Free Travel: Venice - Saturday & Sunday

(from my journal) Saturday afternoon we made our way from the Villa to the train station in Florence. I'm proud to say my backpack really isn't that heavy! I will probably run out of clothes before the end of the week, but I plan on re-wearing some things! My "frontpack" is really heavy right now because it's got my telephoto lens, my wide-angle lens adapter, and all my snacks. Anyway, we took a train to Mestre, the station right outside of Venice, because our hotel was located in Mestre. In our group of ten, we had to take three cars. There were seven people in car four, William and I were in car five, and Britt (who got his reservation about an hour before the train left) was in car six. I don't know if he fell asleep or if he just didn't understand us when we said get off at the stop before Venice, but when the rest of us got off, he did not. So when we all met up, the first thing we noticed was that Britt was missing. We decided to try and figure out the best way to get to our hotel while we tried to get ahold of Britt, who wasn't answering his phone. We figured that he would probably try to get ahold of us once he got off in Venice and realized none of the rest of us were there. At the station they only had maps of Venice, which didn't really help us navigate Mestre, so we ended up taking three taxis to our hotel. We checked into our rooms, and then took the hotel shuttle into Venice. Britt was supposed to stay at the station in Venice until we got there, but he misunderstood us again and ended up back in Mestre. He eventually met up with us in Venice though, and after that he paid very good attention to where we said our stop was. Poor guy!! Even though it was dark, we walked in across the big bridge by the train station and stopped by the water. William took me to a ristorante/pizzaria right on the water while everyone else ate their "sack suppers." (Will and I ate them pretty early on the train ride over because we were hungry!) We finished dinner about nine and then went to get some gelato!! After gelato we walked up and down the main street by the water and looked at shops. We ran into Mont, Possey, Barrett, Weston and Emily on the way, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves! They were taking a night train out of Venice a few hours later. A couple minutes after saying goodbye to them we ran into Emily, Karli, and Abby. We talked to them for a minute or two, and then continued back up the street. Once we got back close to the restaurant we ate at, we ran into Kyle and Summer, and then the rest of our group, and then Alex and Lynn. We hung out and talked to everyone for probably almost an hour before we split off again to go look at some more of Vince before we had to meet the shuttle. We sat in front of a church on a bench for a little bit, but when a lesbian couple started making out on the steps in front of it, we decided to head back towards the bus. We met back up with our shuttle, which was kind of like a party bus - it had blue lights on the inside, a sparkly floor, and they were playing popular American music. We got back to our hotel, Villa Dori, hung out for a while and then headed to bed.
We got up about 7 the next morning and took the shuttle (and our backpacks) into Venice about 9. First we got our train reservations for a 1:30 train headed towards Salzburg. Then we broke up into two groups and walked around Venice. We saw some big, special bridge and then went to San Marco church. It was HUGE and really pretty, but since it was Sunday we just took a few pictures from the outside. After that we went to get some lunch and stopped so a couple girls could shop, on the way back towards the train station. We caught our first of two trains without any issues. It was about a five hour train ride, and it was exciting because we had two compartments to split between our group. It reminded us all of the Hogwarts Express. I really do enjoy traveling by train! Good thing too because I will be on them a lot this week!! We switched trains after five hours, and then took a two hour train ride into Salzburg. It was a lot of fun watching everything go from Italian to German, though it was a little harder to decipher the messages. It was also fun going through the alps, I LOVE the mountains, though they always make me feel homesick. Once we got to Salzburg we took taxies to our hotel, got our rooms, and then some of us went out to get dinner. Since it was around ten when we got in, there wasn't a lot close by that was open. We ended up eating at a McDonals, but it was an awesome McDonalds. They had free wifi too, which was a plus. I got to text my family and that was a nice little treat :) After McDonalds we went back to the hotel and went to bed!

A couple of details that I left out:

While in Venice, William, Katie and I decided to skip down the street, we actually got a lot of smiles and it was fun! hahaha :)
When we first got there and we were standing on the huge bridge, I waved at a boat going bye. A guy on board started whistling at me, and then waved back! Aaaaand then.,.
While we were walking by some restaurants on the way back to the train station in Venice, there was a friendly host/waiter guy who said to me, "Ahh, Bella! Can I come with you?! Just say yes!" As we were walking by, so I said "Yes!" to which he said, "Ah, Mia! My last day to work here! Let me hang up my coat!" And started taking his little jacket off hahahaha.. silly lil guy!

Well, I had a great time in Venice, though another day or even a few more hours would have been nice!! Beautiful, fun place! Next up - Salzburg!

Kortney Alacyn