Thursday + {Day Thirty-One: Venice}

Today we took a day trip to the island of Murano which is known for its beautiful glass. We took a vaporetto to the island and walked around. It was a beautiful sunny day. It is coming to the end of the very nice weather here, so we definitely lucked out.

Gooligan told me a few days ago that I had to get a souvenir. I hadn't been planning on it, but I'm glad she insisted and also that we waited until Murano to buy one.

I got this beautiful blue glass dish with a tree on it. Buying art or knickknacks can be difficult when we're in transition because I have no idea what my future home will look like but that's just part of this stage of life.

Gooligan got her niece and another girl she knows these adorable glass heart necklaces. Then we stopped for lunch at another amazing seafood restaurant.

After lunch we got back on the vaporetto intending to go to another island but we accidentally got off on Venice. We wandered through the streets a little in search of gelato but what we found was even better!

Acqua Alta is this amazing bookstore where the books are stored in a gondola and bathtubs! The owner was so nice and told us to go in the back of the store and see the staircase made out books and also the "fire exit" which was just a door that opened onto the canal. Haha!

We picked out all these postcards from a box out front and then took them over to a small cafe where we drank some cappuccinos and tried some cicheti (tapas or appetizer like snacks) while we worked on filling out our postcards and uploading our photos.

The cafe filled up pretty (an early batch of happy hour seekers) and then emptied almost as quickly. After we were finished with our postcards, we walked over to Alfredo's (the pound of pasta in a box restaurant) to pick up dinner.

Then we took a vaporetto back to the bus terminal, caught our bus home, didn't get lost this time, and ate our delicious pasta on the patio extension from our hosts' kitchen. Then we got in bed and watched some television and fell asleep.

Right before we went to bed, though, our host informed us that on Friday the buses are going on a strike so if we wanted to go to Venice we had to catch the limited commuter transportation (which runs until eight a.m. and then again in the late afternoon/evening). We'd already planned to take the day easy, though, and explore our local area--Mestre--so this actually justified our decision.

Tuesday + {Day Twenty-Nine: Venice}

Miss your flight once and I swear to God, you'll be paranoid about missing your connections for the rest of your life. After a very restless night of sleep, I woke up at seven when my alarm went off to finish gathering our odds and ends up into our backpacks. I pried Gooligan out of bed around seven-thirty.

We left our house at eight, caught the bus to the train station, and then had a little breakfast while we waited for our train to be assigned a platform.

I fell asleep a lot on the train. It felt like every time I nodded off, someone--usually the ticket-checker--would come by and make a lot of noise and wake me up. But I caught a few zzzs by the time we made it to Venice.

Our first sight of the city was a watery one: the train goes over a bridge between the mainland and the island! After we arrived, Gooligan and I located the bag drop and checked in my backpack (all our clean clothes and toiletries, essentially). Our plan was to find a laundry where we could get our dirties washed while we explored some of the city.

Unfortunately, when we arrived at the shop, it was closed. At least we think we found the shop. It's tough to tell sometimes because if a business has a metal sheet over it, and it doesn't have any signage anywhere else), you can't tell what the business is or what its hours are.

Since the laundry was closed, we had to lug our dirty clothes around all day. Not exactly great, but at least we're saving seven or so euro by not checking it, I guess.

For lunch we stopped at this amazing pasta place called Alfredo's. They're a rather unique pasta restaurant in Italy, since it was a hole-in-the-wall place where they only have about eight dishes and they serve them in Chinese take-out boxes. Each portion is a pound. The food was really great. They use all fresh ingredients and the cook inquired how we liked the food and talked to the four of us who were sitting at the minimal indoor seats. The other two were from Colorado and California. The shop also played popular American music which is a nice slice of home when you're almost a month removed from American radio.

After lunch, we sat in San Marco square for awhile. Both Gooligan and I really want to see Doge's Palace, but we decided to wait and do it another day when we're not weighed down by all our bags.

We basically spent all afternoon wandering around the city and window shopping. We took a small break at a hipster cafe with wifi. Gooligan listened to Harry Potter on the couch while I caught up on some homework and my blogging.

After the cafe, we headed to our new place, stopping to pick up a couple of slices of pizza for dinner. The buses here do not have any announcements for what stop they are stopping at, and since it was dark by the time we made our way to our new place, we got utterly lost. Gooligan asked someone for directions, and he helped us the best he could, but he only spoke Italian, so we had to figure it out. Gooligan was brave enough to ask like five different people along the way, all of whom were very nice and helpful despite only speaking Italian. During part of our journey we had to walk through this poorly lit park. Slightly terrifying! But everyone we saw seemed to be nice--couples out for jogs or old men or ladies walking their dogs.

We eventually found our new place and our hosts are very nice. The bed is comfortable and I took a nice hot shower, which was great. At the last place we stayed at, this bug got inside at night and bit Gooligan and me each about twenty times, so we're kind of itchy, but at least we're clean and ready for bed!

Tomorrow is Gooligan's big day! If you haven't yet, you should send her some huge birthday wishes. It's exciting to be in such an amazing place for a celebration, but it is bittersweet to be removed from all your friends and family.

Sunday + {Day Twenty: Monterosso + Vernazza}

We slept in this morning, then swung by the focaccia place for breakfast. I had a delightful cheese + tomato + mushroom slice plus freshly squeezed orange juice. Then Gooligan and I split off from the rest of the group because both of us wanted to hike to the next village over. We paid our 6 euro per person dues for access to the National Park (which includes the trails).

The hike between Monterosso and Vernazza is about ninety minutes but it is a tough hike. Lots of it is steep uphill with these deep stone steps. But the views alone are completely worth it. Cinque Terre has some of the most beautiful scenery ever.

A lot of people on our way laughed or pointed out Gooligan’s shoes—comfortable yet sturdy leather flats—which was more than a little insulting. Considering we ran into people who were wearing flip-flops, Gooligan’s shoe choice was fairly practical. Anyway, we made it all the way to Vernazza with no accidents.

By the time we arrived, we were ravenous. We stopped off to get an incredible fresh juice drink (lemon + orange + peach), then headed to the train station. We had agreed to meet Sarah and Shannon at the train station in the next town, a difficult feat when we don’t have any cellphones. (Well, Shannon has hers, but since none of the rest of us has a phone, it doesn’t help for in-group communication.)

Anyway, it turned out that their train was delayed by a considerable amount of time. A little silly considering that the towns are about three minutes apart on the train. But luckily they arrived about ten minutes before Gooligan and I had agreed to go our separate ways from them if we couldn’t connect.

After we met up we had a delicious lunch (more pasta) and then asked our waiter for a recommendation for the best gelato in town. We followed his advice and it was delicious. It was also Sarah’s first gelato ever! I got coconut and chocolate chip.

Then we went down to the harbor in Vernazza and bought tickets for the ferry back to Monterosso (3.50 euro each). The ferry was quick—about ten minutes—and it was so cool to see the village from another perspective, since we had already seen it from ground level and up in the mountains.

We walked around Monterosso, exploring all the cute artisan gift shops, and picked up a few souvenirs. One of the best artists we talked to was a woman from California who moved to Monterosso nine years ago for study abroad. She made these amazing necklaces. Gooligan got one for her birthday (which is in ten days!). It has tiny charms on it: a spoon, a fish, a set of Libra scales, a little picture of Cinque Terre, etc. and is absolutely gorgeous. Plus the woman was so amazing and helpful and encouraged us to look at everything. (We had a bad experience in another shop where the shopkeeper was grouchy and passive aggressively drove us out, which is a lesson for anyone in retail: never judge a customer by what they look like: both Gooligan and her sister ended up buying necklaces from the really amazing woman and both Shannon and I bought prints from her.)

Then we walked back our Airbnb, stopping for about an hour to frolic in the water. The water was wonderful—fairly warm—and the beach was nice, but a little rocky. One of the waves surprised us and soaked the bottoms of my jeans. Then Gooligan and I climbed up on this huge rock before we had to get back home to change for dinner.

We wanted to go to this specific restaurant for dinner, but it was either closed or had shut down, so we went to the one next door which was fantastic. We ran into a few Americans from the south that were really great and told us the food was amazing. I ordered homemade black-and-white pasta with mussels. Probably the best food I have eaten all trip, hands down.

After dinner we headed back home sleepily and, after doing some paperwork for grad school, we went to bed for another fairly bad night of sleep.