As you can see, I'm in Venice. I know I say this all the time, but its a lovely city, but the loveliness is in a run'down kinda way. And I wont lie, it does smell and the water in some places is a kinda putrid green colour. I'm cutting down on shopping, but this place is so expensive that I calculated that on my first full day here, I accumulated 100 euro in incidental expenses - transport, food, water, etc. WHAT A RIP-OFF!!!
This city is tiny, but the vaporettos - water buses, although unneccessary, are fun to use because their platforms float on the lagoon so you bob all the time...and they make weird grinding noises when the boat gets to the platform - not reassuring.
Anyway, net is a rip-off here as well, hence the short msg. I'll see you soon. I'm returning on the 10th of January. Catch you then!
venice/florence 3/1
Merry Belated Christmas and Happy New Year to you all. I spent NYE/D in Venice. There were supposed to be fireworks on the Grand Canal, but they got cancelled because of the Tsunami tragedy, and fair enough I say. However, I think we all know that if people really want to party, cancelling fireworks isnt going to stop them and fireworks are freely availably in Italy. Sure enough, I went to St Marco/ St Mark's Square around 11pm and there was an....impromptu...fireworks show. Basically it consisted of people standing in a crowd with a little clearing in the centre while others other ppl, madmen if you like, piffing fireworks into the empty space. And this space was not very large and there were some pretty impressive fireworks, one that flew into the sky and everything. Watching this was absolutely hilarious. We were only a few metres away from them and because the shapes were irregular, you werent aware of some of them until they exploded behind you. The pigeons of St Marks went absolutely nuts. Me and Sophie stayed in the St Marks until midnight and sang along with some drunk Italians (very funny and highly recommended), until a firework flew into the crowd and we decided to run for our lives.
After that, we kinda wandered around Venice for a few hours before we ended up on the other side of the lagoon and decided to take the vaporetto back to the Rialto where I was going to walk home and Sophie was going to take another one to her place. About an hour after I went home, Sophie called to say she was in St Marco because the while an attendant told her the vaporetto she caught went to St Elena (where she was staying), it actually didnt which meant she sat on the boat for 45 minutes only to end up again in Rialto....where she was then told there was no night vaporetto to St. Elena. The next morning, there was a news segment about the celebrations, and it looked like a bomb went off in the square - lots of pics of burnt areas and broken glass everywhere, but by the time i crawled out of my room, it had been cleared up.
Anyway, I'm now in Florence after the train ride from HELL. I had to change at Bologna which is 2 hours away from Venice, and 1 hour away from Florence. Except, the train was mega late (20 minutes), and it seems the people at the train station kept selling tickets for it...so much so that by the time the train arrived it was standing room only. They also had signs up saying the train was supposed to go to Naples, meaning that by the time I managed to figure out that yes, it was supposed to go to Florence, I was stuck in that little alcove you get when you enter a train. The train was also delayed on the track, so the ride actually took 1.5 hours. Thats not so bad in itself, but being crammed up against lots of other people wearing my huge 10kg backpack because there's no way i can take it off was a huge problem. And because the train was late and delayed, I was 1 hour late and unable to check into my hotel. When I called the manager, she said she couldnt have anyone stay there until i arrived because today (2/1) is a *half holiday*, but that someone will be there at 11pm. To give you guys some time perspective, it is now 4:20 pm.
Well, thats enough venting for now. I did find another hotel across the street, but i'm still going to see if i can change into my proper one at 11pm. Or at least try to weasel my way out of the cancellation fee.
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