With nine hours to fill, we wandered around a lot. Venice is beautiful and I could stay there for weeks without getting bored of the scenery or the weather, which luckily was fairly nice if overcast/foggy for a lot of our trip. But by this point in our trip Gooligan and I were frankly done with museum-going and cathedral-visiting and when both of those items are off the table, sometimes cities seem a lot emptier. Or it just feels like you go from one place to another eating.
I guess that's one thing we learned while on our trip; friends and family, even a job (although hopefully one you actually like), and hobbies really enrich your life. Sometimes I daydream about going home and just being with everyone. I know, I know. Other people daydream about being in Venice, but let me tell you: I really love Seattle and all my people (and my dog) there.
We ate lunch at this disappointing restaurant, then sat at the hipster café from a few days ago for hours. I wasn't just wasting time, though! I was hard at work on my homework. I have a story due soon for workshop that I had to finish, plus I had to play catch-up on this blog.
After the café, we walked around a lot and then headed to Alfredo's for one last pound-of-pasta-in-a-box meal. Gooligan and I couldn't decide what flavors to get, so we each got our own. Alfredo recognized us and joked with us, which was really nice after a month of new faces.
As we headed back to the train station, it began to rain. Just a little at first and then, suddenly, the sky split open and it started to pour. We were soaked immediately. Luckily we were so close to the station that a mad dash later and we were safe!
After collecting our bags, we sat under a covered part of the train station and listened to the rain. The rainstorm quickly progressed to a full-blown thunderstorm, complete with lightning! In a way, it felt like Venice was ushering these Seattleites home.
The train arrived at eight and we boarded it. There were six of us in each compartment. After we made our bunks (with provided blankets and pillows!) we settled in for the long night. It wasn't the best sleep ever, but at least both Gooligan and I are short enough that we could stretch our legs out the full length, which was a plus.
The people in our compartment were really nice. There was an older couple from Argentina with whom Gooligan practiced her Spanish. There was also a guy around our age who was studying abroad in Spanish who was from Paris. We talked about our travels and studies. It was a great experience to have such a multilingual conversation, since the couple only spoke a little English, so there was a lot of helping each other trying to explain certain concepts.
A very nice end to Venice!
0 comments:
Post a Comment