Venice day one.

Venice day one.

Waking up at four thirty in the morning is never a pleasant feeling, opening my eyes to the same level of darkness that I feel asleep to the night before my body was doing everything to fight me as I did what I could to open my eyes.

My alarm buzzing my hand flew over to my nightstand to shut it off, my eyes never fully opening. I had to get up, the cab to the coach way would be here at 5:45, I had to get up. Five more minutes, that’s all I need, just five more minutes and then I will get out of bed, that was all that was running through my head. Right as my eyes were beginning to close again and the tight grip I had on my phone started to lessen I heard a light knock on my door followed by the load creak of the door opening. Through my half opened eyes I saw who could only be Cassie, which was confirmed by a short, “Sarah. Are you up?” With a grunted conformation I replied and then the door quickly closed and I rolled over to a sitting position, reaching for my bedside light to flip on.

Pulling out my computer I logged into my email and my bank account. Two days prior Cassie invited my on her trip with her friend from home, Dalton, on their trip to Venice, Italy. Now ever since I was little Venice has been my favourite place in the world, so despite the fact that the ticket was 172 pounds, not including the coach ticket to the airport or the hostel I agreed and immediately booked my ticket. Since I was traveling to a different country I had to get online and notify my back where I was going so that when they saw a transaction pull up in Italy they wouldn’t shut off my card due to the fact that it could be stolen. The night before I got on to fill out the online form but for some reason it wouldn’t accept it. My panic started to rise. I also tried to print out my tickets for the coach to the airport, they were nowhere to be found on any of my email accounts. Full blown panic would have ensued if I wasn’t able to print out my boarding pass for the plane. So when I woke up the next morning and I was greeted with the same response from my bank and no emails from the coach company I feel it was an under reaction when I went into Cassie’s room crying. Reassuring me she told me that I would just have to buy another ticket from the driver and then if I couldn’t get things worked out with my bank she would spot me money and I would just convert it and pay her back in pounds when we got back to England. There was no way I wasn’t going to go after I paid 172 pounds for a plane ticket.

The coach departed for the station at 6:30 and brought to London Stansted airport and 10:15 for our 12:40 flight. We checked our one bag and made our way through security.

Now the day before, because the news and everyone we talked to said the Venice was flooded up to our ankles, Cassie and I went to Primark to buy rain boots. When we got there we had four styles to choose from. The first were these hot pink ankle rain boots with a black bow, the second were covered with the union jack which were intertwined with regal crowns and hearts, the third were almost knew high cheetah print, and the fourth were mid calf, sparkly, cheetah print. Looking and the almost sickening selection Cassie and I just burst out laughing. We had no desire to buy any of them, much less be seen in them, but what could we do? Venice was flooded, rain boots were an essential. Picking the lesser of the evils we each ended up getting the almost knee height, plain, cheetah print boots which inspired another fit of laughter when we realized we were going to be walking around Venice in matching cheetah print rain boots.

Getting off the plane at Venice Trevisio we quickly hopped on a bus that would take up to the Plazza Roma, which was across the water from Venice. One the bus the three of us realized that we had no idea what time it was. We knew there was a time change, that it was later in Italy than it was in England, but none of us knew if it was one hour or two hours ahead. 

One the coach was the time, which told us that it was two hours later in Italy than it was in England. All right, that settled that and I promptly changed the clock on my phone while Cassie left hers to read England time.

 Arriving in Venice was beautiful, it justified yet again why it if my favourite place in the world. The canals, the colourful buildings built so daringly on the water, I was in heaven just standing there, dwarfed by the city’s beauty and magic.

Not to clear on where our hostel was we bought a map and made our way to Saint Mark’s Square or San Marco as they say in Italian. The reason we began to make our way there was because we were so excited about where we were that we just started walking and once we got into the labyrinth that is Venice we couldn’t even begin to find our selves on the map. Following the signs on the buildings pointing to San Marco we made our way through the city. Stopping to peer in shops and to grab a gelato weaving in and out of ally ways we eventually made it to San Marco. Orienting ourselves on the map we were finally able to make our way to the hostel.

Checking in and setting our stuff down I opened up my computer and encountered a problem. It’s world app said that Italy was only one hour ahead of England but the time on the bus said it was two hours ahead. Now not knowing what time it was we decided that when we went to diner we would just ask the waiter what time it was.

Hungry and slightly groggy after a two-hour nap we just walked into the first place we saw. This restaurant by one of the canals we checked out the menu, reasonable prices, and decided to walk in and sit down. Our waitress was this young Italian woman and I don’t think I have ever met anyone so unpleasant in my entire life. I mean she was down right rude, I don’t think she said more than five words to use our entire meal. To top it all off the food was sub par and the wine we ordered tasted more like watery grape juice. It wasn’t the best first meal in Italy, however, not discouraged we walked back to our room excited for the adventures of the next day.