January 1-2, 2016

We landed in Venice after a short flight.  Having not been required to go through any sort of immigrations of customs in Barcelona and Venice our day of travel has been a simple one.  It was, however, very hard to say goodbye to my parents.  It was so nice seeing them and traveling around Andalusia with them for the last 2 weeks.

We struggled with how to get to our hostel in Venice.  It’s not on the island and all routes seemed to require a bus transfer on the island.  I would have preferred to drop off my bags before venturing into the city but seeing as we had to stop off on the island anyways I decided to explore.  The bus fair was 8 euros each but we just walked on without a ticket.  I’m sure I should feel more ashamed about freeloading on Italy’s honor backed public bus system.

After walking around for 45 minutes or so we head back to the bus station and freeload on another bus.  We are not sure which stop to get off at and just guess and exit the bus after 12-15 minutes after leaving.  My GPS finally picked up a signal shortly after getting off the bus and I learned we were just 2km away from our mobile home—the place where we would be sleeping for the next two nights.

On the walk home I bought peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce.  I ended up making myself a salad inside a plastic bag in our room.  I also added a can of tuna that I was holding onto since Patagonia.  We sat and relaxed while watching John Oliver.  We ended up going to the restaurant at our hostel/mobile home and bought a cheese pizza for 5.50 euros + a Twix bar.  We fell asleep watching the movie “The Martian”.

The next morning we slept in and caught a 10:00 shuttle bus into the city.  We plan on spending the entire day in Venice, returning to our hostel on the 7:30 shuttle.  5 euros each for the shuttle is not too bad.

It rained the entire day in Venice.  We were planning on staying until 7:30, but ended up coming back to our hostel at 4:30 because we couldn’t tolerate the cold rain any more.  We enjoyed walking the winding streets of Venice for hours.  We had pizza, café, and various pastries throughout the day.  I jumped at the opportunity to buy a very large piece of dark chocolate.

We walked by a few churches, San Marco Piazza, and some other notable places.  I did find the city unique with the numerous canals running through its entirety.  However I was a bit disappointed by Venice.  I was expecting a romantic Italian city.  Instead I got a generic overly touristy city.  It was a rainy winter day and it was still touristy.  Walking through the city and seeing an H&M right next to a packed Disney store killed any sort authenticity. 

I found the prices here to be reasonable, compared to the East Coast.  Pizza by the slice was anywhere between 1.5 euro and 4 euro (depending on the location).  We’ll eat again at our hostel.  Since we’re so hungry and it’s only a little after 5, we’ll probably eat an early dinner.  I really have enjoyed the Argentinian style of late dinners.  Eating after 9pm really seams to fit my lifestyle well!

The next morning we checked out of our mobile home and walked a mile down a stretch of highway to a shopping mall.  We were meeting our rideshare at 1 and had a few hours to kill.  We picked up some food supplies at a grocery store and got some coffee in the mall.  We’re going to be using blablacar for the first time.  We will be hitchhiking a ride to Austria (just outside of Salzburg) from a man, his wife, and their young child.  From the guys email signature I believe he is a professional clown and will be picking us up in a VW van.  If only it was a beetle!  We’re paying ~70 euros for the ride whereas a bus would have cost nearly double…and taken a few hours longer.