
So Nicole, Amy, Jake, Ethan, Colin, and I arrived in Venice and began our search for our hostel. We spun around in a few circles in the train station, got pointed in the direction of the bus stop we needed, and boarded the bus. Before we boarded the bus we realized that we were going ten stops in the opposite direction of Venice. We were a little worried but we got on anyway because we had reservations at this hostel and we were under the impression that it would be nearly impossible for us to find other accommodations in Venice because it was Carnival time.

We rode the bus for about 45 minutes and finally arrived at the Arbuddabaraba-camp ground, (I don’t know how to spell it) and realized just how far out of town we were. At first we were really unhappy with the situation and thought about taking our stuff and finding another place to stay. We were all really tired though and we decided to go into our rooms and take a nap. After waking up a little more refreshed we decided that we would try to tuff it out and see if we could manage. By the way the rooms were little cabins.
We took the bus back into Venice after our rest walked around and got a bite to eat. At like 7 oclock we returned back to the hostel to get ready for a long night of drinking and mask wearing for Carnival. We returned to town, bought lots of booze and walked around Venice for the night and drank in the streets wearing masks. It was a fun night but we didn’t pace ourselves quite right because instead of following through with our original plan we took the last bus (12:30) home instead of pulling an all nighter and waiting until the bus started running again at 5:30. We were pretty bombed by 12:30 and 5:30 seemed like it was quite a ways away. On the bus ride home we realized that the hostel we were staying in had a lot of students staying there (no respectable adult would) and that would come into play for the group later on.

The next day I woke up at like 9 oclock again, went and hung out in the restaurant, had breakfast and read most of a novel because again I had like 3 hours to kill before we went into Venice. Nick, Nicole, Amy, Chris, and I all went into town because we were ready first and we were going to meet Nick’s friend who is studying in Bologna at the train station. We met up with Dom and went and got some lunch. I had the most expensive pizza of my life. On the menu it said like 6 euro, I ended up paying like 17 euro because the tacked on a bunch of extra little bills that they don’t tell you about. I was kinda mad about that but oh well. I think that kinda summed up how I felt about Venice, too much tourists, too easy to nail tourists with little bills, and too expensive.
Overall, Venice won my vote for least favorite city on our trip because it was too touristy, and we had some pretty cold weather while we were there. Carnival was interesting, but it was more aimed toward older people who like to spend lots and lots of money on extremely fancy costumes and going to balls. So it was nice to see how much people get into the costumes, but I wasn’t really into it.

I will say this for Venice, that canals would be a romantic place for a couple to go but riding on a gondola with a few guys having some Italian singing to you is just kinda weird.
I got on the train from Venice to Nice at like 10:30 Saturday night. I was going to ride with Thegan, Alicja, and Bana because Thegan had an extra reservation for first class. That was an awesome hook up... I was so grateful, nice big seats for the 12 hour train ride! I still didn’t sleep that well, and with that long train ride I finished a 400 page novel in like 5 days, due to the mornings with time to kill and the long hours on the train ride. For people like mom, that’s not big deal, but I’m not usually such a quick reader. We switched trains in Nice (being rushed and yelled at by the engineer for holding up the train) to the train to Marseille. It was an uneventful train ride, and I finally had returned home. Tired, poor, well-traveled, and hungry.
This is one of the many couchette's on the trip. I'm need more pictures of Venice.
Jake, Ethan, and Colin stayed in Venice that Saturday night without a place to stay. Their plans were to stay awake all night and get really drunk and take the next train out at 7 am I could tell that the plan was not good and they reaffirmed my notion the next day when then said they had experienced the worst 4 hours of their lives from 3-7 when they were shivering, puking and sleeping next to homeless under newspapers. They said they didn’t regret staying, but felt that I made the right choice. Spending that many days together really brings you closer together, and I am now much much better friends with Jake, Ethan, and Colin