Roma to Venezia

7/2/2009

After waking up at 8:30 (Kelly had to leave for the airport at 9, and Athena and Amanda had left at 3:30am), I quickly dressed, packed, and snagged some of the free fruit provided in our rooms.  I also grabbed a voucher for the continental breakfast that was served across the street at the hostel.  Breakfast consisted of orange juice, a yogurt, a role with apricot jam, and a glazed croissant.  I enjoyed it outside at the tables while getting some reading in for class.  I took a long time eating, as I had no hurry, but also did not have enough time to do anything big with my day.  After breakfast, I went to the train station, checked out what times the trains to the airport left, and bought my ticket.  While at the train station, I ran into some fellow SASers that were headed to the Vatican,  After chatting some about what they had done the night before, and what their plans were for the rest of the day, I did some window shopping and exploring down the street right by the train station that one of the German ladies had recommended to me.  It was very fun to just walk down the street looking at the stores, and the end closest to the train station had a large circle with a fountain in the middle.  The traffic in Italy, or rather the driving, is crazy.  There are no lane lines on the roads, which are all made out of brick or cobblestone or some other uneven surface.  Traffic lights also seem to be a bit more of a suggestion than anything else.  And then there are the motorcycles and scooters…  I don’t know how there are not more accidents, because I feel like with the haphazard approach to driving they would be quite prevalent.
After I got my fill of shopping, I headed back to the train station where I successfully located the proper platform, and waited for the train to show up.  It was a short 30 minute train ride, during which I squeezed in some more reading for class, and then it was too the airport, figuring out the proper terminal, and getting through security.  All of that was very easy and straightforward, and before I knew it I was sitting at my gate waiting to load.  After not too long the other girls on my flight showed up, and then we were loading.  There seems to be no real concept of lines in the transportations system.  One will be formed, but then when it starts moving everyone just crowds to the front, making the line wider than it is long.  We walked down to the tarmac, and loaded a waiting bus, which then drove us out to our plane, where again there was no regard for boarding groups or any such thing as everyone rushed up the staircase to the plane. 
It seemed like almost immediately after the plane got above the clouds and I was able to briefly nap that we were descending again.  Coming into the airport, Venice was clearly visible, and we kept getting lower and lower over the water.  For a while it looked like it was going to be a water landing, and then, at the last minute, land appeared.  We took a water bus from the airport to Lido.  It is basically a large boat that makes stops at several different locations, and provided us with anice scenic tour of Venice on the way to our hotel, the Hotel Rigel.  I don’t even know how to describe what a different world Venice is, the boats drive down “roads” marked by wooden pillars in the water, and there are places where there seems to be not real regulation.  We got to Lido, and found our hotel very easily, and then we checked in.  Kelly was not there, so I hung out in Audrey, Sarah, and Tara’s room, and as soon as we made a game plan for the evening and started getting ready, Kelly got back.
The island of Lido was like a quiet little paradise.  It was so gorgeous everywhere, and there were so many bikes and not many cars or motorcycles at all.  We wondered around the streets for a while looking for the beach.  We were unsuccessful.  First, we found a stairway down to the water that provided the perfect backdrop to several photographs and a perch for us to all sit looking out at the sunset over Venice and let it sink in that this was really happening.  When we finally pried ourselves away, we found  a very cute restaurant for dinner.  I got the Margarita pizza, which is colored red, white and green after the Italian flag, and it was very good.  After taking our time and enjoying the atmosphere and conversation, we made our way to the main street for gelato.  So good!  As we were enjoying our gelato, two Italian boys came up and introduced themselves to us as Davide and Alberto.  They each walked down the line of 5 of us, shaking each of our hands and repeating their names.  They chatted with us for a while, and then invited us to the beach.  We decided that since there were 5 of us, and only two of them, it was safe to go.  Plus, we really wanted to know where the beach was.  There was a slight language barrier, but we were all able to communicate fairly well.  When we got to the beach, we realized we had been going the complete wrong direction when we had been looking before.  It was a very nice beach, very big.  There was also a little bar set up at the close end of it, so we sat there and talked some more before bidding our new friends goodnight and heading back to our hotel.  We made plans to meet up at the free breakfast our hotel provides the next morning, and went to our respective rooms for bed.  After just one night in Venice, I already knew I would want much longer than I had to stay there.