Day Eight: Welcome to No-English land (Budapest!)
June 30, 2008
Alright! Look at how far we’ve come already! From Rome to Florence to Venice to Zagreb and now, here we are, in Budapest. This move to Hungary marks an important turn in the trip. What’s the turn? Well, as I’ve mentioned, Leslie was sort of in charge of leading the way through Italy and I’m supposed to sort of quasi-lead the way in Eastern Europe. This means a few things
First: say goodbye to meth-driven Rick Steve!! And hello to Lonely Planet and random wanderings! (don’t tell Leslie but, yay!!!!)
Second: expect more action-packed adventures (i.e. biking through towns and the forced eating of authentic fill-in-the-blank weird foods)
Third: Expect more attempts to eat food gotten at local markets (this isn’t a me versus Leslie thing… it’s more of a something-we’ve-come-to-learn-while-traveling thing)
Fourth: Get ready to walk!!!!
I know Leslie’s excited and I hope you are, too!
So what’s been going on? Well, we got up after about one and a half hours of sleep in Zagreb, ran to the market, got a giant chunk of cheese (again, we didn’t know what kind it was), a big fluffy loaf of bread, and some peaches, and speedily walked over to the train station. And then *trumpets please* we got on, fell asleep on and off for about seven hours (seven hours is how long this ride was) and landed in Budapest! But even from this short ride we’ve already learned interesting information about Hungarians (because, you know, by meeting two we can make claims about the entire group of them!)
So, as I’ve mentioned, I’m a quarter Hungarian (my mom’s father was full on Hungarian). Now, my mom (and random others) have told me some interesting things about Hungarians. Here are the two main ones
1. (from my mom) Hungarians don’t express that much emotion and they don’t chit-chat. If they have something to say, they’ll say it. But unless the house is burning down, they aren’t going to just randomly initiate conversation with you. And, generally, they just aren’t that friendly.
2. (from Frane) Hungarians are highly sexually creatures
Now I’m not sure how 1 and 2 are supposed to go together, but who am I to judge?!
I can say, given my extensive experience with Hungarians (i.e. one woman on a train) that number 1 just isn’t so true anymore. Granted, they aren’t like Italians yelling cat calls midday, but they aren’t looking on in complete scorn or discontent either! So, the woman on the train, basically she ended up sitting next to Leslie and me and when she realized we were trying to find out way, offered to help explain it, get us on the bus, and even told us, once we were on the bus, which stop to get off at. And, it wasn’t like she only spoke when she had an important direction for us. Oh no! She told us a little bit about her sister, what she was doing on the train, how she liked Budapest, etc. It was great! And a very warm way to enter a new country.
And! Even before her Leslie and I had a positive Hungarian experience. When we first got on the train we didn’t know where on earth to go. We were fairly confident there were assigned seats (turns out there weren’t) so we were looking at all these numbers, etc. Now, I recognize that I don’t hide my emotions particularly well, and so I’m guessing that this old guy saw me looking up in confusion and decided to help alleviate it! But, of course, there was a small problem. He didn’t speak any English. So, instead, we played charades! And actually, it worked quite well. I made the gesture of sticking-the-card-in-the-validation-box and he acted back a “no” and then pretended to be the train guy walking past with a pen and checking it off. We went through a few more and they were fantastic! He was so adorable and so very very friendly.
So generalization 1 is wrong!
As for number 2 I can’t make any claims. Sorry!
So anyways, finally we made our way to our hostel, took a nap, and then decided to just walk around. And oh boy did we walk.
First we came across Judafest – a Jewish street fair in what was once the Jewish ghetto of Budapest during World War One. There were lots of people eating yummy food, singing, and just generally gallivanting about. It was so neat that we just came across it and then had the opportunity to check it out.
After Judafest, we made a stop at a restaurant for dinner, ordered some traditional-ish Hungarian food and chilled out there for a bit. Our waitress barely spoke any English at all but we made it work. The only bad part is that I think I’m somehow allergic to egg… because whenever I eat them I get such a horrible stomach ache. So I had that to deal with for a while, but otherwise it was great.
After dinner we walked up to Hero’s square and ended up stumbling upon a giant gathering of Hungarians watching the EuroCup: Germany versus Spain. It seems that Hungarians are for Spain and so we were, too! (well…because the Hungarians are and, of course, because of our Spanish friends). We sat down with the zillion of them and yelled and screamed right along. It was great!
After watching that for a bit we moseyed on over to the most gorgeous castle. We walked around, found a friggin frog prince hopping on by, and went out the back way into a gorgeous path. Budapest, like Zagreb, feels very safe at night.
While walking we stumbled upon two additional giant EuroCup parties. It was crazy! There were thousands upon thousands of people watching this game in a one mile radius alone!
After that we walked by the baths we were going to go to the next day and then made the long journey back to our hostel (but not before Leslie got her gyros fix).
So overall, it was a relaxing day used to get our bearings about this city… since, as the title suggests, not all Hungarians speak English. At all. So best to not get lost!!
Tomorrow we are going to the Giant open market in the morning (to get food and have a look around), Dohány Street Synagogue and Jewish Museum (which I’ve been excited about for a very very long time), and then we’re renting bikes so we can bike to baths and then around both Buda and Pest.
Doesn’t that sound like fun?!
Oh and to see pictures from this day, click here.
Day Seven: Old Friends in a New Country (Croatia!)
June 30, 2008
Zdravo! As you may have guessed, Leslie and I successfully made our way to Zagreb, Croatia! And, since there really was no sleep going on between the last post and this one, we’ll just pick up where we left off…
So Leslie and I awoke from our 30 minutes of sleep when, at around 4:30AM, the train conductor guy knocked on our door and said, “Zagreb!”. (Well, to be fair, we were rustled from our feeble attempts at slumber a bit earlier than that when the border cops came knocking asking to see our passports – but you know what I mean)
So we said goodbye to Fleur (who was taking the train to Budapest), grabbed our bags, and headed into the twilight of early morning Zagreb. Now at this point I was fairly awake, which I attribute to the fact that I sort of get a rush of excitement at the prospect of being somewhere new and having no plan. It’s like anything is possible and there’s no pressure to do or see certain things. It’s just you and this new place… so you get to go nuts!
But, since I can read your mind and all that, I know what you’re wondering “what do you mean no plan? Didn’t you have a hostel to stay in? Didn’t Leslie have some Rick Steve’s insight?” – and the answer to all of those is, simply put, No. Friends of ours (well, very good friends of Leslie) actually live in Zagreb and we were there to see them.
[So first a bit of background about the friends: Marin was a software engineer at Google with us for (I think?) five years before he quit and moved back to Zagreb where he was joined by his girlfriend, Chelsea. Frane is Marin’s slightly younger brother who we met when he interned at Google two summers ago. Marin and Leslie used to hangout a lot when he was still at Google – I remember they’d go down to the SportsPage after work a lot (SportsPage = local sports bar) and drink drink drink and talk talk talk (Marin, once he gets started, doesn’t shut up.ever). When I was up interning for the summer I went out with them a few times, too (and no, I wasn’t 21). They’d buy me all sorts of yummy drinks and introduced me to (I think it’s called) Jaeger-bombing? I don’t remember. The point is, that’s how we all know each other. Leslie actually keeps in touch with them (especially Marin I think) but I don’t (I just didn’t know them as well)]
So, why no plan, given all these connections? Well, Leslie had been trying to contact them for ages and ages but the communication chain was failing… miserably. It wasn’t until she was running out the door to pick me up to leave for this trip that she heard back at all. And, on top of all that, we hadn’t been able to get a hold of them to let them know that we were taking the insane overnight train from Venice to Croatia. Anthony, who has been our last-minute logistic helper, had been calling them while we were on the train, but it was all unclear and crazy. So at this point all we had was an address and some rough directions from Marin.
And so… we winged it. Leslie had spent almost two weeks in Croatia last summer and had a general sense for the area (which helped), so we managed to make our way to the main square area. From there we got bus tickets and made our way to Marin’s (after, I confess, a few hiccups). Once we finally found his apartment building we ran into a bit of a dilemma (well, as you’ll see, dilemma for Leslie… I thought the right course of action was fairly obvious). Marin and Chelsea live in one of those buildings with a little buzzer-panel at the bottom. You know, where you have to call someone up and then they ring you in the door. The problem was that, upon inspection, we realized that Marin wasn’t listed. But! There were two buzzers that had blank name plates. So what were we to do?
Well Leslie thought we should just walk around some more and, I don’t know, wait for some magical moment when Marin would realize we were in Croatia. I, on the other hand, was at this point fairly tired and had to pee… a lot. So I did what I thought best, I picked one of the blank name plates and buzzed. (And, to further paint the picture, the time it took me to deliberate as to the best course of action was about, oh, let’s say… 3 seconds.). Leslie at this point was totally mortified. I, in contrast, was only irritated that I didn’t hear a voice on the other end of the buzzing. I then, thinking my noble attempt had failed, proceeded to yell “Marin” up at the apartment complex. Leslie, I gather, wanted to crawl into a hole and die. But lo and behold who came down the steps in their PJs? Chelsea!
So we then went upstairs where, I am told, Marin was sleeping buck naked. We waited (well, I peed) and then Marin graced us with his presence. Leslie kept apologizing and apologizing while I looked on in awe. I mean, seriously, if I had friends from the other side of the world visiting me would I care if they showed up at the crack of dawn because that was the only way they could make it to see me? Of course not!! I’d get my naked ass out of bed and get the day started. Sure I might need a nap at some point, but come on! This isn’t like your friend down the street bugging you! We’re traveling gypsies for heaven’s sake!
So we all hung out for a bit and then Chelsea went back to bed and Marin took us to find a hostel. The first place was totally booked, but we ended up getting a great deal at this place right in the heart of downtown Zagreb. When I find out the name of the place I will tell you because if you ever stay in Zagreb, you absolutely must stay at this place. If you look at the pictures you’ll see why – it was super clean, the shower area was great, the rooms were adorable, and you really couldn’t ask for a better location.
Since it was so early we dropped our stuff off and walked around for a bit – we had a few hours to kill before we could officially check in. So Marin first showed me (Leslie is old pro at the Zagreb thing) the open Market. It was so so so awesome. I’m talking rows and rows and rows of local Croatian farmers selling their stuff. From fruits, veggies, flowers, fresh made cheeses, breads, handiwork – you name it, it was there. And it all looked so tasty (well, minus the handiwork stuff).
After that we walked around a bit more until deciding to get breakfast/lunch at this sandwich shop. In Croatia (and much of Europe) the “fast food” tends to be sandwiches. So we got those, watched some pigeons (which Leslie was totally into), and then went down to an Internet cafe so I could try (in vain) to post. At this point we were all running on empty and at one point or another we each fell asleep.
After all that Marin dropped us off at our hostel, we crashed for a few hours, and then went out to eat. We walked down this lane that was just filled with cafes until finding a pizza-ish place to go to. So a few things:
First: In Croatia everyone does the cafe people-watching thing. They have hundreds and hundreds of chairs set up outside where people sit, get a drink, and talk for hours and hours. At night, they’re totally packed. Midday, pretty much packed, too [I’m getting the sense that nobody *really* works in Europe].
Second: Croatia feels much much more foreign than Italy. While a lot of people speak some English, it’s not the same as Italy. In Italy I had enough Spanish to basically read the Italian signs. In Croatia, Spanish doesn’t help. At all.
So anyways, Leslie and I had lunch and people-watched for a while until Chelsea came out to play. She ended up showing us around the town a bit until we ended up sitting down at a cafe ourselves… and then… I admit… another Internet cafe.
Soon, though, Frane came out! Frane is so fun. You know those people who just desperately need to have their feathers ruffled a little bit because they’re just a bit too neurotic? Well, that’s Frane. Apparently last summer Leslie would give him all kinds of crap because he freaks out when people touch his food or get too close to him. So what did she do? Touched him every chance she got. I didn’t know this beforehand but found out on this special trip (see the Bubble-boy trilogy of videos below to understand).
So soon Marin showed up and it was the 5 of us. We got some delicious dinner, drank the nastiest shot of some domestic Croatian crap, and then went to a cafe before heading out to this super duper late night bar in the middle of, I swear, a friggin forest of beauty. People in Croatia party so hard. For instance, when Leslie and I got in to Zagreb at like 4:30 in the morning, people were still in their party clothes, finally going home after a long night. Madness!
Eventually Main and Chelsea called it a night… which means Frane was left alone with Leslie and me. And oh did I give him crap for his neurotic bubble-boy ways. We had such fun hanging out. (and I’m sure he agrees!)
But, sadly, at about 4AM we had to call it a night – Leslie and I had to catch a train to Budapest at 6AM.
Yes, we’re crazy.
Zagreb ended up being a beautiful and very intimate city. While it’s home to about a million people, it feels super tight knit. Marin, Frane, and Chelsea all explained that that’s in part because everyone meets up at the same places near the main square – so everyone sees each other. Plus, with the cafe-lounging culture it’s very clear that community is a priority.
I’m sad that the three of them are moving away soon… I’d like to spend a lot more time getting to know the (super biker friendly) area! Especially with the help of native speakers!
I guess for now we have to settle with making our way to (one of my many) homelands: Hungary! To Budapest!
And, of course, to see all the awesome fun pictures from our Croatia experience (plus fun comments and a bit of a Croatian history lesson), go here.
FRANE BUBBLE BOY TRILOGY!!
Day Six: Venice and “Venice-Venice”
June 29, 2008
So we managed to mess-up Venice. Funny thing about maps… if you flip them the wrong way, sometimes things that are “really” to your left end up looking like they’re to your right. So for instance, just generally, if you had a map of Venice (let’s just say) and you flipped it so San Marco *looked* like it was to your right, then it would make complete sense to start walking in that “right” direction. In fact, it would further make good sense for you to be pretty damn confused when, after a few hours of walking, you really didn’t come across anything like the “Venice-Venice” idea you’ve got in your head.
And that pretty much explains what we did. We had a map, we knew where we were, and yet, somehow, we managed to mess up every other piece of the map-reading experience after that. So, instead of spending the vast majority of our time in what I like to call “Venice-Venice”, where that means the Venice you’ve seen a zillion pictures of and all that, we spent a good chunk of time in just plain Venice – the Venice where people live, hang their laundry, sit around with their other Venetian friends, etc… So no, we didn’t actually see San Marco and the trillions of pigeons. No, we didn’t see a zillion cute shops. And no, I really don’t think Leslie wants to talk about it. If it’s any consolation, eventually we did find our way and managed to walk the correct way for about ten minutes or so, but that’s about it.
So now we can start from the beginning of our day and let you know what we did, in fact, see and do.
After a night of being eaten alive by mosquitoes, Leslie and I awoke to, thankfully, much cooler weather. This isn’t to say it wasn’t still super hot and humid, but, comparatively, it was a lot better than the day from hell (see previous entry for detailed explanation of what sort of hell we’re talking about here). Our hostel lady had mentioned that there was a grocery store right across the street from us and that we’d save a lot of money if we got food there and brought it with us to Venice. So, being the savvy travelers you know us to be, we decided to head over there and see what was going on…
First off it was air conditioned – so we knew things we’re going well. Then, we walked around and were shocked to see how good the prices were compared to the money we’d be spending earlier in the trip on food. But for me, the best part was the price of wine. You can get a bottle of wine for .99 euros! That’s like $1.50 USD!! You can’t even get a friggin Coke Zero for that price here (in a grocery store or otherwise). And, as a side note, I’d like to officially submit my complaint: Coke is way way way too expensive here. In Venice you were looking at $2.5 euro for one! And they’re smaller than in the US!
But back to the store…
After circling around once to get a feel for the place, Leslie and I settled on a few items: yogurt drink shake thingies for breakfast (I got a massive one while Leslie got a baby sized one and a little pizza thing) and for lunch, a big loaf of bread, a massive circle of cheese (the sort of cheese was unknown but we were feeling adventurous), fresh salami, and chocolate wafer cookies (though, as noted in the video, the cookies were really just mine. Leslie doesn’t really go crazy for cookies the way I do. She’s weird like that)
After buying our groceries, Leslie and I got on a bus and found ourselves in Venice. This is where we messed up. We ended up spending about two hours walking around the wrong Venice. At one point Leslie did say, “Something is just missing. Rick Steve said ‘get ready to splurge!!’ but there’s just nothing to splurge on.” Eventually we sat down and reexamined the map… which is when we realized that we had the orientation between the train station and Rome Plaza was off. As we flipped the map we slowly looked at each other. Shit.
But no matter! We found our way to the good area and decided that the best way to keep ourselves oriented would be to do what Leslie has been dying to do since way before the trip, namely, to take a gondola!
Leslie let me know that Rick Steve said that the average price for a ride during the day sits around 75-80 euro. And, that sometimes, they try and rip you off. I then knew there’d haggling in our future!! And oh do I love to haggle. We found a gondola place and Leslie asked them how much it was “cuantos cuestos?” They said 100 euro for 40 minutes. I then gave a look of surprise, grabbed Leslie, and told them that we’d been quoted at a lot less. Then we left. We waited about 2 two minutes before the guy came over and started the haggle-speak. I gleefully played and go us down to 70 euro for 40 minutes. It’s still a LOT of money, but this was Leslie’s big fantasy!It was listed as one of the things she was most looking forward to! And so, we went.
And, because this was Leslie’s big thing, I’m happy to announce that the following will be her verbatim account of the experience (finally Leslie types!!):
“Ok, we sat down in the gondola which had black cushions (pretty gothic looking) and a sketchy gondaler. It was pretty awkward at first because he didn’t initiate any conversation, but Heather and I managed to make small talk. This guy was born and raised in Venice and claimed he doesn’t sing (how did he qualify for the job then?!). Further, he ended up taking us the Venice way and not through “Venice-Venice” so yet again, we missed the opportunity to see what we/I had hoped.
On a positive note, it was great to ride through the canal and view the buildings from a different angle. Plus, I got to ride with my Heather and people did take lots of pictures of us on our “romantic” ride. It was nice, but next time I’d like to start the ride in the “Venice-Venice” area and ride at night. Hopefully Anthony will take me!”
And there you have it – Leslie’s account! I thought the whole gondola experience was super hyped up but I did feel a bit bad for Leslie. I think she was most looking forward to Venice and we totally messed up large parts of it. But, it was fun to see some of Venice from a different view and to learn a bit about life there. Plus, by nature I’m a giver, and so, I’d like to think by sacrificing my own “Venice-Venice” experience I’m giving you the information you need so you don’t have to! Yah, you like that don’t you? 
Moving on with our day in Venice, after we got off the gondola we knew we wanted to go to Moreno, the island where all the glass blowing is. And so, we went by water taxi (which, I have to confess, was much cooler than the gondola ride since we went straight down and out through the main canal).
Moreno is friggin full of glass. Seriously, I don’t know how many days it would take to enter every single glass store on that island. Days! Weeks! Months! Years!! It’s incredible. And while most stores seemed to carry the same general stuff, if you looked hard enough you could find some unique-ish pieces in some of them. The two best parts of the Moreno experience were
1. Eating our picnic after a few hours of looking around (see video)
2. Directly after our picnic we went to the big glass blowing place on the island and we met a guy who I think must run the place. He was probably in his late forties, super well dressed, handsome, and (lucky for us!) chatty. So we first went in and looked around in the down stairs area because all the other areas were closed off. (in Europe all the stores close around 5ish… it’s weird). So we were looking around downstairs and we started talking to the guy. I told him I thought all the glass was beautiful and that I really liked the bigger fancy things, and that one day I’d come back and get some real piece of art from there, blah blah blah. Oh and we talked about California and all that, too. So we were about to leave when he looked to us and said, “So do you want to see upstairs?” At which point we must have looked like 5 year-old kids who were just asked if they’d like some warm chocolate chip cookies and cold milk (well, 5 year-old kids and me when I’m asked if I’d like some of that wholesome goodness…but anyways!). We said “yes!” and then he led the way. He took us upstairs, turned back on all the lights and before us were rooms and rooms of the most beautiful glass I’ve ever seen. This one room had serious pieces of art. I’m talking giant sculptures and pieces of the most brilliant colors and shapes. Soooo beautiful. He then went with us room by room as our jaws continued to drop and our eyes, twinkle. It was so fun. When we’d looked around enough we headed out the door and on the way out he looked to me and said, “I’d better see you here again, Heather. It’s this sort of glass that makes Moreno famous – and now you’ve seen it”. It was so neat.
After that we left Moreno and were all happy inside (because of 1 + 2 + our new jewelry!)
And then the craziness re-began.
So Leslie, being the “planner” on the trip recommended that we stop by the ferry station and figure out what time the ferry left for Croatia the next morning – that way we could figure out if we’d have time to actually go to San Marco and do all the Venice-Venice stuff. So we head over. Turns out, every single last boat to Croatia the following day was sold out. Crap! We then realized that the only way for us to get to Croatia by any time the next day was to take an overnight train… and overnight train that was leaving the station 2 hours after we learned of its existence. Now I thrive on these crazy hectic moments. Where decisions have to be made and you’ve got to go a bit nuts. I looked at Leslie, looked at the train station woman, and said “We’ll take them”. We got the tickets and ran for the bus station (remember: our hostel was about a 10-15 minute bus ride from where we were at). We stood and stood at the bus station but for the first time ever, our bus line didn’t show. For like twenty minutes, no bus. So what did Leslie recommend? (if you can’t guess than you haven’t been following this blog enough!) Leslie said, “Heather, we’re taking a cab”. I agreed and we were off.
We got to the hostel, checked out, jammed our stuff in our bags and ran out the door again. Luckily, we made it back with about 15 minutes to spare.
Now I’ve never been on an overnight train before, but to me it has a very Harry Potter Hogwarts feel to it… so I was all sorts of excited. Plus, I was over Venice and quite ready to leave a bit early. And, lucky for us, it turned out to be great. We were in a cabin that was supposed to hold 6 people (gods only know how) but it ended up being just the two of us and a girl named Fleur. Fleur is from Perth, Australia and before that Scotland. And, get this – she’s currently traveling all over Europe alone (which I think is so friggin awesome). She’s been all over the place and hasn’t run into any real problems (in terms of safety and whatnot). And, she’s going to continue to travel until all her money runs out. More power to her!
So there we all were chit-chatting away for a good while when the two guys in the compartment adjacent to ours ended up coming over because they were stuck with some crazy woman and her son. So that was super fun. We even got Fleur, after some serious persuading, to guest star in our video!! So I hope you enjoy that!
So that my friends was our crazy crazy day.
And, to see all the pictures from said craziness, you can go here.
[Rewind] Day Four: All the Videos
June 28, 2008
Sorry for the delay on this – I’m telling you, uploading videos on slow wireless is a big pain in the butt! But, here are all the videos from our last night in Florence. In order.
Enjoy!
Day Five: Bienvenidos a Hell
June 28, 2008
![clip_image001[4]](http://www.heatherwhitney.com/picts/DayFiveBienvenidosaHell_6664/clip_image0014_thumb.jpg)
Ahh… the journey from Florence to Venice. I think my one line description in the previous post really captured the first part of that epic journey. But, because I know you like to read as many words as possible (I imagine you might be reading this in the morning as you eat a delicious, and I assure you, cheaper-than-our-breakfast, breakfast) I’ll fill in the day for you
Part One: Leave Florence
![clip_image001[8]](http://www.heatherwhitney.com/picts/DayFiveBienvenidosaHell_6664/clip_image0018.jpg)
As I mentioned in the previous post, I had a lot to drink during our last night in Florence. And we were up really late. I think we maybe went to sleep at 4AM. And I was pretty smashed at 4AM. This lead to another “first” for me – namely, the first time I’ve ever woken up either slightly buzzed or with a hangover. I’m not quite sure which it was… since neither have ever happened before. All I know is I woke up at 8:30AM and let me tell you – that shower was a bit of a struggle. But, nonetheless, we all (we = Leslie, me, and the Spanish guys) all had a lovely breakfast together (well, they did… food did not look appealing to me at that point) before saying our goodbyes. I so wish we would have had more time to hang out because they were all so awesome. But, hopefully, one day in the future they’ll make the trip to San Francisco! Or, we’ll go to Northern Spain.
![clip_image001[6]](http://www.heatherwhitney.com/picts/DayFiveBienvenidosaHell_6664/clip_image0016_thumb.jpg)
So after the goodbyes Leslie and I headed for the train station. Now keep in mind, I was not on my A-game. I was friggin exhausted. Leslie was exhausted. I was feeling a bit ill. But at least Leslie was ok. This was fortunate because we almost got lost…again. We went to the station lady to buy our ticket to Venice and we had two options. Either we could take a speedy train to Venice for $108 euro each or the slower longer train we could both go for $47 euro. I was like… $216 euro versus $47 euro… this is a no-brainer. Plus, I was so exhausted and sick feeling I thought it’d be nice to have a few hours to sleep on the train.
That was the first of many many mistakes.
![clip_image001[12]](http://www.heatherwhitney.com/picts/DayFiveBienvenidosaHell_6664/clip_image00112.jpg)
The next issue we ran into came when we attempted to actually understand what our ticket said. This is all a bit blurry to me, namely because the minute we put our luggage down to endure the wait I fell into what was in essence a coma, but the issue was that the train from Florence to Venice didn’t actually leave from our station – it left from this other one that we needed to get to. We only found this out after waiting in this horrible line to talk to the Information guy. The Information guy then printed out this sheet that had three different train departures on it (but they were all in Italian). Now, I asked the guy “So… we have to make three transfers to get to this station we need to be at?” To which he said, “Yes”. At that point I believed him, told Leslie everything was going to be just fine, and to please guard over our stuff so I could lay down and sleep. But Leslie was skeptical.
Finally we saw the train show up that was listed as number one on the list the guy gave us. We got on and Leslie was still confused, “Heather, the train right next to this one is the second train on this list – it’s just leaving ten minutes later”. At first I said, “Oh, well maybe it makes like additional stops or something”. Leslie was not convinced. So I then, with all my Spanish speaking skills and hang-over goodness, reexamined our printout. Then I, too, questioned the plan. I remembered the guy saying that we only needed to go one station down… in Italian/Spanish sounding-ness at one point. One station down would take something like five minutes. All of these trains were scheduled to take five minutes. “Oh! He just printed us out three trains that will all take us from here to the right station! We just need to pick one!” And we figured this out on.the.train. Thank the gods, though – because it would have sucked soooo bad if we would have gotten to the right train station and then hopped over a line and kept going to gods knows where.
So go us! We’re learning!
So now we can talk about the ride from the right train station to Venice itself. You ready? Hell. Hell was what we experienced. As I told Leslie, if before I was on the fence as to whether I should be good or evil, I am on the fence no more. I have tasted hell. It is not pleasant. It smells of unbathed sweaty travelers and feels like being in a sauna. A sauna you can’t escape. A sauna at something like 100 degrees. My shirt was soaked… except for these lovely dry triangles over the very middle of my boobs, my entire shirt was abso-friggin-lutely drenched (did make for an interesting fashion statement though – dark gray with light gray triangles and all that). Leslie’s lovely shirt – drenched. At least she had the sense to wear a nice flowing skirt. I was wearing jeans! Jeans for the love of gods! There was this couple in this non-air conditioned hell with us and funny thing… the girl, who was sitting next to me, hadd a fan (like the Asian looking paper ones) and while she was fanning herself I just ever so slowly started to lean on into her… hoping…. praying for just the slightest of breezes. Eventually she fell asleep. This meant the fan was no longer in use. I was SO close to just ever so gently taking it from her hand – as I glared at it out of the corner of my frenzied eyes. I hope you understand – 3 hours of hell.
![clip_image001[14]](http://www.heatherwhitney.com/picts/DayFiveBienvenidosaHell_6664/clip_image00114.jpg)
But eventually we made it to Venice… where things did not go better. It was so humid I cannot tell you. I am not meant for humidity. I already hate heat, but dry heat has NOTHING on wet heat. I mean… I always have thought the gods like us… but obviously that’s just not true. No creature of benevolence could ever smite us with the horror that is humidity.
So we got off the train. We then turned right. Good dear Leslie had the directions to our hostel. Direction one “Cross the bridge”. We get out of the train station…drenched… look up. No bridge. We then figure there’s another exit on the other side so we go over there. No bridge. What.the.hell. So I then ask some guy where Roma Square is and he tells me to take a bus. At this point I’m not going to debate whether something is within walking distance or not. We took a bus. Now, from the directions the Plaza was supposed to be a five minute walk. The bus ride was l5-20 minutes. Throughout it Leslie and I would burst out laughing hysterically. It was ridiculous. The directions were ridiculous.
Turns out the directions were actually from the station that the super speedy train drops you off at. We ended up taking the “locals” train (hence it being a lot cheaper).
![clip_image001[16]](http://www.heatherwhitney.com/picts/DayFiveBienvenidosaHell_6664/clip_image00116.jpg)
So finally the bus dropped us off at Roma Square. In a giant area of busses. We were then to find his one bus and take it to the hostel. Now, to begin with, Roma Square is right where Venice (the Venice you think of when you think “Venice”) begins. You sort of cross a bridge and now you’re in picturesque Venice land. I didn’t see any streets going from the train station into Venice. I only saw them going out, back to the area from which we came. So when we finally got on the right bus and started heading back to the mainland, I was not surprised. Concerned, sure! But surprised, no no no. I knew something was weird. Turns out our hostel is about 10-15 minutes out from Venice-Venice (by bus). It’s in a very quiet suburban-esque area where lots of grannies (grannies = old people) live. We did not care. We were so hot and sweaty and disgusting.
Finally we checked in and got our room. Funny bit here – Venice was/is the only hostel stop on this trip where Leslie and I are in a private room (where it’s just the two of us). When the hostel lady showed us the room it looked like there was just one bed. Awesome. Turns out there were two beds just right up on each other. Not that either of us had a problem sleeping together, but when you already are sitting on a train thinking to yourself “If things don’t get better in the next ten minutes I’m going to say ‘frak it’ and get naked” the idea of your body touching another body just isn’t so appealing.
At that point we took a nap and then headed down (by bus) to check out this Venice business. Venice is really spectacularly one-of-a-kind looking and romantic. If you’ve ever seen “The 10th Kingdom” (solid TV movie thing by the way) it’s sort of like Kissing town. So we strolled around, losing ourselves in the narrow gorgeous labyrinth of streets and alleys until we finally came around some main square area. Here we saw loads of people gathered around big screen TVs watching fútbol (soccer). I thought that was pretty nifty. Everyone coming together for a single sport.
![clip_image001[18]](http://www.heatherwhitney.com/picts/DayFiveBienvenidosaHell_6664/clip_image00118.jpg)
Leslie and I, not being soccer people, settled on a restaurant that was not playing the game. Here we met a big flirt… our waiter. I’m telling you – Italians LOVE blonds. I don’t quite know why but they do. So he started talking to us and then declared to his friend that I was his “new girlfriend”. He then took my arm and escorted us to our table. At another point he gave me this little dinky charm thing so I’d remember that his heart flies for me (which he said in Italian… but I understood because I’m telling you, it’s a lot like Spanish). Leslie and I did have some delicious pasta there, though. She got gonococci, which I’ve never actually liked before, but it was totally delicious.
After all that we headed back to the hostel and fell dead asleep.
So that was our trip into Venice! While it was totally brutal I’m happy it happened in some sick twisted way… because it means a funny story to share with all of you!
For all the photos from our day in hell, click here.