Day 69

This morning I woke up at 9:00 again and decided that it was time for a shower so I took my things to the shower building and almost froze. Yes I was in Italy, but for some reason it was about 50 degrees. Needless to say, the time between the end of my shower and getting dressed were extremely short. The check out time was 10:00 so I packed up my things and stripped the sheets off of my bed. Janaya had woken up and was also going to shower. She asked me to take her phone to the picnic area to charge. So I did. She came to the picnic area about 30 minutes later. My internet time had expired so she used hers. Anneke was on the morning train scheduled to get into Venice around 2:00, but apparently the Italian train workers were on strike so she had to board a bus at the border that would be taking her to Venice. While Janaya was figuring out plans for the day I worked on updating my journal with bullet points. Eric and Rebecca came to our table and chatted for a bit. Then we all took the 11:20 bus into the city. Janaya was set on finding a church for Palm Sunday service so we found a church at around 12:15 and went inside and sat in the back of the congregation. We couldn’t understand a thing, but it still was pretty nifty. The service lasted until about 1:00. We left and then decided that we’d try to find a bakery that we had visited yesterday. I had ordered a slice of spinach torte there and had had Janaya try some. We were both hooked, but didn’t remember the name of the bakery. Luckily Janaya had remembered the name of the neighboring church so we looked at our map and navigated our way to the bakery. We found it after about 20 minutes and I bought a €3 slice of the spinach torte. We went over to a open square and sat down to snack on the torte and to figure out where we going to go next. We decided to go see the third bridge that crosses the Grand Canal. We had already seen and walked over the first two yesterday and the day before so seeing the last one kind of made the trip to Venice complete. When we got to the bridge we spent some time looking over the canal, watching the boats going under us. Two of my favorite things about the city is that the „city bus“ is a boat with docks all throughout the city and that there are these beautiful wooden boats everywhere in the city. It’s all just so cool! We eventually made our way to the water’s edge and found a spot in the sun. Despite the cold temps in the morning, the weather was very warm and perfect for getting some vitamin D. Janaya worked on writing some postcards and I unashamedly took off my shirt and soaked up the sun. It was so great; this was what I had had in my mind when I had thought about vacationing in Italy! There was even a couple a ways down that had begun playing some songs with some sort of a guitar thing and a recorder-ish instrument. The best part was that I recognized one of the songs, „Down by the Sally Gardens“. I had sung the song in Glee Club and so I started quietly singing along. Once Janaya was done with her postcards we packed up and walked towards the end of the peninsula and then turned the corner and made of way back up the other side. On our way we witnessed a seagull attacking some sort of fish in the water, but then as we got closer we saw that it was a squid. Just then it squirted ink at the seagull, but missed. We watched the battle. It only took about four minutes and a lot of shaking on the seagull’s part to get the squid onto the sidewalk. Janaya and I made our way to the bus station thinking that Anneke would surely be in Venice by that time. Janaya checked Facebook and found out that Anneke had already been there for an hour and was already making her way to the campsite. Janaya and I talked and decided that she should head to the campsite to help Anneke get settled. We had been planning on a nice dinner all together, but it was okay that the plans had changed. I gave her a hug and wished her a happy Easter vacation then I headed to a nice restaurant for an authentic Italian meal. I ordered spaghetti with white clams and a cafe espresso. It was fantastic! After dinner I found free wifi and checked in on Facebook. I headed over to the train station and boarded my train. Luckily it wasn’t cancelled!
I found my reserved seat and started to work on my journals. Two girls came into my compartment and we all started talking. They were both heading to Vienna. One was from Russia and was currently studying in Finland, but was doing a semester in Vienna and the other was from Brazil and traveling Europe. I worked on my journal and caught myself up completely!!! About an hour into the ride a very loud group of young Italian teenage boys infiltrated the train. I think that they were a part of a traveling soccer team. They took the empty seats in our compartment and were crazy loud. However, I didn’t have a problem with it because I had my movies to occupy me. I first watched Gladiator, then switched to the last 40 minutes of The Adventures of TinTin, and then finished it up with The Perks of Being A Wallflower. By this time it was about 5:00 in the morning and we were stopped at the main train station in Salzburg. Once we started moving again, I fell asleep.

Day 68

On Saturday I woke up around 9:00. I left the tent and went to the picnic area to charge my computer and phone. Janaya came about 10 minutes later. I bought a chocolate croissant for breakfast and then also bought 24 hours worth of internet access from the campground. Jen and Virginia joined us at our table and then Janaya and I began to plan out our day. We ended up leaving the campground at 11:00. We had looked up cheap, good eats in Venice so we made our way to a pizza place on the East side of the city. We ordered a margarita pizza and then took it to a canal and ate. Once we were done eating we decided that we were going to try and see different parts of Venice than we had seen the day before so we made our way to the Eastern edge of the city and walked along the stone „boardwalk“ and enjoyed the great view of the surrounding islands. We eventually made our way to a Coop store where we bought a bag of apples, some discount bread, cheese, a bottle of wine, and a bottle of Bellini. We left the store and decided that we were going to venture to the Southwestern side of the city to San Marco. On our way we stopped at a bridge and shared some of the Bellini and each had an apple. Bellini is a sort of peach cocktail that resembles champaign. It was delicious and tasted like it should have been for kids instead of adults! I ate some bread and cheese and then we headed off towards San Marco. Once we got there we saw why it was so popular. It was this huge square filled with tourists all surrounded by these huge buildings with amazing architecture. We walked to the water and then took the „boardwalk“ to the park about a mile away. There we found an empty section of grass and each ate another apple. I put on my music and napped and Janaya read. It felt so relaxing to not be walking that it felt like it was actually an hour nap instead of only 20 minutes. We walked further and found another park. We stopped and sat on a bench, because Janaya wanted to see the sun set over Venice. I was cold and tired, but I told myself „Why not?“. We sat there and I played sun songs on my phone to try and inspire the sun to come out from behind the clouds. It started to sprinkle a little so ten I switched the music to rain songs. Sadly, when the sun did set it was behind a lot of clouds so we started walking back to San Marco. However, this wasn’t bad because the city at night was absolutely beautiful! Janaya’s phone, which we had been using as our GPS was dying so we just followed the signs pointing us the Realto bridge. We eventually got there and took a few pictures. We decided to once again divert from the route that we had taken the day before and tried following signs to get back to the bus station. Once again, to rewards ourselves, we bought gelato. This time I got malaga, which was some sort of raisin flavor, and tiramisu, which was fantastic! We eventually found the bus station and managed to catch one of the last busses to the campground. When we got back we found Rebecca and Eric sitting at one of the picnic tables eating pizza. Janaya and I joined them and opened our bottle of wine. I ordered a mushroom pizza with olives and it was SO good! Once the wine and pizza were gone we all said goodnight and went to our tents. Janaya and I had talked about watching a movie so we started watching, but I fell asleep within ten minutes. A long day finished with wine has a way of doing that to you.

Day 67

My alarm went off at 4:30, but I got up easily. I quietly assembled my things and then left the room. As I waited in the lobby for Janaya, I ate two yogurts for breakfast. I had one left so I gave that one to Janaya. Once we were ready we left for the Westbahnhof. There we hopped on the U6 and took it to the Vienna Meidling train station. We waited there for about an hour and then boarded our 6:30 train heading to Venice. The train cars were divided up into cabins like you would see on the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter books. Janaya and I got a car together and then two Italian men also joined us and then promptly fell asleep. I fell asleep for a while until Janaya woke me up. We were traveling through beautiful mountains. There was a misting lake to our right and snow-peaked mountains all around us. We went across a bridge and made our way through what I am guessing were either the Austrian or Italians alps. It was breath taking! We eventually started riding through fields again and I fell asleep. I had the weirdest dream that Kelsey’s dad was driving me through Italy somewhere and was taking a wished route. In the dream we were going through curves that were not physically possible to navigate and going up almost 80 degree mountain grades. It must have been the train twisting and turning because at one point I decided to just close my eyes and trust that it’d all be okay. I’m an awful backseat driver who likes to stomp on the imaginary brake in the passengers seat so this was a big step for me. When I woke up I was a little confused, but everything made sense again pretty quickly. I had packed two granola bars so Janaya and I each had one. That was around 10:00. Our train got into Venice at around 2:00. Right when we walked out of the station we saw the Grand Canal straight in front of us. Since we were in Venice we decided to just start walking. I bought a slice of pizza and Janaya bought a mozzarella ball. She had packed some bread so we found a canal edge and had a light lunch. We wandered around for about 2 hours which felt like forever since we were carrying all of our things. I felt especially bad for Janaya, because she was carrying all of the things she needed for her entire Easter break and I was only carrying things for the weekend. Eventually we made our way back to the Grand Canal and got gelato as a reward and then we made our way to the bus station. In order to get to the campground where we were staying we had to go two stops on the number 5 bus. Luckily we met two girls who were also going to the same place. Their names were Virginia and Jen. Virginia was from Vermont and Jen was from Ottawa. They had been traveling since January and were now in Venice. They had started in China and were eventually going to end up in Morocco. Janaya and I chatted with them on the bus. We all got off one stop early so we then walked about a quarter of a mile to Camping Realto. Since Janaya and Anneke had booked a tent together and Anneke wasn’t there I asked Janaya if it would be okay if I took Anneke’s spot so as to safe Anneke some money. She said that it wasn’t a problem. In each tent there was a nice wooden floor about 5 feet wide and 6 1/2 feet long and had two cots on it. The tent was a little cozy, but I switched my bed to face the other way so that it wouldn’t be too awkward. Once our things were in the tent and my bed was made we walked over to the picnic area where Jen and Virginia were sitting and joined them. Janaya and I walked into the general store and bought a bottle of Chianti. We rejoined Jen and Virginia and started chatting. At the table next to us there were two other Canadians, Eric and Rebecca. They joined us and we all listened to Jen and Virginia’s travel stories. Jen and I were both cold so we decided to split a veggie pizza together. It was a great decision! It was so fresh and so warm! They had brought a ukelele along with them on their travels and had since learned to play it. Since I could sing they took turns playing and I sang along. It was really fun and relaxing. When it was about midnight Janaya and I headed back to the tent and we both went to bed. It was cold out so I didn’t even bother changing into anything different for sleeping. The bed, although a little short, was very comfortable and I fell asleep very quickly.

Day 66

On Thursday I woke up at 9:00 and had a slow morning. I watched a few episodes of Friends and then got a message from Janaya saying that she was coming back to the dorm from her 8:00 class. I went to the kitchen and started making pancakes. Every time anyone goes to Asia World for lunch they get a 400 g box that they can fill up at the buffet. They are the best tupperware substitutes in a pinch so I used them for pancake carriers. Since Janaya, Anneke, and I had had a pancake breakfast the previous Thursday, it seemed only right that we do it again this Thursday. So I made mini pancakes and filled three boxes with four each. I packed up some forks and the syrup and a tube of Burt’s Bees and then Janaya and I headed to the hospital. We got there around 12:30. As we ate we talked about our plans for the weekend. Janaya and I were supposed to be leaving the next day in order to go to Venice and Anneke, before she was hospitalized, was supposed to be doing the same. We eventually decided that I would be leaving the next day with Janaya and that Anneke would come to Venice when she could. I left the hospital and headed to the Westbahnhof. I bought my roundtrip ticket there and then took the U-bahn to the university. I arrived about 5 minutes before my class started. Dr. McLoughlin talked about the strategies of World War II and that typical day as a British soldier. He also said that the Canadians and Australians were seen as the real men of the war especially in the eyes of the British. After class I went to the office and rested for a bit. I walked to a local restaurant called the Pie Factory and bought a veggie pie for my dinner. Since it was a lot smaller than I had anticipated, I also went to a bakery again and bought another good sized chunk of bread that was very cheap. I ate the bread on the way to dance class. We learned the cha-cha, the foxtrot, and worked on the waltz again. After class Janaya and I headed back to the dorm and made dinner together. We chatted for a bit and then I headed back to my room. I showered and then packed for my weekend in Venice. After I was done I watched an episode of Friends and headed to sleep.

Day 65

On Wednesday I woke up around 9:00 and got ready for class. This week for Austria in Context we were meeting at a museum to look at old models of the city to learn about its history and how it had developed. Our tour guide that had been scheduled to work that day had called in sick so Ruth, having gone on the tour about 30 times, did her best to give us the comprehensive city history. At one point we were following a group of what looked like 4th graders who were very knowledgable about the city’s history. After we got done at the museum I went to Haus Salzburg with Stephen to get my camera back before the start of Easter vacation. After that I went to the office to meet with Ruth about my classes. I officially dropped a german science fiction class that I hadn’t been going to because my schedule was too full. Also, I asked if I could audit my music theory class since it won’t be counting as credit at Wabash (I need a full Wabash credit music theory class for my minor). I'll have to speak with my professor about that. After I was done straightening out my schedule with Ruth I met Janaya outside and we walked to the hospital together to visit Anneke. She had been hospitalized the day before. After getting kind of mixed up at the largeness of the hospital we eventually found her room. We stayed and talked until Andrew, her brother, and a few of his friends came to visit as well. I headed back home. On the way to my literature class I stopped in a bakery and bought a half of a loaf of bread for about a Euro and a half. I enjoyed that before class. Class was as normal and, sadly, very boring. Dr. Eschenmüller is a very nice man who cares about what he is teaching, but he is just so boring. It’s bad enough having to sit through a boring class in English. In German it’s a lot worse. It took a lot of effort to stay concentrated on his lecture. After class I headed back to the dorm with Janaya, Andy, and Erica. I was in a mood to get rid of my food so I made rice, spaghetti, and fried up all of my veggies. Erica and I split this meal and used some of Janaya’s pasta sauce and much coveted sriracha sauce. It was a really funky concoction, but it was insanely good! After dinner I went back to my room and watched an episode of Friends. Then it was time for bed.

Day 64

I got up on Tuesday around 8:00 so that I could get the rest of my homework done and have enough time to go for a run. I ran to Schönbrunn again and it was, once again, wonderful! When I got back from my run I took a shower and got ready for class. Class went well. Dan’s friends Aiden and Andre had wanted to go shopping, but Dan still had class for a while so I said that I would take them to Mariahilferstraße. We first stopped at the dorm, because Stephen had his last photography class that evening and wanted to borrow my camera again for it. We left and started walking down Mariahilferstraße and talked. The only place we stopped at was Forever 21, but that was only for about 10 minutes (thank goodness!). We kept on walking all the way to the Museums Quarter (Museumsquartier). Once we got there we turned around and started heading back towards the Westbahnhof. Dan called and said that he was available again to „take Adre and Aiden off of my hands“, but I was having a great time with them. I suggested to Dan that we meet at Bürgenland 3 for pancake appetizers. He said that that sounded great! On our way back to the dorm the three of us got ice cream. I got straciatella and mint-chocolate chip. I have a goal of not repeating a flavor until I’ve tried them all. So far it’s been very much worth while. Once we got back to the dorm, we all went upstairs to the third floor kitchen and I started mixing up the batter. Dan called and said that he, Charlotte, and Max were outside so I went downstairs and let them in. I was making pancakes like a machine and they were loving them too! Eventually Minnie, a friend of Max and Charlotte’s came with her boyfriend and joined in on the fun. Aiden and Andre couldn’t stop saying thank you. Since I love being a host it was no problem at all! Dan was really kind and washed the dishes for me. After everything was cleaned up we all left the dorm and went a block over to a restaurant for the main meal. I ordered a small beer and a greek potato pan, which consisted of pan fried potatoes with goat cheese, tomatoes, and spinach. It was fantastic! After dinner everyone was heading out to go to a bar. I had already used up my food allowance and was pretty tired, so I said goodbye and went back to the dorm. I went straight to bed and it was only about 10:00. I know that that doesn’t sound super early, but it was considering that I normally don’t go to bed until about midnight.

Day 63

On Monday morning I woke up at 1:00. Yes, 1:00. I was so incredibly tired from the weekend. I decided that since I had already missed class I might as well go and do something productive with my day so I decided to run to Schönbrunn. It was about 5 or 6 kilometers round trip and it was so beautiful and sunny. When I got back from my run I cleaned up my room and then made an early dinner. I wasn’t feeling up for much so I just made rice. I FaceTimed with Mother about the trip details again and then I got my homework and brought it to the kitchen to work on it in peace. I got almost all of my stuff done for my grammar class and then, when it was midnight, went to bed.