Once we arrived in Arezzo by bus, we walked across
the street to the train station to upgrade our tickets. Since we already had
experience with upgrading our tickets, we made our way to the ticket desk and
purchased a group ticket. Being the talkative girls we are and the need to sit
together for safety purposes, we found out that you could buy a group ticket
with seating assignments that we all together. After grabbing a quick snack
from the café, we made boarded our train to Bologna where we transferred trains
on our route to Venice.
Because of the location of our hotels, Katie,
Amanda, and I got off at the first train station in Venice. The directions we
had been given from the train station to our hostel were not exactly detailed,
but somehow we managed to find our way to our hostel. To correct myself, I
probably should mention that our hostel wasn’t actually a hostel, but rather a
hotel. Our room was actually quite cute. It was a private room, of course,
right of the common room with its own bathroom and three twin beds. The only
thing I have to say I was not too pleased about was the Wifi that they had
advertised all over their website. It was slow and could only manage a few
users at a time. However, I had to remind myself that I had not traveled to Italy
or Venice per say to use the Wifi.It is so weird strong of an attachment our generation has to cell phones and technology. We have grown up in a society that has been more dependent on cell phones for constant communication through email, messaging, or social media sites. I have to say that I am attached to my cell phone. In times of silence or even in a quick transition from one topic or scene I find myself checking my social media sites to see what else is happening in the world. Technology is definitely a positive improvement for society. I could not imagine myself going this five weeks without being able to communicate with my family and friends back home. Through my cell phone and computer, I have been able to share my experience with them and they have been able to keep me updated with what is going on back home. However, there comes a time that technology becomes a road block in this experience. I know that if I was able to constantly use my cell phone, I would not be able to take in all the site around me. It’s hard to believe I would ever admit to this, but with my cell phone lost somewhere in my pocketbook, I find my attention focused solely on the world around me with no distractions.
After we washed up and got ready for dinner, we made
our way to the bus stop to take a bus into Venice. Our initial plan was to eat
at a Mexican restaurant, but because we were running late we decided to all
meet at a restaurant on the water. The restaurant was right on the main
waterway in Venice and gave us a gorgous view of the city. Once we had
finished, we made our way down the street into some of the shops. We found
ourselves surrounded by a large amount a blown glass. It seemed as if every
store had different versions of the same piece. Before departing for the night,
we stopped in a small café to feed our addiction to Wifi. I had only made it
through one message, when the employees had figured out our disguise and cut
off the Wifi.
Back at our hotel, we decided to pull out our handy
dandy Piccells and call our family and boyfriends!
Tuesday morning we woke up bright and early and
headed back to Venice. Once we arrived, we stopped at a café for a quick
breakfast of croissant and water. We then made our way to the main tourist
attraction in Venice, a gondola ride!
Along the ride, we were able to see many
different side streets, houses, churches. It was such a beautiful view of
Venice. It felt as if we were spectators admiring a moving painting. The ride
also exposed me to the flooding and decaying of Venice. There were many houses
whose first floors were flooded and seemed to be decaying away because of the
constant exposure to water.
It cannot be denied that the city is absolutely
beautiful, but it made me wonder how and why a city was built on the water. I want
to think that Venice was built around the water, not built and then exposed to
water by some natural force. Either way, I am mystified on why the city was
built the way it was. The flooding and decay of housing could not have been a
new phenomena, but on that has happened over many periods of time. If this is
true, then why hasn’t there been some type of improvement or method of slowing
down the process. It cannot be easy to restore the houses that seem to be
centuries old. However, I would like to think that the is an upmost of
importance on the restoration of the damaged houses rather than a lack of
concern. I was also bombarded with the thought of how the town was built. I am
not exactly able to conceptualize how to build a city on water, especially a
city this ancient. I would imagine the city was built on some type of slits,
such as our beach houses are built along the coast to withstand high water. But
even so, I was not able to see any evidence of this. Instead, I was only able
to see concrete or block layers seemed to go beneath the water’s surface. After our gondola, we made our way into the city streets to do some monetary damage. As we walked the down the streets poking our heads into many shops, we realized that we needed to go see another church for one of our journals. So we set out for the Basilica di San Marco. Along our hour walk to the basilica stopped in numerous shops, made a pit stop for lunch and then found ourselves right in the middle of Piazza San Marco staring ahead at the beautiful site. Once we had soaked up all the sites around and a cone of gelato, we boarded a water taxi to see more of Venice by water.
We took a short rest at Leia,
Molly, and Ashlea’s hotel before we made our way to a Mexican restaurant. I had
reserved this thought in my head that it would be more a of a Tex-Mex kind of
Mexican, but I did not want to believe it. Once we ordered, I found all my
thoughts to be true. The “white sauce” was not cheese dip at all, but some kind
of sour cream mixture that was not to my liking. In the grand scheme of things,
the food was good and a much needed break from the constant Italian food.
Back our hostel, we were able to
soak up the Wifi for a couple hours before going to sleep!
Wednesday morning we woke up bright and early to make our journey to Lake Como! We met the rest of the girls at the Venice train station! We grabbed a quick breakfast, upgraded our tickets, and boarded our train to Milano. After a few stagnant minutes we boarded another train to Varenna. Once we were in Varenna we walked down to the water way to ride the ferry to Menaggio on Lake Como. Even through the fog, the scenery was absolutely breath taking. All around us were these large mountains with small towns staggered across their bases reaching the water’s edge. After we crossed the lake we made our way to our run down, scary looking hostel. I am not exaggerating when I say this place was a mess. Our rooms were not ready yet, so we stored our things and made our getaway.
We managed to put on our bathing suits and head to what we were told to be a “private beach.” However, it was nothing of the sort. The beach we found was about 30 ft rock beach which was nothing that we were used to. We only sat laid on the beach for about twenty minutes before we decided we needed to make an adventure out of the trip. An hour later we found ourselves ten euros poorer and the key to a motor boat for an hour. Hiding the fact that we were a little scared about the adventure we had just chosen for ourselves, we made our way away from the dock. We all took turns driving around the lake until we found a good spot to lay out. The hour seemed to fly by as we enjoyed our time on the lake. After we had safely returned the boat, we made our way into the town to look at the shops and eat dinner.
When we got back to our hostel, we
made took our bags to our room where we found are room covered by ants. Yes,
ants. It was absolutely disgusting. I wanted nothing more than to pick my
things and walk to the next hotel. I was extremely grossed out and utterly
worried about what else we wouldn’t see. We went downstairs and complained
about our room and the lady thought that she was going to make a dent in the
ants with a spray bottle of ant repellant. After changing rooms and convincing
the other three girls to stay in our room with us. Since it was just for one
night we decided that we could all just stick it out together and try our best
to laugh about it.
Thursday morning rolled in just as fast as we wanted it. We woke up bright and early in order to make a pit stop in Florence. It hadn’t really crossed our minds that we would be carrying around our backpacks in Florence. So Mom, that hiking backpack was actually used. Even though our time in Florence was short, we were able to get everything done. We made it back to Sansepolcro just before five to get ready for the long week of classes ahead.
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