trip day 11

 Trip Day 11:  Florence to Venice by train

I was grateful to sleep well and to be able to sleep in a little.  I woke up naturally at 7:30 and felt great.  I got my last Arno run in and there were lots of runners out.  One guy kept threatening to pass me and kept me fast.  Blue says I look like a skinwalker in my running photos.  I guess I need a run and a coffee to look normal.  

We finished packing and walked with the group to the train station.  We got on our train and found our seats.  Again, Violet and I were saved by Hope's mom agreeing to switch seats so we would be together.  Violet was sitting among a bunch of loud Australians and one of them "had his dogs out". 

Of all the ways we traveled on this trip, and we did travel most of the ways, I enjoyed the train the least.  We had to sit backwards and stare at strangers, but looking out the windows messed with my brain.  I tried to focus on drawing.  I had given out all of my Greek "you are beautiful" drawings and needed to make a bunch more Italian ones.  

There was a kid sitting behind us who brought some loud games onto the train.  One of them was a manual game that clicked loudly when he pounded the plastic pieces.  Most of the ride was "click click click click click click click click click click...." and my travel nerves were wearing thin.  I appreciate that various games kept him from screaming so I tried to be positive and ignore the sounds.

I love Venice.  Love it.  We arrived and had to regroup outside the station by the water for a while.  The sky and water was refreshing.  

The seagulls were not.  These guys are a different, evil breed in Venice.  Within the first 15 minutes of being in town, our group lost two sandwiches and a couple of slices of pizza to the gulls who would literally take it out of your hands.  I respect the hustle.  

Violet was a bit nervous about taking boats everywhere but she quickly saw that the vaporettos were fine.  We got to our stop and had this not so great sculptural landmark to orient us.  Pretty but just not great.

A short walk away was our little square.  We stayed at the Doge Residential apartments near the small church were Vivaldi was baptized.  I was pretty sure immediately that our place was haunted.  

The levels of exhaustion were hard to describe.  We were 11 days into an epic trip and our minds were tired from seeing lots of things, people-ing for 12 hours each day, not sleeping well and from some pretty intense travel situations.  Still it was tough to not be happy and have a good time.  We just had fun while being exhausted.  We found a cool little place to eat dinner just a few steps from our apartments.  Our waiter was Kamrul and he was a treat.  He was very nice and he goofed around with us like we were old friends.  He even brought us all free Limoncello before we left.  

So in Athens, there were these annoying kids with drums who would stalk you on the street.  They'd run up to you drumming loudly while staring into your eyes.  You basically had to pay them to leave you alone.  We ignored them.  While we ate, this dude with a cool accordion did the more mature version of that.  He looked classy and the sound was very Italian, but you basically had to ignore him or pay him to go away.  

I had spaghetti with meatballs and Violet had gnocchi.

After dinner I had to walk to the canal to see the view.  I love Venice.