Venezia

Today was our last day in Switzerland and this morning we took a train down to Italy. After Tesfa left for work, Fati was kind enough to show us the bus to the train station before she went to the library to study. Since we had to wait some time for the next train we decided to catch a meal at the cafe just inside the train station. It was our longest train ride, so far, with a brief stop in Milan to switch trains on the way to Venice. I do have to say that this ride through the Swiss countryside and the mountains that boarder on Italy are some of the most picturesque we've seen. The stop in Milan was uneventful. We took a walk outside the train station and it was just blah. So much for the fashion capital of the world.

Almost seven hours. By the time we arrived in Venice it was already early evening and we needed to find a place to stay. The first hotel on our list was booked but the front desk attendant found another hotel for us conveniently close to the train station. We had been getting hungry on the ride and all David could say was pizza and gelato. The cobblestone streets seemed to be out of a Disneyland theme park. Everything was perfect and life size and it felt weird thinking that people live and work here. We found a pizza place that would take credit cards, surprisingly a lot of them didn't, bought a few slices and some water and found a place to sit. What a nice end to a long travel day but it wasn't over. Tonight we were to start looking for David's wife who was supposedly living in Venice. We looks fairly hard but found quite a few Americans running around acting like... Americans. "Can you make it half and half?" we heard a girl say with a SoCal accent and attitude to a gelato attendant. I couldn't forget that and I would repeat it whenever we would see any sorority girls ordering in restaurants or haggling to souvenir cart owners.


It started to get dark and by 9:30 the sun was setting. We bumped into an older couple who were trying to find their way back to their hotel. They had found a bar where glasses of wine were only one Euro (approximately $1.50) and the wife definitely had a few. She was very talkative and we couldn't decide if the husband was annoyed by her talking to us or if he just wanted to get to their room to take advantage of her in that state. We eventually found Piazza San Marco and the way the narrow pathway opened up into the square was magical. There were three small orchestras filling the open air with classical music and people milling around, some dancing others trying to avoid the water that seemed to be creeping up from somewhere. I tried to take some photos but they all turned out dark. Jess, David and I got some gelato and had to say to ourselves, "We're eating gelato, in Venice, in St. Mark's Square." It felt really special. David called his mom to tell her we were having a good time.


The walk back to our hotel was cool even if we got lost a few times and I almost walked into a canal. The city at night was just as spectacular as during the day. We have a full day tomorrow to go exploring. We'll have more Italian food, probably more gelato, try to find the Piazza San Marco again, maybe ride a gondola and just spend time people watching. I can't wait.