Day 33

Wednesday August 29

5:10am - woke up. Arrrrrrrrggggggggh it's so early it hurts LOL

5:35am - checked out, went to the tram and made it to the train station by about 6ish. Found my train on the board - and then looked at the staircase to get to the trains track and it was huge. About 2 flights' worth, and I was like HELLLLLLLL NO. So I went another way and found a way to get there with moving upward ramps. Hooray.

6:05am - train is very nice, broken up into berths of 6 seats. There are power outlets! Bathroom in the car and a restaurant car "next door"

6:30am - train leaves - there is one empty seat in my berth, luckily for my suitcase. Still a little cramped b//c of all my shit but it should be ok.

7:10am - guys come for the tickets - other people in my little group have the internet eticket thingy too. He scanned it into a barcode and gave us a ticket/receipt, easy enough.

7:30am - looks like we are on the side of some kind of mountain or hill or something. Countryside is beautiful. Power outlet doesn't seem to work and I don't know how to get it to work so oh well, no movies or TV shows for me :(

8:30am - hahaha yes the outlet does work, it would help if I were trying to use it with my plug properly put together ;) We must be running late because I think it was supposed to stop at 8:15 or so and didn't. Blah. Oh, yep they just announced the stop. Hooray. Oh and great a lot of people are getting on, if someone gets on in this little berth I am screwed LOL

And here someone comes… this will be a fun few hours. I wonder what people with bigger suitcases do, b/c I saw people get on with them. I mean there is overhead space but really can only fit small stuff.

8:40am - The guy next to me and the guy who got on are talking about how fast I type… in Italian I presume. LOL Ah yes, they mentioned Italian city names I recognized hahaha.

Ok so as it gets later, it's getting darker out… yikes.

9:30am - dunno where we are but it's pouring rain now. Something funny is that out of nowhere the train will just stop, they'll make an announcement, and then it will start again. Obviously, I don't know what they said lol.

Noon - came from an underpass/tunnel to a gorgeous sight of mountains and valleys. Somewhere in northern Italy I guess. Beautiful. It's foggy but not raining, I think we're running close to a half hour late gah. Been watching some episodes of Weeds and the movie Employee of the Month, not exactly fine entertainment but it helps pass the time. The guy next to me looks and laughs whenever I type as if he's amazed. LOL!!! It's kinda embarrassing.

I bet you are wondering how I knew it was italy - well, the names of things I could see out the window started ending in vowels all of a sudden. HAHHAHA!!!

2:10ishpm - finally arrived, almost 45 min late. And who even really knows why, we set off on time! Maybe because of the fog it couldn't go as fast in some parts? Actually in general I thought it was slower than I had anticipated, I thought it would be a much faster train. We'll have to see how the Eurostar Italia ones in a few days compare. Anyway, it's not raining (yay!) and I am like, crap what do I do LOL. So I find the Vaporetto (aka water bus - the only public transport in venice) ticket desks and get my single 6 euro ticket. She tells me I have to go down to the last ticket desk to buy the Rolling Venice card. So I go and get it, it's 4 euros and it makes the 30 euro 72 hour vaporetto card only 18 euros instead of 30, plus I will get a discount at a museum tomorrow, and some other stuff too. Cool. Go wait for the vaporetto and a nice Italian man in broken English asks where I'm from and tells me a boat is coming soon. It was very kind. Get on the vaporetto 82 and stand with my luggage for the whole ride, which was longer than I had thought it was going to be, but I think it took a weird route.

3:00pmish - finally get off the vaporetto and find the tiny little alleyway my hotel is off of. The crowds around Piazza San Marco are enormous but as soon as I turn off onto this little alley, almost everyone disappears. The hotel is in this tiny little courtyard right off San Marco with a view of the back side of the Doge's Palace (way old prison). The sign at the desk said "we are in the restaurant" (they have a restaurant next door) so I go in and it's a bunch of people sitting at a table just chilling. I wave meekly and one of them gets up and welcomes me, fills out a form with my passport info (required in Italy), gives me the keys and a very handy little pocket map the hotel had made up, takes me up to my room (up 2 not-really-as-steep-as-i-was-expecting flights of stairs) and says "it's small but has everything you need" Ok, so it is REALLY small, I'm not sure where to put my suitcase. But it is adorable. Nice and cool with a cute view of the courtyard below and the back of the palace, it has a TV with tons of stations, a safe, little closet, comfy bed, a place to put stuff, outlets, minibar/fridge, and the bathroom is teeny tiny but has a nice-sized shower and a bidet and a sink that I can be able to do laundry in. So he's right. Tiny, but has what I need. He says "we are like a family here so if you need anything just ask" then he tells me "I don’t advise you calling the US with the room phone directly, best to buy a pre-paid card. I just want to be honest." Wow, all this for 90 euros a night? :)

So then the "fun" begins. He has a guy bring up my suitcase and backpack. I feel really badly because both are heavy. But he brings it and I am grateful that I didn't have to do it so I get out a 2 euro coin. I think that's enough. He's a guy of Indian descent (only relevant because I couldn't tell if he was actually Italian or not) and he starts asking me questions and I can't really understand him at all and then he pretty much asks me on a date LOL!!! I nearly fell on the floor and died laughing. I was all "you are sweet, but no" and he was like "are you MARRIED?!?!?" And I am like, that is none of your business. OMG, it was SO BIZARRE LOL!!!! But I wonder if this lovely little hotel has a creep of a bellhop type person LOL. Anyway I relax for a little bit.

4:00pm - set out to see Piazza San Marco. Considering it's about a 2-minute walk away, that was not hard ;) But first, I turned the other way on the alley coming out of my hotel and I had a private secret view of the famous "Bridge of Sighs" - there is no barrier to the water so I carefully leaned out, looked to the left, and there it was - with 9803984509348093 japanese tourists taking pictures from the next bridge, and there was me, all alone. And then to my right was a couple on a gondola. Oh my. And then I had my "OHMYGOD pinch me, I'm in Italy!!!!" moment :p I've been to 6 (7 if you count part of a day in Sweden) countries before this, and none of them had the electricity in the air that there is here. Of course, every place is unique. But this place is REALLY unique. Amsterdam may have more canals than Venice, but this is just different. Even my hotel is in a 15th-century palace, or so the materials say.

One of the first things that hit me is the noises you hear. It's people and pigeons. No cars. None at all whatsoever. No "streets" here, per se. the "roads" are alleys. So once you get off the tourist thoroughfares, it's SO quiet. SO VERY quiet. It's wonderful and peaceful.

So I just wander around. Find a gelato place and have a scoop of chocolate for 1.50. I'm sure it's not the best I'll taste, but I was hot and hungry (all I'd eaten was the pastry I bought and some combos and a granola bar), and you could still taste the real cocoa flavor and that it was homemade and of a much lighter texture than other ice creams. MMm… just wandered, bought a bottle of cold water, and just got lost. Everyone's right, you can't get too lost because there are signs all the time telling you where San Marco is, so finally I just ended up making a circle. The souvenir shops are EVERYWHERE. All selling the same glass stuff, fake masks from China, etc. It's sad. But what's sadder is that most people only see this part of Venice, and I must say, this part of Venice is busy, touristy, and you feel like you are being taken advantage of it. It's a wonder how anyone who just comes on a day trip or cruise and doesn't get more than 3 blocks from San Marco enjoys this city. I can't wait to see some untouristy parts tomorrow! But the stuff is beautiful. I'm going to have to restrain myself with the credit cards in some of the glass shops. They're so pretty but so so fragile and expensive!

5:00pmish - came back to the hotel and had a bit of a snack since I know I won't be able to eat here at least until 7. It's probably good practice for going further south in Italy where I won't be able to eat before like 9 LOL. I was going to just find a place near San Marco that had pizza, but the touristy-ness is so annoying I think I will just follow a Rick Steves suggestion not far from the Rialto bridge, which I don't think is too far a walk if I go directly. And on the way back is a place he says has the best gelato in town. So I can cap my first night in Italy with a perfect pizza and gelato duo. The question is, how many times over the next 14 nights will this be my meal!?! ;) But really, I couldn't imagine starting my time in Italy any other way, could you?

6:20pm - left. Decided not to look at a map too much but just head in the right direction of Rialto (big famous bridge) and map it when necessary. Found it with no problems and ironically enough found the gelato place on the way ;) Across Rialto, there are a ton of shops and souvenir stands and stuff like that, which I know not to buy from, but there was a stand selling all sorts of amazing-looking fruit cups for 1.50. So I bought one that had raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and a couple strawberries in it. Oh my gosh. For the first time in about a month I felt so healthy LOL!!

6:55pm - so with a little help from my map, I find the place in the Rick Steves guide that supposedly has some of the best pizza in the city. Well he said it opened at 7pm, and at 5 til, all the chairs in the patio were up, gates were over the doors, etc. the menu did look nice, but I was thinking it was not gonna be open at 7. Still I sat on a little bridge for about 10 min and went back and still nothing. I was bummed, I really wanted my pizza and I really didn't want to eat it in too touristy a place LOL.

7:10pm - so I start walking back towards San Marco, I knew I saw tons of little restaurants and trattorias that had pizza in their name or on their menus etc. So I just told myself, the first place that had pizzas that weren't overpriced, I'd try. Well the first one had pizza in the name but I didn't see pizza in the menu. Plus the WAITER GUY OUTSIDE WAS FUCKING CREEPY!! I couldn't understand him but he was trying to get me to eat there and I think he said something about do I have plans later!! WHAT THE CRAP!! I said yes LOL! I wasn't expecting this BS til I got further south man!

7:30pmish - So I walked up the street and found cute little Pizzeria Bora Bora, with margherita pizzas for 6 euros and no cover charge, just 12% service included. Perfect. Go in, get my table, really cute and cozy place, painted with "bora bora" esque stuff on the walls. I got a lemonade (which is lemon soda that I am pretty sure they poured out of a can into a glass, how classy) and a margherita pizza. And in about 5 minutes it was on my plate, steaming and still sizzling. NOW I was in Italy :) I don't know if it was because it was so fresh out of the oven it was sizzling on the plate or that it was just because I was sitting in Italy eating it or because I'd had crappy pizzas all across Europe for a month… or maybe it was just THAT good, but damn, it was one of the best pizzas I've ever had (mom and dad, think Bellino's but a better, wood-baked crust, but similar sauce and cheese I think). So, total 10 euros plus 1 left on the table. They were also very nice there and even though the bill was 10.08, they didn't want the 8 cents ;) Anyway, left absolutely stuffed and set out to find the gelateria.

8:00-8:15pmish - took a couple wrong turns and then realized that I'd actually walked right by it (it's a little hole in the wall with no sign!), I found the place. Before I found it I found one of the mask shops that people on TripAdvisor recommended. Oh my gosh. They are just absolutely gorgeous. They happened to still be open so I went in and said I wasn't ready to buy tonight but did they have a business card so I could find it again - she took out a map and said their cards weren't finished yet but she circled where they are on this map. Very helpful. They had little ones with lots of purple, so I think I will be able to get one that I really like that is real and authentic and Venetian and handmade and not too expensive on top of it. Hooray!

Now back to the Gelato. So I found the place. Cheap too! 1.70 for a cup with 2 flavors, so to measure it up to other places, I got chocolate and coffee. And oh wow. Wow wow wow. It's not that it was creamier, because the one we had in Brugge and the one I had in Vienna were really really creamy, but the flavors. They were just so STRONG. You could taste the chocolate and the coffee that had gone into it. Oh gosh, it was good.

So I eat it while walking and don't even use a map to get back to San Marco, just follow the yellow signs (they are so handy because you can just wander and not worry about it). And all of a sudden you will be walking down a side street and the street will end and there you are, in Piazza San Marco. And at night it is lit up and 3 old cafes have little orchestras right out on the patio that you can listen to (by standing or paying about 15 euros for a drink yikes), they kind of duel with each other. When one finished a song, another would start, etc. Anyway, a really magical kind of thing - much less busy, many many fewer pigeons, some of the buildings are lit up. Let's just say I had another *pinch me* moment.

Needless to say, I've died and gone to heaven, aka Italy.

8:45pm - but I am tired so I made it back to the hotel. The entrance to their restaurant is around the corner and it actually looked really busy - or perhaps a group of people were just waiting outside. Looked at the menu earlier and it looked expensive and nothing I'd really want to eat so even with a 15% discount for guests I think I will give it a pass. Anyway I am going in the door when one of the waiters or someone lets me in and then guess who comes out. CREEP DUDE FROM EARLIER. Guess he's really a waiter in the restaurant. Roar. I just ignored him and walked up the stairs :)

So in Austria, I got British Eurosport and in Italy I get German Eurosport. For some reason I am finding this inordinately funny LOL