or windows, as they think they’re unattractive.





Torcello was our last stop, and it was a tiny island with not too much to see. It seemed like it hadn’t opened for tourist season- all of the restaurants were very nice-looking, but closed, and the only thing that seemed to be operating was a church that was rundown but still in use. It was a nice place to walk around, though.




The sun was starting to set at this point, so we took two waterbuses back to the Venetian mainland for dinner. We’ve been planning since our first day to eat at one of the restaurants along a canal, since they have heating lamps in the outside dining area. We had delicious ravioli at the place we chose and then caught a bus back to the hotel, where we’re now putting off packing as long as we can. Tomorrow, we’re going to see the Jewish ghetto (which was on our list today, but we never got to it) and then wandering around Venice at bit more before heading the Treviso for our flight home at 10:30 pm.


Hopefully tonight we’ll be able to sleep undisturbed. For the last two nights, we shared the floor with two rooms of sorority girls and several more rooms full of high school kids. Both groups got ridiculously drunk at the pub down the road and were singing in the wee hours of the morning while the people in the room above us spent the night feng-suing their room, by the sounds of furniture scraping the length of the floor. The high school group had a chaperone, but she mostly just studied her hands as her charges caroused. Well done, chaperone. Both groups checked out this morning though, so we may actually have a quiet night.

Venice Day Two

Today was another day of lots and lots of walking. Adrienne and I missed the hotel’s breakfast, so we went across the street to the supermarket. It was kind of hard to find something that didn’t require cooking or wasn’t in huge quantities to eat, but we eventually bought a six pack of small chocolate chip rolls. We also wanted milk, but their milk bottles sort of look like medicine bottles, so we ended up buying small little milk boxes (like juice boxes, but for milk) which were really good.


Then we took off for Venice. The nice thing about walking in Venice is, besides it being beautiful to look at, there are no cars or even bikes allowed on the islands, so unlike it cities like Rome, being run over on a sidewalk is not a risk.

There’s not a ton to say about the city of Venice that I haven’t already said, but Adrienne and I did do something a bit different today- we visited St. Mark’s Square. We saw St. Mark’s Basilica and the Libraria Marchiana (though we didn’t go inside either) and toured the Doge’s Palace, which was pretty cool. No pictures were allowed in the palace, unfortunately, but I did get some nice ones of its courtyard.





Even though my bag is too full already, I know I’ll probably never get to Venice again in my life, so I did want to get some souvenirs. Yesterday Adrienne and I both got beautiful carnevale-themed watercolors from a street merchant and today I got a glass necklace and a carnevale mask. Many of the masks run at very high prices- and with good reason, as almost all of them that you see are handmade (though you have to check the back of them. I looked at one that was cool-looking, turned it over and saw that it was made in China. Not exactly what I wanted.) I bought one which was made in Venice, and I really like it, especially the music notes on the side.




Speaking of my bag being too full, the internet still refuses to work on my computer, which sucks because that’s what’s taking up a lot of room in my bag. I brought it so that I could check my e-mail without asking poor Adrienne to use hers all the time, and now I’m having to do that anyway and I have less room in my bag. Grrrrr.

I love having Italian food for every meal, and of course it’s all amazing here. I had some pizza for lunch/dinner (we ate it at 4:30) and it was delicious. Even their mistakes taste good- our bread at dinner was burnt, which I usually think is gross, but it was still really good bread. After dinner, I some gelato (chocolate and mint chocolate), which is like ice cream but a hundred times better because the flavor is so much stronger. Yummm.

We got back to the room not too long ago, and I’m drinking a juice box of pear juice, which I wish we had at home, because it’s awesome. Now I must go!

Venice Day One

I’m in Venice! I can’t believe I actually made it! But let me start at the beginning.

I put myself to bed at eight last night and it was shameful how easy it was for me to fall asleep. I am a disgrace to my age bracket. But I’m glad I did because I’m writing this at 9:28 p.m. and while I’m tired, I never felt on the edge of a collapse at all, and I enjoyed the day so much more for it. I was really worried about sleeping through not only my phone alarm, but the hotel wake-up call, so in addition to putting the room phone as far away from me as I could, I kept waking myself up every hour and a half or so and checking the time until I finally got up at three-thirty.

I was worried I would wake up sick- I was feeling really awful last night, so much that I couldn’t really eat my dinner. Thankfully, whatever I had been feeling (possibly just nerves) had gone away by the morning. Maybe because it hit me for real then- I was going to Venice!

I’m glad I went to the airport so early. I did have some time to kill, but not much. And even though it will be nearly impossible for me to bring back any souvernirs because my bag is packed to bursting, I’m glad I only brought a carry-on. It made every step of the process so much easier. I got to go ahead of lines, not wait for my luggage anywhere- so much less stress.

While I waited for my gate to be announced, I had breakfast at a café on the other side of security. This café had milkshakes in very interesting flavors- strawberry, chocolate orange, banana butterscotch, caramel, and Oreo cookie.

As I was checking in, I was informed that my sandwich baggie for my liquids was the wrong kind. It was sticky-sealed (the only kind I’ve seen sold in London), not Ziploc. The man who was checking me in said I could go and buy some. This did not make me happy- I didn’t want to buy a whole bunch of plastic baggies when I only needed one. As it turns out, they sell them in sets of four for a pound in one of those machines like they have in American grocery stores, with the toys/stickers/rings in plastic globes. Unfortunately, these were sealed much tighter than those. I could not for the life of me twist the sides apart. Finally, in annoyance, I tossed it to the ground and stomped on it. It did the trick, and a group of older ladies behind me who had been having the same difficulty followed my example.
When my gate was announced, I was surprised to find that the gates were not down the hallway; we had to take a sort of metro a short distance. I was also surprised to not enter the plane through a temporary hallway, but trekking onto the tarmac and climbing up the steps. I thought the only did that in movies to make entrances more interesting.

The flight was no problem, and there were some amazing views- at one point, we flew over a huge mountain range. I wish I could have taken pictures, but my camera was packed deep in my bag, which was too hard to rearrange in a short amount of time. But it was cool.

When I arrived in the Treviso airport, I went through customs, then stood in the main lobby looking like a lost soul until I saw a bus service that took people to Venice for seven euros. I’m glad I exchanged my money in my downtime at the Stansted airport- I didn’t see a bureau de change in that airport (though I’m sure one was there somewhere.) I had the address of my hotel written on a piece of paper and showed it to the lady behind the desk. She confirmed that I could get there using that bus.

This was true- sort of. Half an hour later, I was deposited in a giant parking lot right outside of Venice. The view into the city was stunning, but I knew I wasn’t in the right place. I didn’t know where I had to go, though. I bought a map, which turned out not to show the city I had to go to, and finally found out that I needed to take a bus back into a city I had passed through on my way to Venice. I got on the bus, but the problem was, I had no idea where I was going. I knew the bus was going to end up at the Mestre train station, and my hotel was in Metre. Even if the train station wasn’t where I needed to be in the end, it was closer than the city of Venice. I tried to figure out the route on the map I had purchased, but it was then that I realized that the bus had long driven off the map.

I didn’t know what to do. The scariest thing about getting to the hotel by myself was the fact that I don’t speak any Italian at all. At least when I go to France, I know enough French to get around and ask questions. I had written down Italian phrases, but I didn’t know any by heart. Finally, we were passing through a town that seemed to have a lot of hotels, and a nice-looking old lady was sitting next to me. “Scusi,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound obnoxiously foreign. “Dov’e…” [which means “where is”] I pointed to the address I had written down. She didn’t know, but a woman standing next to her repeated, “Dove’e?” I nodded and she took the paper from me. As she did, I thought I saw my hotel fly by the bus. I was right. A man next to her said to me, in English, “Get off at the next stop and go back.” They were all so nice and helpful and I kept saying “Grazie, grazie, grazie!” as I got off the bus. When I did, I found Adrienne waiting in the lobby of the hotel. I was surprised- though it had taken me a long time to figure out how to get there, her flight got in later than mine. However, she’s been traveling around Italy for a few days and knew the system better than I did (plus she speaks school Italian.) As it turns out, her plane had gotten in early, and she had been waiting for me for nearly an hour and a half!

We got some lunch (real Italian tortellini is delicious, as is the bread here. Also, we were the first customers for lunch and the cook was very excited to see us, shouting a greeting when we walked in.) After that, we headed for the city of Venice, where we stayed for six or seven hours.




Venice is beautiful, I think the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in my life. It has over four hundred islands connected by bridges, and it’s amazing to walk through. I know this entry is getting long, so I’ll leave off here. The pictures speak for themselves- I took almost three hundred just today!