Further Reflections on Venice

the following post was written at 10:45 PM, August 14th

Hello again,


So I’m on my second night train, and I’d like to let you all know that it’s really not so bad. The last night train I took, I was stuck in this teeeeny tiiiiiny little bed in a 6-person berth. I was also gross because of a long, sweaty afternoon. So I was pretty unhappy. But, I am now in a very comfortable 2-person birth, and while there’s no A/C, it’s quite cold out so it’s actually pretty great climate-wise.

However, while I’m ready to admit that night trains can be pleasant (if you are riding anytime but in the peak of summer heat, and you pay more for more room, and your roommate is as pleasant as my new roommate/friend from Colorado), I’m very hesitant to book another on this trip. Why? Because I’m five.

If you don’t know me very well, you probably don’t know that I’m actually five years old, meaning that I’m afraid of a lot of really stupid things, like lightning. I’m also afraid of getting lost. And I’m also afraid of the dark. Tonight I had a close encounter with the latter two monsters, and I about had a heart attack. I was supposed to take a 8:00 shuttle from the campground I was staying at with Meritt to the main train station in Venice, to catch my overnight train, which left at 9:20. If I arrived at 8:15, as I was supposed to, I would have had plenty of time to get to my train, settle in and get to know my Coloradan.

What really happened? The 8:00 tourbus just didn’t show up, ever, so I had to take a public bus at 8:30 to a different train station in Venice, praying that my train would also stop at this one. Thank Jesus, Mary and Joseph, it did. I arrived at the train station at 9:15, and the train would be here at 9:32. So I had time to get a BBQ wrap from McDonalds. Have you ever had a BBQ wrap? It’s literally 2 chicken McNuggets in a tortilla with BBQ sauce. It was so good.

Anyway, that whole ordeal took about 1.5 hours and it was full of darkness (the sun went down around 8:15) and the distinct possibility of being really lost. I honestly don’t even know if I’d be alive right now if there had been lightning. Wait, I’d probably be alive, but I’d be crying the side of the road somewhere. I’m not even kidding, I was freaking out. This train ticket cost $140 (yeah) and I did everything I could to be an HOUR early and I almost missed it. God, just thinking about it makes me stress again.

Isn’t that weird? I don’t know about you guys, but sometimes, if I even think about a really emotional moment in my past, I can get so easily pulled into it, like I’m actually there….and I begin to feel legitimate emotions from that moment. Sadness, jealousy, stress, happiness, etc.

Anyway, the point of all this made me realize just how good this all is for me. I say that because, in so many ways, I’m really just a kid. I live close to home, I get whatever I want whenever I want, I spend all my time with my boyfriend and get upset if I can’t, and I’m afraid of fucking lightning. This experience is probably the best thing I could possibly do to maybe just feel grown up. Or really, actually be a grown up.

So yeah, now that I’m done reflecting, I’d like to share a little about my last two days. Did you know that there are two Venices? There’s the island, which everyone knows about, that’s beautiful and full of canals and all these great restaurants and gelaterias, etc. There’s also the mainland Venice…which has none of that. I was lucky enough to spend about 3 hours yesterday walking around the awesome mainland Venice, looking for a chinese restaurant. We were bored at our hostel, and hungry, and we wanted to get some food. So we got on the bus (the same I was on earlier tonight), and decided to just get off at the first bus-stop that looked like it could possibly have restaurants. We also needed return bus tickets, so we had to find someplace that looked pretty commercial, with many businesses.

Remember when I said our hostel in La Spezia was in Romania? Well our current hostel was in Kuwait. It was even past the airport, which we passed many times. It looked smaller than the Cedar Rapids airport (which I didn’t know was possible), and we joked that it probably had food and bus tickets, if we wanted to save time. Anyway, we hopped on the bus and literally sat on it for like 30 minutes before we decided we had found a stop that looked busy enough to try.

We of course didn’t realize that it was the middle of the afternoon, aka “nothing’s open” time, but the area was busy enough, and there happened to be a bar open, so we figured we could find something eventually. We literally walked 12 blocks before realizing that it wasn’t gonna happen. We remembered seeing a Chinese restaurant on the bus that had its doors open though, and we figured, since Chinese immigrants probably aren’t 100% assimilated into Italian culture, there’s a chance the restaurant would still be open. 10 blocks later, we realized we were wrong. Being completely starving and not wanting to hop on a bus to get to real Venice, as that would take at least 45 more minutes, we decided to eat at the airport. We were right, there were food and bus tickets  And it was smaller than the Cedar Rapids airport.

So anyway today, we were very happy be in the real Venice, and we actually had a really decent meal at this restaurant. I had tagliotelli with gorganzola sauce (awesome), and Nicole ordered a glass of white wine. She didn’t realize that a glass actually meant half a bottle, and she was more than willing to drink up and relax before their Ryanair flight. So, even though the Polish couple beside us were staring the entire time, she poured the remaining wine into her water bottle for later.

Have a good day!

- Josh A