Wednesday night, our friend Casey was promoting a club, Bloom, and invited us all to come. When we got there it was kind of dead and pretty lame so we left after about ten minutes. We felt bad leaving Casey's club but he gets 2 euro for each person that says his name at the door so at least he earned a little money off of us stopping by. We went to the club that we were at the week before, La Maison. There are always so many people there, and it seems like 90% of people are American students and the other 10% are creepy Italian men looking for American students. I was on the dance floor with my friends when I saw Heather Ahmad who just gotten to Rome the day before! I had no idea she was going to be at La Maison so it was so funny running into her.
Friday, during the day, we decided to be spontaneous and take a day trip. We woke up early and headed to the Roma Trastevere train station to buy a ticket and hop on a train. We were thinking about going to Siena but when we asked about it, the ticket lady said it would take four hours to get there and cost about 25 euro each way. Sydney had her Rick Steve's Italy book to look into another destination that would be less costly and not take so long. We settled on going to the town of Cortona which is the sight of Frances Mayes' book Under the Tuscan Sun and the movie with Diane Lane and Sandra Oh. I've never read nor watched Under the Tuscan Sun but my roommates have so they were excited about that. Cortona is about 2.5 hours away by train and costed 10.50 euro to get there. We bought our tickets but had a very difficult time figuring out what track we needed to be on. The lady who sold us the tickets told us that we had two connections -- one at the next stop and another at Roma Termini, the main train station in Rome. After missing at least one train to the next stop, as well as jumping on random trains to ask where it was going, we finally go to Roma Termini. The line we needed to take was for Firenze (Florence) and the next train did not leave for another 2ish hours. We killed time at the McDonald's in the station which was the most chique, retro McDonald's I've ever seen.
We finally got to Cortona at about 2 P.M. The town was cute and very quiet; for some reason it reminded me of Killarney, Ireland. We walked up some dirt roads to get a better view of the area and realized that we were probably walking through someone's private property. We went back to the main road and began to trek up to the top of the hill. Why in the world we thought we could this -- I have no idea. We walked up 250 km when it started to get dark and pouring heavily. I can't even describe how cold and wet it was. We looked further up the hill and saw that the road we were taking (which didn't have sidewalks so we almost got hit by crazy Italian drivers multiple times) curved all up and down the mountain -- clearly not meant for pedestrians. We were getting nervous, because it was getting dark so we didn't even make it up all the way to the top of the hill. We later read that there's a bus from the train station to the top. Oops. I guess it would have been helpful to see this before we started walking by foot. We got a quick piece of pizza (plus a Nutella crepe -- SO good) and made it in time for the 6:30 train.
Cortona in Tuscany, Italy
More of CortonaA week or two we signed up for a day trip to Venice sponsored by Bus2Alps.com which specializes in trips and excursions for students who are abroad. We had to meet at 8:40 AM at Roma Termini to catch a bus that left at 9 AM. The ride there was long, but not awful. Some people slept; I mostly listened to my iPod and talked to the people around me. The ride was supposed to take six hours (long for a day trip, I know), but we didn't end up leaving until 9:30ish and we hit snow in the mountains which slowed us down a bit. We arrive in Venice at 4:30 PM. This stunk because we wanted to go to the Murano glass factory which closes at 5 PM and see the Carnevale parade. Because of the delay on the bus, we weren't able to do either of these. We took the water bus a few stops to San Marco, the main piazza in Venice, while taking lots of photos on the way.
On the water bus in Venice
Venetian gondolas
Steph and me on the Grand Canal We shopped around for masks for Carnevale, an annual festival in Venice which takes place two weeks before Ash Wednesday and ends on Mardi Gras, the day before Ash Wednesday. I learned that it means "farewell to myself"; I'm assuming this is because you give up something important for Lent (I decided to give up late night snacking -- as you may see in some of my pictures, it's definitely having an effect on me). The mask I chose is a simple pink, glittery one. Korissa, Steph, and Cara got ones with feathers, and Sydney got one with bells. Some of the masks men were wearing had a beak -- it was very odd.
Some of the people who dressed up for Carnevale went all out. There were some super crazy outfits that people were wearing -- huge dresses, wigs, and hats. I kept saying that I felt like I was in a R.L Stein Goosebumps book or an "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" Nickelodeon episode.
Venice is beautiful but extremely hard to navigate. When we left San Marco, we took the water bus to another part of the city for dinner. After eating, we were wandering around for a while, looking in shops at Murano glass, when we ended up at Piazza San Marco again -- but we didn't take a water bus there. We got a few good laughs when we realized we had no idea how we managed to do that.
It was around 10 PM when we were finished with dinner and didn't know what to do next. I had wished we were there earlier in the day to do the glass factory, but Venice is dead at night. We saw one or two places with nightlife but the streets were vacant and downright creepy. I cannot imagine spending more than a day and a half in the city. I heard that Venetians are always depressed because it is constantly raining, and they are so isolated. I don't blame them -- I can't imagine taking a boat to go anywhere and everywhere.
Some of the people who dressed up for Carnevale went all out. There were some super crazy outfits that people were wearing -- huge dresses, wigs, and hats. I kept saying that I felt like I was in a R.L Stein Goosebumps book or an "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" Nickelodeon episode.
Venice is beautiful but extremely hard to navigate. When we left San Marco, we took the water bus to another part of the city for dinner. After eating, we were wandering around for a while, looking in shops at Murano glass, when we ended up at Piazza San Marco again -- but we didn't take a water bus there. We got a few good laughs when we realized we had no idea how we managed to do that.
It was around 10 PM when we were finished with dinner and didn't know what to do next. I had wished we were there earlier in the day to do the glass factory, but Venice is dead at night. We saw one or two places with nightlife but the streets were vacant and downright creepy. I cannot imagine spending more than a day and a half in the city. I heard that Venetians are always depressed because it is constantly raining, and they are so isolated. I don't blame them -- I can't imagine taking a boat to go anywhere and everywhere.
Carnevale masks!
Sydney and me in our masks
Korissa and me on one of Venice's canals
Vicenza at nightMy roommates got some gelato and hot chocolate (which is literally just a melted chocolate bar -- it's so thick) to kill time before we had to be back at the bus by 1 AM. We ended up getting to the meeting spot at 12:30ish. We scoped out good seats on the bus -- Steph and I were in a row with no one behind us (ideal for sleeping on the six hour ride back to Rome). However, there are about twenty people late to the bus and were catching a water taxi so our comfortable situation didn't last very long when they showed up. Actually, probably the drunkest girl in Venice at that time sat behind me; I really thought that she was going to throw up all over me. We finally left Venice at 1:30.
Not more than a half hour into the ride, our bus started making a weird noise. Our bus driver pulled over and we could hear him hammering or chiseling something. Everyone on the bus was like, "Oh great. We got a flat tire." Then there were rumors that something was wrong with the engine. I would have taken either of those problems over what really was wrong with the bus. Apparently the pipes froze and were cracked -- a problem very difficult to repair. Our Bus2Alps representative kept telling us that we would be back on the road in 10 minutes. Then 30 minutes. Then 10 more minutes. Finally, she explained that we would have to wait for another bus to come get us, and the nearest bus that could come was in Interlaken, Switzerland. Ha. Imagine the frustration and anger in the bus when we heard that we would have to wait on the side of the road until another bus came down to pick us up. I'm not sure what happened, however, and about an hour or so later we started driving again (by the way, the other bus had to wait with us too; I probably would have been so angry if I was on that bus, because they were capable of driving). It was 5 in the morning when we were finally able to get going (which I was a little leery about, because we were on a bus that I thought was going to blow up with us in it at any point). I fell asleep for a bit and when I woke up, the sun was out and it was 9 AM. I woke up just just as we were pulling over AGAIN, and our representative said we had to wait here for another bus. She said it would a half an hour for the bus to get there and then 2.5 hours back to Rome. That was underestimating it by a lot. We waited for an hour for the bus and had 3.5 hours to drive after that. We were only south of Florence when we switched buses. I don't know why we made it only that far during the 3.5 or 4 hours that I was sleeping but we should have been way closer to home than that. We got 20 minutes closer to Rome in our new bus when a girl got a call from her friend who was left at the rest stop. I'm not sure why this wasn't noticed before we pulled out -- the representative did a head count and asked if anyone could notice someone missing. Apparently there was someone who decided to wander from the group by herself. This cost us another 40 minutes to go there and get to the point we were at. We lost an hour that way.
We finally got back to Roma Termini at about 2:30 PM when we were scheduled to arrive at 7 AM. We were safe and sound back in our apartment at 3:30. It was such a nice day out today too -- what a waste. We wanted watch the Super Bowl but all of us are just too exhausted to move from our apartment.
All in all, a fun weekend but spoiled by the horrific bus trip back from Venice. Bus2Alps promised compensation for our troubles; I'm hoping for a full refund because we were paying them for transportation only and they couldn't even do that. We'll see what happens. It's 10:30 PM here -- already way past when I wanted to go to bed. This entry has taken me about 2 hours. Buonanotte!
Not more than a half hour into the ride, our bus started making a weird noise. Our bus driver pulled over and we could hear him hammering or chiseling something. Everyone on the bus was like, "Oh great. We got a flat tire." Then there were rumors that something was wrong with the engine. I would have taken either of those problems over what really was wrong with the bus. Apparently the pipes froze and were cracked -- a problem very difficult to repair. Our Bus2Alps representative kept telling us that we would be back on the road in 10 minutes. Then 30 minutes. Then 10 more minutes. Finally, she explained that we would have to wait for another bus to come get us, and the nearest bus that could come was in Interlaken, Switzerland. Ha. Imagine the frustration and anger in the bus when we heard that we would have to wait on the side of the road until another bus came down to pick us up. I'm not sure what happened, however, and about an hour or so later we started driving again (by the way, the other bus had to wait with us too; I probably would have been so angry if I was on that bus, because they were capable of driving). It was 5 in the morning when we were finally able to get going (which I was a little leery about, because we were on a bus that I thought was going to blow up with us in it at any point). I fell asleep for a bit and when I woke up, the sun was out and it was 9 AM. I woke up just just as we were pulling over AGAIN, and our representative said we had to wait here for another bus. She said it would a half an hour for the bus to get there and then 2.5 hours back to Rome. That was underestimating it by a lot. We waited for an hour for the bus and had 3.5 hours to drive after that. We were only south of Florence when we switched buses. I don't know why we made it only that far during the 3.5 or 4 hours that I was sleeping but we should have been way closer to home than that. We got 20 minutes closer to Rome in our new bus when a girl got a call from her friend who was left at the rest stop. I'm not sure why this wasn't noticed before we pulled out -- the representative did a head count and asked if anyone could notice someone missing. Apparently there was someone who decided to wander from the group by herself. This cost us another 40 minutes to go there and get to the point we were at. We lost an hour that way.
We finally got back to Roma Termini at about 2:30 PM when we were scheduled to arrive at 7 AM. We were safe and sound back in our apartment at 3:30. It was such a nice day out today too -- what a waste. We wanted watch the Super Bowl but all of us are just too exhausted to move from our apartment.
All in all, a fun weekend but spoiled by the horrific bus trip back from Venice. Bus2Alps promised compensation for our troubles; I'm hoping for a full refund because we were paying them for transportation only and they couldn't even do that. We'll see what happens. It's 10:30 PM here -- already way past when I wanted to go to bed. This entry has taken me about 2 hours. Buonanotte!
Omg Kelly!!! What an adventure. You are soooo funny. Love reading your stories.
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Jackie