Well, I must have been talking at my normal voice, which yes, is very loud, because a young girl next to us stopped to answer. Apparently once you arrive in Europe, most airports don't care to stamp your passport.
Dang, there goes my goal to fill up my passport pages! But luckily, it was stamped in Milan, though lightly.
It's now 11 AM and we are wandering around the Milan airport, we have to search for an ATM because of course we can't buy our shuttle tickets with a card.
After walking through another terminal, we find one. But of course, it's broken, and says something in Italian, which we later means "updating, wait 10 minutes."
Phew, we get our money, buy our tickets, and are on our way to the Milan train station.
Our time in Milan was short. After a 30 minute bus ride we had arrived at the station, and now faced our first challenge.
How the hell do we speak Italian?
We managed, with great difficulty, to purchase two train tickets to Venice. We're now exhausted from carrying our bags, and cannot find one bathroom.
We have literally no idea how this train stuff works, as I'm sitting waiting for Corey I see all these people placing their tickets in this little yellow box. So, when Corey gets back we figure why not?
It wasn't till later that we realized that by doing this, we were assigning ourselves seat numbers. But at first, we just entered the train (that is after we found which number it was).
Wow, we loved it! Why didn't we take trains more often? But after I walked around, I realized we were sitting in the first class section, and were going to have to move.
So we picked up our bags and headed back to where our real seats were, and quickly fell asleep. I woke up a few hours later as we were driving by Italy and fell in love. I love Italy!
We have no idea that the time zone has changed, so as we arrive in Venice we still think we have another hour to go. But luckily the train was stopped for a while, as there was nowhere else to go, and we ventured off into Venice.
We end up walking out of the station into the beautiful city of Venice. It's sunny out and crowded as can be. We realized we'll need to take a boat, so I get in line to purchase tickets while Corey sits with our stuff by the water.
I end up buying a 48 hour unlimited boat pass, because, of course we think we'll need it. That turns out to be the only time we ever got asked to show a ticket, and most stops didn't even have people there to check. (Yes, a waste of money).
We take the boat all the way to St. Marco Square, where we get off and follow our directions to the hostel. Pretty simple, and as exhausted as we are, we can't help but notice all the people.
We find our place, and remember, my knee is still killing me, we have to walk up way to many narrow steps to find the reception desk. Then we're told we aren't staying here, but in a tiny place a block or so down. So we walk down the steps, walk a block or two, and then walk up even more steps.
I think I counted over 90 as we walked up the narrow stair case that had walls reminding me of shower tile.
Our place was great, a little apartment with a kitchen, that we'd be sharing with 3 other people (using another room). I couldn't figure it out, but I assume the building itself used to be a dorm of some sort as there was a "biblio..somethig, library" downstairs.
It's now around 6 and we decide to venture for food. Suddenly, Venice is empty. Where did all those people go? We bought some ice cream, ordered a pizza and went back to our place. Apparently, Venice was dead on a Thursday night where we were.
7:30 the next morning and the bells are ringing. I figure this must be some sort of city alarm clock and by 8 AM we are up and exploring the great city of Venice.
The city is now filled with tourists, most in massive groups following a leader holding some sort of object. My favorite were the ones that carried these long fake flowers, but some went as far as to hold umbrellas ( I wonder if they shut them when walking inside?)
The weather had taken a complete turn from the previous, it was rainy and by far the coldest city yet. We walked through the main Square, took a boat to Lido (did anyone know there were actually cars? It looked so strange to see a gas station and cars driving on wide streets!), and then walked through Murano. We went to a glass museum, yet never managed to find some place to watch someone blow anything.
Our day was filled by rain and wind. Not the best way to explore Venice, but still, it was wonderful. My favorite was when we were on the boat going home from Murano and we noticed one of the stops at a huge letters that said "something strange happened here." Now, this wasn't graffiti or anything, this was legit words placed on a brick wall. I think we guessed it was where the University of Venice was, but still, it was hysterical.
We never managed to find any great food because every place seemed to have ridiculously expensive service charges, so we ate a lot of ice cream.
By Saturday morning the sun was out and we were able to enjoy our last day. We stopped at a shop to get some coffee and as I went to the bathroom noticed the back of the store was a casino?!? I was completely shocked, but apparently Corey had noticed it before and thought it was normal for Europe?!
But what was normal was seeing all the men selling fake bags and stuff outside. This is something we will become used to as we move from city to city. I still don't understand why someone would think it is a good idea to sell a fake Gucci bag in front of the Gucci store?
We spent Saturday walking around, opting to use our legs instead of taking one of the boats. We were shocked to find out where we went as we took turns and got lost! But we loved to! And being worried for time we packed our bags and headed to the airport...
We were off to Rome to do as the Romans do...
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