So, fair blog readers - I have begun a new novel project.
I am working on it pretty slowly, to be honest, largely because I am usually pretty exhausted. I mean, I sleep. I sometimes conk out at 11pm. Sometimes 10:30. And yet I yawn my way through work and when I get home I would much rather just relax and hang out with my awesome roommate/best friend (whose work schedule actually aligns with mine now so I get to SEE her and it is awesome) and watch my cats play pounce-on-each-other.
And, let's be real here, when one is already tired, there's nothing like a snoozing, purring pile of kittens to make you think "all right, bedtime now."
Nevertheless, I am a couple thousand words into a project currently titled HONOR AMONG THIEVES (because I am so very clever at titles).
It is a story about Venice, magical thievery, curses, ballet, and, most importantly, best friends. It is (le gasp!) NOT a kissing book. (Sorry everybody.)
It is very strange writing this project, though. I don't quite know what it is about it - maybe I haven't done enough research, maybe it's just that I haven't started a new project from scratch in... um... a looooooooooooong time, but I feel like I've forgotten how to open a novel. I keep remembering that the audience doesn't actually know how these characters and this world work yet, and that *I* don't fully know that either.
It is strange writing characters who are so very unlike Maire. For about a year, I lived in Maire's headspace. Her view of the world was dark and angry and "I just want to punch it and make it go away." Risa and Gianna are very different. They're confident. They think, at least right now, that their world runs entirely according to their plans. They're about to find out that's not so, of course, but still. It's an interesting change. Nice, though.
Anyways. I'm going to go do some writing. Or maybe just watch my cats play pounce-on-each-other. We'll see.
Showing posts with label Venice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Venice. Show all posts
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Thoughts from Places: Venezia
Hello blog! I've missed you!! I'm sorry I've been absent; my internet in the flat has lately decided to hate me with a vengeance. It's a bit better at the moment (although not quite good enough that it'll let me put pictures into this post; apologies), so hopefully I will be able to tell you the last installment of my spring break saga, and then I have the adventures of the last two weekends in Paris and Stratford-upon-Avon! (I promise I will get back to the writing stuff soon as well.)
So. When I left off, we had arrived in Venice under less than ideal circumstances, but we had finally found our hotel and gone to sleep. We got up around 10 the next morning, as it had been too stressful of a night to do our usual "get up early-ish and seize the day!" thing. We decided that our plan was to explore Venice a bit and get our bearings, but to get back to our hotel before dark, because we had had quite enough of wandering around Venetian alleyways in the dark with no idea of where we were going. We found a cafe around the corner from our hotel and had the first of several days of cake for breakfast. The food in Italy, by the way, is outstanding.
We wandered around a bit after breakfast, without really having too strong of an idea of where it was we wanted to go. We finally did manage to find the Grand Canal and we sat on the edge and watched the boats go by for a little while. I hadn't thought of it beforehand, but Venice smells like the ocean, and sitting there in the sun watching the gondolas and vaporetti, and the wake of the boats splashing up against the edge of the canals, really felt like a proper vacation. Once we'd gotten there, our time in Venice was very relaxed and pleasant - I'd love to go back someday.
After watching the boats for a while, we followed the signs on the sides of various buildings towards the Rialto bridge, and then from there we made our way to the Piazza San Marco. The square is beautiful, and while it is full of pigeons we did not have any of them clambering over us this time (always nice). It also has the famous Venetian winged lions - much more fun than pigeons, even if these don't move. We went into the Basilica San Marco as well, and marveled at the mosaic work inside. Everything, from floor to ceiling, is done in intricate mosaic tiles. As I walked around staring at the gilded ceiling, probably with my mouth hanging open, all I could think, aside from general awe, was "how did they get that up there?!"
My favorite part of the Piazza San Marco, however, was the view out to the sea from the square.
I'm not quite sure exactly what it is, but there really is something about the quality of the sunlight in Italy that makes it seem different from everywhere else. While we were in Venice, the weather was gorgeous - blue skies as far as we could see, in this case stretching out over the water for what seemed forever. The buildings are all very close together in Venice and reach up about three stories, which leaves you wandering through small, dim alleyways most of the time, until you stumble out into the brilliant sunlight of a little piazza or a bridge. It's somewhat blinding, but it's beautiful; the light just seems so clear and warm, so inviting; everything in Venice seems awash in this lovely golden glow, varying in shades from the dimmest alleys to the brightest squares. Even a few weeks later, just thinking about it makes me feel much warmer than the darkness outside the window of my London flat would suggest.
After the Piazza, we wandered back to our hotel for a nap, and then, after going in search of a (very delicious, naturally) dinner, we came back to our hotel and played cards and talked until late into the night. We never went out in the evening after dinner in Venice, for fear of getting hopelessly lost in the dark again, but I don't think any of us minded in the slightest, and for me, those evenings of chatting together, all sitting curled up on the same bed, with me losing dreadfully at cards, were even some of the highlights of the trip. I've become such good friends with Lisa and Tory, and they're a lot of fun to talk to. Our late night conversations really run the gamut of frivolous to quite meaningful, with just about everything in between, and I've really come to value them.
Also, our last two evenings in Venice involved such conversation, delicious Italian pastries, and some wine (not that much, I promise), so that was also fun. ;)
The next day, we got on a vaporetto and took the ten-minute trip over to Murano, the island near Venice famous for its blown glass. We found a glass-blowing demonstration almost immediately after landing on the island, which was really cool. I also had a good time trying to work out what the man explaining the glass-blowing trade to us was saying to us in Italian before he translated it into English (I got some of it). We made our way to the glass museum then, which was really beautiful - they had samples of glass from Roman times to modern day, which was incredibly impressive; it was amazing to see such an extensive and old collection of such fragile things. We then spent quite a lot of time wandering into the zillions of glassware shops in Murano - some of them quite touristy, some of them, like the blown-glass chandelier shop we found on one street, almost like art museums in their own right. My reaction to a lot of the glass was similar to my reaction to the mosaic ceiling in the basilica - I wanted to know how someone could make such a thing. Some of the stuff was a bit kitschy, of course, but a lot of it was rather impossibly lovely - it seemed so strange to think that someone could really create such delicate sculptures or beautiful jewelry.
Our last day was spent in wandering yet again, going in search of postcards and gifts for friends and family, and of course more gelato and other delicious food. (I miss Italian gelato already.) My Italian professor suggested that we find a pasticceria called Tonnolo, and if any of you are planning on going to Venice, I highly recommend finding it! The pastries there were absolutely delicious. We actually wound up going twice that day, once for breakfast and again in the evening, to get provisions for our evening of pastries and card games and fun conversation. On the way back, we finally encountered that all-too-true Italian stereotype: we passed a gelateria with two men standing behind the counter, and from both of them we received a two-syllable "ciao" - basically the Italian equivalent of the American two-syllable "damn." We were all pretty amused by it; even now Tory says we missed a prime opportunity for free gelato.
And of course, on our last day there, we took a ride in a gondola. It was a short ride, but still quite expensive - even so, I think the fact that I can now say that I've ridden in a gondola down the Grand Canal, with the gondolier singing to us as he pushed the boat along and the setting sun glittering on the water, was absolutely worth it.
So. When I left off, we had arrived in Venice under less than ideal circumstances, but we had finally found our hotel and gone to sleep. We got up around 10 the next morning, as it had been too stressful of a night to do our usual "get up early-ish and seize the day!" thing. We decided that our plan was to explore Venice a bit and get our bearings, but to get back to our hotel before dark, because we had had quite enough of wandering around Venetian alleyways in the dark with no idea of where we were going. We found a cafe around the corner from our hotel and had the first of several days of cake for breakfast. The food in Italy, by the way, is outstanding.
We wandered around a bit after breakfast, without really having too strong of an idea of where it was we wanted to go. We finally did manage to find the Grand Canal and we sat on the edge and watched the boats go by for a little while. I hadn't thought of it beforehand, but Venice smells like the ocean, and sitting there in the sun watching the gondolas and vaporetti, and the wake of the boats splashing up against the edge of the canals, really felt like a proper vacation. Once we'd gotten there, our time in Venice was very relaxed and pleasant - I'd love to go back someday.
After watching the boats for a while, we followed the signs on the sides of various buildings towards the Rialto bridge, and then from there we made our way to the Piazza San Marco. The square is beautiful, and while it is full of pigeons we did not have any of them clambering over us this time (always nice). It also has the famous Venetian winged lions - much more fun than pigeons, even if these don't move. We went into the Basilica San Marco as well, and marveled at the mosaic work inside. Everything, from floor to ceiling, is done in intricate mosaic tiles. As I walked around staring at the gilded ceiling, probably with my mouth hanging open, all I could think, aside from general awe, was "how did they get that up there?!"
My favorite part of the Piazza San Marco, however, was the view out to the sea from the square.
I'm not quite sure exactly what it is, but there really is something about the quality of the sunlight in Italy that makes it seem different from everywhere else. While we were in Venice, the weather was gorgeous - blue skies as far as we could see, in this case stretching out over the water for what seemed forever. The buildings are all very close together in Venice and reach up about three stories, which leaves you wandering through small, dim alleyways most of the time, until you stumble out into the brilliant sunlight of a little piazza or a bridge. It's somewhat blinding, but it's beautiful; the light just seems so clear and warm, so inviting; everything in Venice seems awash in this lovely golden glow, varying in shades from the dimmest alleys to the brightest squares. Even a few weeks later, just thinking about it makes me feel much warmer than the darkness outside the window of my London flat would suggest.
After the Piazza, we wandered back to our hotel for a nap, and then, after going in search of a (very delicious, naturally) dinner, we came back to our hotel and played cards and talked until late into the night. We never went out in the evening after dinner in Venice, for fear of getting hopelessly lost in the dark again, but I don't think any of us minded in the slightest, and for me, those evenings of chatting together, all sitting curled up on the same bed, with me losing dreadfully at cards, were even some of the highlights of the trip. I've become such good friends with Lisa and Tory, and they're a lot of fun to talk to. Our late night conversations really run the gamut of frivolous to quite meaningful, with just about everything in between, and I've really come to value them.
Also, our last two evenings in Venice involved such conversation, delicious Italian pastries, and some wine (not that much, I promise), so that was also fun. ;)
The next day, we got on a vaporetto and took the ten-minute trip over to Murano, the island near Venice famous for its blown glass. We found a glass-blowing demonstration almost immediately after landing on the island, which was really cool. I also had a good time trying to work out what the man explaining the glass-blowing trade to us was saying to us in Italian before he translated it into English (I got some of it). We made our way to the glass museum then, which was really beautiful - they had samples of glass from Roman times to modern day, which was incredibly impressive; it was amazing to see such an extensive and old collection of such fragile things. We then spent quite a lot of time wandering into the zillions of glassware shops in Murano - some of them quite touristy, some of them, like the blown-glass chandelier shop we found on one street, almost like art museums in their own right. My reaction to a lot of the glass was similar to my reaction to the mosaic ceiling in the basilica - I wanted to know how someone could make such a thing. Some of the stuff was a bit kitschy, of course, but a lot of it was rather impossibly lovely - it seemed so strange to think that someone could really create such delicate sculptures or beautiful jewelry.
Our last day was spent in wandering yet again, going in search of postcards and gifts for friends and family, and of course more gelato and other delicious food. (I miss Italian gelato already.) My Italian professor suggested that we find a pasticceria called Tonnolo, and if any of you are planning on going to Venice, I highly recommend finding it! The pastries there were absolutely delicious. We actually wound up going twice that day, once for breakfast and again in the evening, to get provisions for our evening of pastries and card games and fun conversation. On the way back, we finally encountered that all-too-true Italian stereotype: we passed a gelateria with two men standing behind the counter, and from both of them we received a two-syllable "ciao" - basically the Italian equivalent of the American two-syllable "damn." We were all pretty amused by it; even now Tory says we missed a prime opportunity for free gelato.
And of course, on our last day there, we took a ride in a gondola. It was a short ride, but still quite expensive - even so, I think the fact that I can now say that I've ridden in a gondola down the Grand Canal, with the gondolier singing to us as he pushed the boat along and the setting sun glittering on the water, was absolutely worth it.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Thoughts from Places: How Not to Travel in Europe
A European adventure, it seems, simply would not be complete without some mishaps. Our mishaps were, naturally, all combined into one day - really, it was kind, as it got all of the stress out of the way and allowed us to enjoy the rest of our vacation without any trouble! So, allow me to tell you a little about how not to travel in Europe.
On Tuesday morning, we got up at an ungodly hour, got dressed, and shuffled out of our hostel and towards the airport. The day, in spite of the hour, started well enough; we'd purchased our metro and bus tickets the day before, so we got to the airport without any trouble. The bus, however, told us that all departing flights to countries outside of *muffled sound* should leave from terminal 1. That sounded like Italy to us, so we got off at the terminal 1 stop, found the departures section, and got in the security line.
... we thought.
Lisa was ahead of Tory and I, and she showed her passport and her ticket and got stamped through to the other side. Tory, however, was stopped by the guard she spoke to, and was told that we were in the wrong terminal. But Lisa was already on the other side. We waved to her to come back, but of course she couldn't; you aren't allowed to go *back* through security. I then talked to the guard, asked if he was sure that we were in the wrong place, and then told him that our friend had mistakenly been let through, and could he please help us get her back? He left his box to go get her, but as soon as he turned around, Lisa had vanished. I told her what she looked like (or really, what her coat looked like, as it's pretty distinctive) but he couldn't see her anywhere, so I told Tory to wait and NOT MOVE, and the security guard took me through to the other side to look for Lisa. We couldn't find her anywhere. All the while, I was trying to text Lisa and find out where she'd gone, but texting takes half a million years on my dinky little British phone in the best of circumstances, and it seems to take that much longer when your friend is lost on the wrong side of customs. Eventually, I did reach her; she'd managed to get let through to the other side. The guard escorted me back and took Lisa's passport; there were a few panicked minutes when we all thought we'd be held there for hours and interrogated and miss our flight, but in the end the guard just brought back her correctly stamped passport and told us where we needed to go, and off we went. Lisa told us how she'd gotten back into the country: she found a janitor who spoke almost no English, but managed to convey her situation to him through sheer desperation, and he was nice enough to take her to the other side of customs and get her stamped back into the country (which she'd technically never left). We got through the right part of security and found a place to sit down, and Lisa had carrot cake for breakfast. She needed it.
We boarded a plane for Milan - this plane ride was actually the easiest on me, in terms of ear-popping misery, perhaps because it was the shortest. On the plane, we got tickets to the train station in Milan, where we intended to drop off our bags while we explored for the day before getting on the train to Venice.
When we got off the plane in Milan, however, we were once again confused. We followed the exit signs, like in all other airports, but unlike other airports, this one led directly to... the exit. No customs. No passport stamp. Nothing. Just doors to the outside. We were very confused. We wandered around for a bit before I asked a man at a bus ticket booth about it (he was pretty much the only one to ask) and either because my Italian was terrible or because I was gesturing to my American passport, he explained nicely in English that we'd get stamped on the way OUT. Well, all right then. We boarded the bus to the train station, beginning to worry a bit about whether they'd let us out of the country a few days later.
The train station in Milan is said to be one of the most beautiful in Europe, and I can totally see why. I did not take any pictures of it, however, for reasons which will become apparent. We spent a while trying to find a place to leave our bags (I still don't know the Italian word for "locker," sadly), but once we did, we headed down to the Metro (I got to wow my friends for the first time by asking for three metro tickets in a tabaccheria. Sooooo very impressive. :P )and we hopped on the train towards the Duomo.
The steps out of the Metro stop lead right up to the square in front of the Duomo, which looks like this:
The church is absolutely breathtaking, both inside and out, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Unfortunately, because it is so striking, it is very easy to spot tourists coming out of the Metro station; the awestruck attitude is hard to miss. So we were immediately accosted by three African guys asking for donations. They shoved some corn into our hands and had us feed the pigeons (for rather more than tuppence a bag).
Lisa utterly despises pigeons.
We finally got free of them, and we went off in search of lunch. This part of the day was, in fact, quite enjoyable. We had some delicious pizza and the first of many amazing gelatos (Italian gelato is, in fact, the most delicious thing ever), and we visited a castle and the museum inside it and we saw the inside of the Duomo and walked through the world's prettiest "mall" and saw the outside of La Scala.
Castles are awesome.
At around 5:30, we returned to the train station, retrieved our bags, and found a cafe for dinner. Lisa and Tory had some more pizza, and I had a panino (yes, panino. If I had a panini, that'd be more than one sandwich), and I pulled my map of Venice out of my bag so that we could find the street our hostel was on for that night.
Now, Venice is a very small place, but it's very dense, with lots of very small, crooked streets that don't all connect to each other. Tory and I were looking at this map for a very long time, thinking we just couldn't find the street. But then I glanced at Tory's iPod screen, where she'd written the full address of our hostel. And I saw that the hostel was, in fact, in Lido.
And Lido is not in Venice.
Well. This is a problem.
Never fear! Tory's Kindle has 3G on it! We can get on the internet and fix the problem! Only... Tory's overpacked her bag... and her Kindle screen is now broken... She can get wifi on her iPod! Only... there is no wifi in all of Milan... I speak Italian! We'll just go to the information desk right here and beg for help! Only... the information desk closes at 5, because apparently no one ever needs information in a train station after business hours.
Well then.
Lisa finally called her parents, and they booked us a new hostel, IN VENICE, from America (Lisa's parents: you are awesome). At last, we got on the train and napped for two and a half hours, trying to forget the misadventures of the day. But the misadventures were not yet over.
Our train arrived in Venice at 10:40 pm. Some advice to you all: Never arrive in Venice for the first time in the dark. Ever. It's not that it's dangerous; I didn't feel threatened, or like I'd fall into a canal by accident. We were just so. Hideously. Lost. Venetian streets make little to no sense in the dark. We'd finally figure out where we were, start going in what seems like the right direction... and then be totally lost again after just one turn. We asked for directions, and then almost immediately got lost again. At last, we found the address we were looking for... only to be told that it was not, in fact, the right address, and that we needed to "go down the street to the other one." Eep. Finally, the man at the hotel's front desk called us and came and found us - we were literally around the corner from where we needed to be, and had been for the last hour or so. Uy.
At last, we were shown up to our room, and we got to sit down and put down our bags and shut the door on all the madness of the day. It was only then that it hit me how completely insane the whole experience had been. The whole time, I'd been the one saying "it's okay, we'll make it work, we'll ask for help, we'll find a new place to stay, we'll ask for directions, I speak Italian, we can figure this out guys, it'll be okay" (I guess I am kind of the mom of the flat). But when I sat down on that bed, everything just slammed into me. Being that lost, without a place to stay, in a foreign country is kind of terrifying. The whole time I've been abroad, I've been loving it, to the extent that if I didn't have a degree to finish and people I'd really, really miss, I would try my best to never go home, but Tuesday night, I wanted to go home so very badly. I wanted to curl up in my house with my parents and my sister and my cat and a lot of tea. I wanted nothing more than to forget about the crazy scary thing that had just happened to me.
The thing is, though (which I realized as I slowly uncurled from my tiny little ball), I did it. I was right - we did figure it out. We did find a new place to stay, I did ask for directions in Italian, we did make it in spite of being lost and confused. That was quite possibly the scariest thing I've ever done, but I did it, and a year ago, I would have been a complete wreck. I wouldn't have known how to begin handling a situation like that. But I did it. Looking back on it, even just a week later, I feel so accomplished, and I'm so glad we managed to vanquish that situation.
And besides, it makes one heck of a story. :P
On Tuesday morning, we got up at an ungodly hour, got dressed, and shuffled out of our hostel and towards the airport. The day, in spite of the hour, started well enough; we'd purchased our metro and bus tickets the day before, so we got to the airport without any trouble. The bus, however, told us that all departing flights to countries outside of *muffled sound* should leave from terminal 1. That sounded like Italy to us, so we got off at the terminal 1 stop, found the departures section, and got in the security line.
... we thought.
Lisa was ahead of Tory and I, and she showed her passport and her ticket and got stamped through to the other side. Tory, however, was stopped by the guard she spoke to, and was told that we were in the wrong terminal. But Lisa was already on the other side. We waved to her to come back, but of course she couldn't; you aren't allowed to go *back* through security. I then talked to the guard, asked if he was sure that we were in the wrong place, and then told him that our friend had mistakenly been let through, and could he please help us get her back? He left his box to go get her, but as soon as he turned around, Lisa had vanished. I told her what she looked like (or really, what her coat looked like, as it's pretty distinctive) but he couldn't see her anywhere, so I told Tory to wait and NOT MOVE, and the security guard took me through to the other side to look for Lisa. We couldn't find her anywhere. All the while, I was trying to text Lisa and find out where she'd gone, but texting takes half a million years on my dinky little British phone in the best of circumstances, and it seems to take that much longer when your friend is lost on the wrong side of customs. Eventually, I did reach her; she'd managed to get let through to the other side. The guard escorted me back and took Lisa's passport; there were a few panicked minutes when we all thought we'd be held there for hours and interrogated and miss our flight, but in the end the guard just brought back her correctly stamped passport and told us where we needed to go, and off we went. Lisa told us how she'd gotten back into the country: she found a janitor who spoke almost no English, but managed to convey her situation to him through sheer desperation, and he was nice enough to take her to the other side of customs and get her stamped back into the country (which she'd technically never left). We got through the right part of security and found a place to sit down, and Lisa had carrot cake for breakfast. She needed it.
We boarded a plane for Milan - this plane ride was actually the easiest on me, in terms of ear-popping misery, perhaps because it was the shortest. On the plane, we got tickets to the train station in Milan, where we intended to drop off our bags while we explored for the day before getting on the train to Venice.
When we got off the plane in Milan, however, we were once again confused. We followed the exit signs, like in all other airports, but unlike other airports, this one led directly to... the exit. No customs. No passport stamp. Nothing. Just doors to the outside. We were very confused. We wandered around for a bit before I asked a man at a bus ticket booth about it (he was pretty much the only one to ask) and either because my Italian was terrible or because I was gesturing to my American passport, he explained nicely in English that we'd get stamped on the way OUT. Well, all right then. We boarded the bus to the train station, beginning to worry a bit about whether they'd let us out of the country a few days later.
The train station in Milan is said to be one of the most beautiful in Europe, and I can totally see why. I did not take any pictures of it, however, for reasons which will become apparent. We spent a while trying to find a place to leave our bags (I still don't know the Italian word for "locker," sadly), but once we did, we headed down to the Metro (I got to wow my friends for the first time by asking for three metro tickets in a tabaccheria. Sooooo very impressive. :P )and we hopped on the train towards the Duomo.
The steps out of the Metro stop lead right up to the square in front of the Duomo, which looks like this:
The church is absolutely breathtaking, both inside and out, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Unfortunately, because it is so striking, it is very easy to spot tourists coming out of the Metro station; the awestruck attitude is hard to miss. So we were immediately accosted by three African guys asking for donations. They shoved some corn into our hands and had us feed the pigeons (for rather more than tuppence a bag).
Lisa utterly despises pigeons.
We finally got free of them, and we went off in search of lunch. This part of the day was, in fact, quite enjoyable. We had some delicious pizza and the first of many amazing gelatos (Italian gelato is, in fact, the most delicious thing ever), and we visited a castle and the museum inside it and we saw the inside of the Duomo and walked through the world's prettiest "mall" and saw the outside of La Scala.
Castles are awesome.
At around 5:30, we returned to the train station, retrieved our bags, and found a cafe for dinner. Lisa and Tory had some more pizza, and I had a panino (yes, panino. If I had a panini, that'd be more than one sandwich), and I pulled my map of Venice out of my bag so that we could find the street our hostel was on for that night.
Now, Venice is a very small place, but it's very dense, with lots of very small, crooked streets that don't all connect to each other. Tory and I were looking at this map for a very long time, thinking we just couldn't find the street. But then I glanced at Tory's iPod screen, where she'd written the full address of our hostel. And I saw that the hostel was, in fact, in Lido.
And Lido is not in Venice.
Well. This is a problem.
Never fear! Tory's Kindle has 3G on it! We can get on the internet and fix the problem! Only... Tory's overpacked her bag... and her Kindle screen is now broken... She can get wifi on her iPod! Only... there is no wifi in all of Milan... I speak Italian! We'll just go to the information desk right here and beg for help! Only... the information desk closes at 5, because apparently no one ever needs information in a train station after business hours.
Well then.
Lisa finally called her parents, and they booked us a new hostel, IN VENICE, from America (Lisa's parents: you are awesome). At last, we got on the train and napped for two and a half hours, trying to forget the misadventures of the day. But the misadventures were not yet over.
Our train arrived in Venice at 10:40 pm. Some advice to you all: Never arrive in Venice for the first time in the dark. Ever. It's not that it's dangerous; I didn't feel threatened, or like I'd fall into a canal by accident. We were just so. Hideously. Lost. Venetian streets make little to no sense in the dark. We'd finally figure out where we were, start going in what seems like the right direction... and then be totally lost again after just one turn. We asked for directions, and then almost immediately got lost again. At last, we found the address we were looking for... only to be told that it was not, in fact, the right address, and that we needed to "go down the street to the other one." Eep. Finally, the man at the hotel's front desk called us and came and found us - we were literally around the corner from where we needed to be, and had been for the last hour or so. Uy.
At last, we were shown up to our room, and we got to sit down and put down our bags and shut the door on all the madness of the day. It was only then that it hit me how completely insane the whole experience had been. The whole time, I'd been the one saying "it's okay, we'll make it work, we'll ask for help, we'll find a new place to stay, we'll ask for directions, I speak Italian, we can figure this out guys, it'll be okay" (I guess I am kind of the mom of the flat). But when I sat down on that bed, everything just slammed into me. Being that lost, without a place to stay, in a foreign country is kind of terrifying. The whole time I've been abroad, I've been loving it, to the extent that if I didn't have a degree to finish and people I'd really, really miss, I would try my best to never go home, but Tuesday night, I wanted to go home so very badly. I wanted to curl up in my house with my parents and my sister and my cat and a lot of tea. I wanted nothing more than to forget about the crazy scary thing that had just happened to me.
The thing is, though (which I realized as I slowly uncurled from my tiny little ball), I did it. I was right - we did figure it out. We did find a new place to stay, I did ask for directions in Italian, we did make it in spite of being lost and confused. That was quite possibly the scariest thing I've ever done, but I did it, and a year ago, I would have been a complete wreck. I wouldn't have known how to begin handling a situation like that. But I did it. Looking back on it, even just a week later, I feel so accomplished, and I'm so glad we managed to vanquish that situation.
And besides, it makes one heck of a story. :P
Friday, March 2, 2012
Venetian Holiday
Not quite Roman Holiday, I know, especially since it also involves Prague and a brief stay in Milan. I did get my hair cut today, though!
So yes. Tomorrow at four-thirty I will be getting on a plane to Prague with my two lovely flatmates Tory and Lisa, and I will be returning to London from Venice a week from tomorrow. I AM SO EXCITED. I mean, even though I'll be visiting a country where I do not speak the language at all and a country where I sort of speak the language, which is a little terrifying, I am really really excited to go see new places and explore some new cities and I GET TO EAT GELATO, GUYS. It's going to be fantastic!!
I will not, however, be bringing my computer with me, so next week I won't be posting new things on the blog. I promise I will have lots of adventure stories for you when I get back!!
Enjoy your week, citizens of the blogosphere. Arrivederci!
So yes. Tomorrow at four-thirty I will be getting on a plane to Prague with my two lovely flatmates Tory and Lisa, and I will be returning to London from Venice a week from tomorrow. I AM SO EXCITED. I mean, even though I'll be visiting a country where I do not speak the language at all and a country where I sort of speak the language, which is a little terrifying, I am really really excited to go see new places and explore some new cities and I GET TO EAT GELATO, GUYS. It's going to be fantastic!!
I will not, however, be bringing my computer with me, so next week I won't be posting new things on the blog. I promise I will have lots of adventure stories for you when I get back!!
Enjoy your week, citizens of the blogosphere. Arrivederci!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)