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.