One year later ~ daddy-daughter adventures abroad! (cont.) ~ Day 6 ~ ONCE UPON A TIME IN VENICE... :)

DAY 6

Monday 17^th July 2017

Venice

Woke up early—after a very short night. Probably didn’t sleep until after 2 and then maybe you could call that fitful state of tossing and turning sleep…

Eyes still hurt from the tired and tears…

Dad said we could go to the train station and try to change our reservation till a later time so that we could check out the lost and found address at 830.

So we showered and got ready and set across the street to do so. Not a problem to switch. 945 now. So we had some time.

Back across the street to the hotel (good thing we were so close…and hadn’t picked the hotel that was like a mile away…)

Continental breakfast there. Would have been good but I had worked myself into a royal stomach ache. Nausea. No appetite. And the tears still pressed…

Conversations again to try to work through and get over it and dad trying to help me…

At 830 we went to the front desk and asked the lady to call for us. She did, but no answer. Said maybe we could try again at 9 before we leave. She didn’t seem too optimistic about the chance, but was nice enough to help.

We went back to the room and dawdled…scrolled facebook mindlessly…maybe we talked…

Then finalized all of our stuff and headed down to check out and try again. She got through this time, but they said they only get lost items once a week and to try again later this week or next. So… no miracle… still trying to trust ola tha pane kala… all will go well…

Left the hotel and crossed the street one last time.

Who took a bite out of the big silver apple??? Whoever it was tried to sew it back on… that’s what it looks like.

Aribiderci, Milan—it’s been… Well, I’m sorry it wasn’t better…

~

Talked to Spyros before we left on the train and then we had to hustle to the train… last minute indecision/panic when I saw a train heading to Ventimiglia… but it wasn’t the same, and even if it had been, we didn’t have the time to check…

Still too close to the loss to see clearly, to see past the pain. I think what makes it worse is that I know exactly where it would be. It’s not like I can’t remember the last place I had it and don’t know where even to look. I know! I can retrace every step to where and when I lost it and I can see it so clearly. But I have no way to retrace those steps or wind back the clock and get it back. I can scream at my past self all I want to double check and not forget it, but…

But, alas…

There’s pain in the loss, there’s pain in the mistake, there’s pain in knowing where it is, but having no way to get there. Like I can see it across this wide divide, maybe there’s a river gushing between us and we’re standing on the cliff. But I can’t go get it. And now it’s time to head in the other direction, too…

~

loipon.

I still feel bad about the loss time. And the lost chance to see Milan. Dad’s still trying to figure out how to help me. Wants me to decide to salvage what we have left of the day and the week and not keep beating myself, not let this ruin my joy…

I don’t remember what or how but somehow I must have decided to turn it around.

Oh, that’s right. Now I remember. I wrote. I wrote through it. I tried to intentionally lay it out and put it down and in so doing let it go.

That’s in a separate document…

I think it helped.

Because we were able to have a good day in Venice…

~

It was about a 2 hour ride to Venice and we were in business class which is quite the luxury compared to what we are used to (and we would remember exactly how much when we switched to the crowded, second class, warm, cramped other trains…

Loipon.

We crossed the water and then were in Venice…

Disembarking the train, we found the Trenitalia office and made our reservations to leave early the next day. On the train we had officially decided to skip Florence to make for more time in Cinque Terre and then I worked out the details of how to get there and how we would pass the next days.

Then, time to board the water taxi. As we were standing outside the vaporetto station nearest the train station amidst a crazy swarm of people, trying to decipher which ticket to buy… a man with a family of four asked us if we needed tickets and then gave us two saying they were good till 7 that night.

We accepted with some hesitation or maybe just shock/confusion. But it’s exactly what we would have done and I think have done in similar circumstances in the past. Tried to help out someone else, especially if we no longer needed. Like an extra coupon passed along in line…

We used the tickets, and then stood the next half hour or so in a crowd of people waiting to board the next one. Maybe we should have walked we thought.

But then as soon as we were on, we realized this was a good option.

We got to see our first glimpses of the magic that is Venice—built on water, gandolas, old colorful houses with porches. A bit dirty, a bit falling apart in places. But still. It’s just… neat.

We got off at our stop near the famed and beautiful (and crowded) Rialto bridge.

Then using our instinct and directions and google maps, we found our hotel on the other side of the river and checked in.

~

Guerarto Pensione.

A neat place. Lots of character. But then, that’s got to happen when you put a hotel in a building that is 800+ years old! The people were nice. Only downfall: No wifi. Loipon.

We rested a bit, then set out to find the recommended restaurant from the receptionist. Which was nearby. I was a little hesitant. Afraid I think because I didn’t want to even make a mistake of not eating at the best possible place while we were there. But dad was convinced and even offered to pay for all of it. And I pulled out my rick steves’ book just to double check if maybe we shouldn’t go somewhere else and when I did the waiter said he could give us free prosecco because of it. So we sat. And there was no going back.

But it was okay. We looked and found it was in the book after all. Dad had spaghetti and sauce and I had lasagna at the waiter’s rec and it was all good.

Nice to sit outside. People watch (there appear to be so many spoiled children out on vacation… Maybe I’m misjudging the situation… I mean, if I had the chance wouldn’t I want to take my kids on trips like this??)

After lunch we were full and just wandered around the narrow streets. No real direction or plan…

Stumbled across a nice, beautiful handmade art store.. Postcards there… the artist was very nice… But I forgot to take the bag she offered and so walked around the rest of the day holding the cards so they wouldn’t bend. Loipon.

Eventually we made it to a park and sat for a while. We were tired. Then decided to just get on a vaporetto and see the island before our passes expired.

And so that’s what we did although it took us a while to be able to get on one. They kept emptying off at our stop. Eventually we did though and it was worth the wait because we got front seat views and a nice long ride around. Saw some big cruise ships…

We got off around St. Mark’s… I laid on the dock because I was feeling nauseous.

Again, there’s something about laying down. When you’re tired enough, even the hard dirty concrete amidst hundreds of tourists next to dirty water and pigeons is preferable J

*** 

"Well, I think still parts of our Venetian Monday remain to be written (on my computer)"

...

Except, oops! I never did go back and write about the rest of our day in Venice... 

If I remember correctly (and it's hard to remember one year later!), I think we walked around. Then walked some more. And finished the day with some more walking before walking back to our hotel for the night... 

But really, that's about it. We stopped somewhere and ordered sodas to quench our thirst (even though we know that's not how it works) ~ but primarily so we could mooch off the cafe's wifi and contact loved ones. The wifi was out at the hotel, so we knew we wouldn't be able to reach them later. 

We set out then in search of bandaids (My dad had a wicked blister on his foot from all this walking...). We found the bright green plus sign that let us know a pharmacy was within, then scoured the shelves looking for a bandaid. We found one. And then we found a spot half under a bridge so he could put the bandaid on...

Then we made a long walk, to try to scout out what the walk would be to get around and across the canal back to our train station early the next morning. To try and avoid paying 15 bucks for a 7 minute ride...

It was a long walk without backpacks... oy vey.

But it gave us a lovely view of the setting sun over the canal (the last photo above^).

We weren't hungry. So we just had gelato to round out the night (although I remember walking by the place we were looking for while walking around and around in circles with our Rick Steve's book, trying to find the recommended spot, and not realizing it was actually on that corner. 

And then we made it back to the hotel room. Organized and settled in for the night.

And realized that I didn't have any space left on my computer to store the 16 gigs of videos and pics taken over these last days! Ahhhhh! Commence a just-shy-of-panic scramble to figure out how to save the memories and make room for more, while not losing too much data on my computer. 

Note to self, pack a flash drive next time...

***

(OK. So a lot more came back a year later than I thought. But imagine if I hadn't written these blog posts a year ago, as they were happening. My dad said tonight, he hardly remembers where we went! 

Grateful to have taken the time and words to write these lines that will grasp onto the memories made on our adventure, and ground them here, to help us keep connected... :)

Winged words, right? :)