Day 4:    It was 7:38 am when Eduardo and I woke up. We were supposed to meet at 6:45 in order to catch the train to Venice. We woke up crazy and in a rush to get ready…then we realized we were almost an hour late, and at this point had probably already missed our train to Venice. We had given up all hope and decided we might as well go back to bed. Literally as I pulled the covers over my legs Eduardo got a text message and screamed out “GET READY! THE TRAIN LEAVES AT 8:05!” I jumped out of bed, threw my shoes on, slapped on some deodorant, brushed my teeth and then we bolted out of the room. We had about 20 minutes to get the station and find our group before we missed the bus, so we did a full sprint all the way to station. Once we got there we had to figure out how the train station worked and we asked around for help and directions until we finally stumbled into our group just in time. Not more then 5 minutes later we started to board the train and we finally made our way to Venice after an exciting morning.

Once our train reached Venice it was crazy. I expected to see streets and cars like the outside of the Milan station, but all of the ideas I had of Venice were completely wrong. I always knew that Venice had canals, but i thought they were just used as a tourist attraction, you know a few here and there throughout the city, but i was wrong. The whole city relied on boats and canals as the only means of transportation. Not a single car anywhere.After reaching the main canal and taking our boat taxi to the church we all broke off and were free to explore the city for several hours until it was time to meet again for a group lunch. We broke off again with our usual crew and set off to wander the alleys of Venice. It was crazy seeing how much tourism there was, the small streets were so crowded that they even made the busy streets of New York City look dead. Throughout the day I kept forgetting that there were no streets or cars in Venice, and it really never sank in until we saw a delivery boat on the canal. It was a boat with groceries and they had to literally hand truck everything into the store. This of course adds to the price of just about everything in Venice. It takes a lot of work and time to get anything into the city, and I’m sure this also creates a very cost of living for the locals. We decided to stop at the grocery store and we bought some fresh fruits to snack on. The fruit looked delicious and the hot day made the conditions perfect for some watermelon! 

After enjoying our fruit we wandered the streets some more. We actually just began to walk in whatever direction seemed right. It was sort of difficult to find landmarks in Venice since you’re always walking in between buildings that look identical, so for a minute we had no idea where we were going. It was all a good time and by the end of the day we had adopted a new saying, “We’re not lost. Just Disoriented.” Fortunately being disoriented worked out really well for us and we were able to find a lot of cool local spots that weren’t flooded by tourists. We even found our own personal dock that we began to take pictures at for like an hour. 

After our photo session concluded we then set back out to meet with the group and have our group dinner. We went to a small restaurant that was off the main grid and this allowed us to have a peaceful dinner away from the crowds. They offered two separate options, a seafood option and then a regular beef. I’m no fan of seafood by any means, and  I actually don’t really like it, but I decided that I couldn’t go to Venice and not try the seafood. So i order the seafood options which consisted of bowtie pasta with Swordfish and then a main course of salmon. Both were great and I’m very glad that i tried them both, I would definitely order both dishes again! After dinner we made our way back to the train, and we were back on our way to Milan and got ready to head out to Florence and Pisa tomorrow!