pictures.

the tower, it leans



pre gaming for carnivale with BL on the train.

Torino and Venice. Olypics and Water City. Dazed and confused/Stranded on desolate italian highways.

I suggest you drink a few espressos and put on an outfit that will last you Thursday through Sunday before you read this.

Thursday night. Barely made the train. Made it. Saw Cortona on our way. Played with Carnivale masks on the train.

First stop Florence. Did not do much. not a lot of time. Next Stop Pisa. Whoa? WHAT!? PISA!! Leaning tower at 3am? I THINK SO. We realized we had a three-hour layover in Pisa. None of us were willing to make a separate trip to Pisa but during a layover, come on! None of us knew the work for tower in Italian so we just said “Dov’e (where is). . . ” and leaned.

Back on the train. Sleeper car like attempt. A tad cramped. Sleeping was a joke.

Boun Giorno, Torino! 730 am. Paid for a clean bathroom and then began our tremendously extended search for where our game was to take place. Found someone to ask, shot us over to someone else to ask. Fine, they do not open until 11. Fine. We will get a coffee and site see. Back. Nope, wrong place. Lindsay and Swati stake out food and the entrance, Bettylou and Kate—FIND THE BLASTED TICKETS!!!!! Bus. Tram? Lines. Met a very nice Canadian boy who tried to straighten me out with a map. HAHA. Fine. Long line. WE HAVE 20 MINUTES!!!!!!! No, no, Bettylou tried to find a better place, I try. NOO!! Some how we then figure out we are in the wrong place. Bye bye, nice Canadian, Grama would have been proud, off to the CoSport office. Darn it, we have NO time. Time to Taxi. Get there via taxi. He waits. . . . honk. You need my passport?! Dig in purse. Dig. . . phew. Grab. Run? Wait, wait! Sign?!!!!! GOOOOOoooo. Taxi. Give him the address and SHOW HIM A MAP of where we are going. Got it? Duh, he is a cab driver. Get there. EVEN LET HIM KEEP THE CHANGE . . . WRONG PLACE!!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!! Past 1300. Way past 1300. Hailing another cab. A driver sees us. Calls us one. Took a long time. Bettylou and I were standing at opposite sides of a large area trying to hail cabs. One stops, we get in. WE GET YELLED at because we did not call the taxi. Get out of the cab. New cab. Will not speak to us. Get to the right place. Sprint out. See Lindsay and Swati who take their time getting to us,. We are going nuts. They finally reach us and share with us that the game has yet to begin. What? (We find out later that the game had in fact started, actually and entire period had been played, oh dear). Get to the game. Fin game. Met some Americans. Surprise. They were nice. Once was named Katie. Surprise.

Are you alright ? Do you need to take a break? You cant. Keep going!

We found tickets for the US Women’s Hockey game. Exciting. Not too pricey. On the tram met the family of one of the US Women’s Hockey Player’s, Molly. Met two women who kindly escorted us to the venue. We did not have to think. It was nice. I had a di prociuto-ed sandwich. Life was good. We got in. Phew. Amazing game. AMAZING. Wow. It went into overtime and a shoot out. The US did loose but the game was incredible. I got to talk to Daddy during the shoot out. That was fun.

Saw the torch. Check (-ed off) and wow.

Okay, by the way, WB was in Torino too. We had one of our ooops, bumped into you in an Italian city moment and said ciao, see ya later. At the train station we managed another meeting and WB announced he was joining our Venice trip!!!!!!!!! How exciting!!!

Train to Venice. Ugh. To sun it up we ended up sleeping on little chairs that pop out of the wall in the corridor of the train cars. People walking back and forth. Lots of stops. Folded over. Sleeping?

530 am, boon groin, venezia. Good morning in deed. Ha. Enthusiasm lacking. Found waterbus tickets on the waterbus. They last an hour. We rode for one hour waiting for the sun. I must say getting into Venice early in the morning was a neat experience. Venice is one of the most unique cities in the world. I walked up to it and occult not see it. I had to wit for the sun. There must be something poetic in that. I was way too tired to appreciate it then.

Good morning, Sunshine. Wander in the (attempt at sun) and cold until a church opens. Church opened.

I am not remembering well. We did that. Headed for an old handmade journal place. A scary, over tourist-ed bridge. And off to Murano, the glass blowing island. We slept on the waterbus. That was neat. We saw a demo. Looked at a ton of glass. I now have another goal in life—to have an overly tacky Venetian Chandelier. It will be splendid. We bought a “family” of colorful glass owls for 5 euro, each took one.

Landed. Hello, it’s the first day of Carnivale. Face paint time. As I was getting my face painted (color scheme, PINK) Daniel Castro found me. Daniel Castro is a good friend from Interlochen. Interlochen, I have not seen him since we went to camp together the summer after my sophomore year of high school!!!! HE FOUND ME!! I knew he was in Venice, he knew I was in Perugia, but the likelihood of that actually happening? We briefly chatted. He still playing the piano, his English is better. I still can’t believe he found me. Wow. So I saw Daniel. Jeepers.

3135. Face painted, WB and I taking a serious picture, as per usual.

Got food. Missed the big showdown in Saint Marc’s Square. Tried to find the hostel. Oh, man. I hate this part. Finding our hostel was painful. We could have died. This brings to mind horrid memories which I will soon bare to the keys of my laptop.

I have to take a minute. Breathe. Okay.

Going to make some more tea. Calming.

Okay. The first time it only took us about two hours to get to our hostel. We took the waterbus and real buses and then walked across a huge highway. No big deal? It should have only taken about 20 minutes, fine, just fine. We had not slept since Wednesday night (it was Saturday evening). We were fine. We made it. The hotel which was connected to the hostel seemed fine. The receptionist led us down a dark garden path to the hostel. It was clean. One of the two rooms was properly heated. No problem. Nap time. Crash time. Two hours later Bettylou and Swati were knocking on the door of the room where Lindsay and I were actively living healthy comas—guys, it’s the first night of Carnivale, we are going out.

Back to the main area of Venice? We did it in about 30 minutes. This was a cruelly deceiving point of our night which contributed to the horrific confusion and frustration we later encountered.

Went out. I had an amazing mascarpone e café crepe. Danced around outside of a bar on Saint Marc’s square. Saw Darth Vader. Bettylou said “Ciao, may the force be with you.” Good comic relief that would have been better inserted into about 3 hours later.

We finished earlier then we thought, thats okay, we would get home in plenty of time. Oh, I type too soon.

Waterbus. Got it. We did not have to wait to long. Good.

OOOO, quick insert. US Women’s Hockey won the bronze!!!!

Okay, water bus. Landed at Piazza Roma. Got on the night bus. No problem, we were directed, strictly instructed to get off at the first stop. We did not like the first stop and stayed on the bus. We stayed on the bus for a long time. Watched chunks of Venice flowing by. Ride it to the next stop? I think that is what we did. We rode it around all of the way and then got off at the right stop. Oh, we ended up at Piazza Roma for a little while. Back on the route. Pushed the button. Got of. Side of the highway. Its IS a bus stop. I saw the bus stop sign. Foggy. Early in the morning. Nothingness. In a city we have never seen. What we have seen was predominately at night. Fine. We started walking. As far as we knew this was right. We ended up walking on the side of a highway, overpass, ramp, intersection thing. Luckily it was so late there were not too many cars. Fog. Foggy. Fog. We had not slept. Where is the hostel? Fine. We called the hostel. He laughed at us. Do not worry, I wrote a review of the hostel which will soon be found on hostelbookers.com. Call us a cab, please. He called us a cab. We stood. On the side of the highway. In Venice. In the fog. The bus came. Fine, forget the taxi. We got back on the bus. Took it to some train station. We got to the hostel. All wanted to kick the reception man. To bed.

In the morning there was free breakfast. YAY, FREE. We sat down had coffee, nutella, roles, normal continental Italian breakfast. Oh, I got an idea. Lets take some of the prepackaged toast and jam for later. Without any stealing savvy, I marched up to the breakfast table took four of each and marched back to my seat. I was followed by an angry Italian server, yelling at me for taking what I would not be eating on the premises. I told her that I was just getting for my friends. I made them eat it. After we had gorged ourselves on the nutella and rolls I asked my friends to consume even more. They did. And I did not get killed by the angry Italian woman. I Smiled and told her to have a nice day. This event reverts back to the day I stole a button that looked like red sunglasses. Mom made me return it to the manager. I took a different approach this time. . .

The Peggy Guggenheim in Venice was amazing.

The ride home we stopped in Florence and I got to see Lili for 20 minutes.

Finito.