A Venetian Adventure

My prayers were answered; I made friends! Last week while I was waiting, no surprise there, at the International Office my ears perked as I heard the sweet melodious sound of American English. The voice was Jourdan, from New Orleans, who is my permanent travel buddy. Not long after she left I made two more friends from France and Slovakia, and later two more from Italy and Germany. How did this happen? I am no longer a lone wolf; my wolf pack of one grew by five (credit goes to The Hangover)!

Sunday a great opportunity arose; take the train to Venice on Monday for the day to pick up a document Jourdan needed for her Visa. Class or Venice? You can imagine how long that decision took. Monday morning our adventure began on the 8:18 am train to St. Lucia Station in Venice.

We arrived to blue skies and a quite cool breeze. We hopped on a vaporetto, the water buses, and cruised down the Grand Canal towards St. Mark’s square. We stopped and picked up Jourdan’s letter, and the rest of the day was ours to explore all Venice has to offer. We wound through alleys, people watched, pigeon watched, shopped and stopped for the most amazing lunch at Al Covo. This was one of the best meals I have ever eaten; next time you come to Venice call me for directions. After lunch we were off to Murano, the island of glass. This sleepy little island is where some of the world’s most beautiful hand blown glass comes from. Everywhere you look there are brightly colored chandeliers, bowls, sculptures you name it. I’m still awestruck by the works of art that come off this tiny island. As night fell we headed back to the main island to catch a glimpse of the Rialto Bridge before heading to the train station.

Little did I know the end of our trip was just the beginning of our adventure. We got to the station at 7:30, thinking that trains go back to Trieste about twice an hour. We bought our tickets and grabbed some dinner to take on the train that we thought was about to arrive, only to realize we had been reading the “arrivals” not the “departures” side of the timetable. We had missed every train back to Trieste except the last one for the night, three hours later. What do you do in a train station for three hours? Here are a few ideas: Buy drinks and try to make friends with the bartenders, however, this is much easier when you know more that 50 words in their language. Go to the waiting room with all the homeless people until you can’t stand the smell and the awkward looks, you are bound to hear some interesting conversations. Or you can take pictures of all of your feelings; this entertained us for quite sometime.

Finally our train came, we got home about 2am dead on our feet, but I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. Life is meant to be interesting, not necessarily smooth. Do something spontaneous; it could lead to a great story. Eat delicious food, you can work out tomorrow. Laugh when life gets hard, it will always get better. Explore the smallest of streets; you never know what you might find. Miss your train another one will always come. Most importantly, delight in the relationships and experiences along the way they make life worth living.

The sun sets differently over Venice.

View from the Rialto Bridge.