Day Five: Bienvenidos a Hell

June 28, 2008

clip_image001[4]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]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]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]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]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]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]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.

Posted by Heather | Filed Under Europe Trip Summer 2008, travel 

Comments

One Response to “Day Five: Bienvenidos a Hell”

  1. Eric on June 28th, 2008 10:03 am

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen you make the facial expression you’re making in the picture that says, “umm… no.”

    Also, I feel like you should let Leslie make the travel decisions from now on… :-)

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