More of Italy

So I am not in the best of moods right now... however, this will be posted at a different time because we have to pay for the wifi here.

Katie and I have made it to Venice. We are staying at Camping Jolly which is in a suburb of Venice. After taking the train from Florence (which was beautiful!) we took the local bus and then had a nice 15 min walk with our packs to this place. We were suppose to be in a “dorm” but when we got in I went to pee only to find out that the toilet didn't flush. When telling this to the staff, the man just put us in our own little RV. So far they haven't told us we will have to pay more so we like having our own little place. We went to find a grocery store and the same man told us to walk on the busy road and it was on the left hand side by the street light. We tried to do this and found out that this was like walking on the side of the freeway with no side walks. We decided to try in the other direction to find something and we would stop at whatever came first: a store or dinner. We found a pizza place that had cheap pizzas so we got a onion, grilled eggplant, zucchini, pepper, spinach, and cherry tomato pizza. It was fantastic except the fact that we got take out and they didn't cut the pizza for us. Also, when we opened the pizza each sixth of the pizza had a different topping on it. I thought this was a very mean joke. I don't know if having the veggies like that is the “Italian way” or if they just thought it would be funny. So we sat on a bench outside tearing apart the pizza and rearranging the veggies. Neither of us really wanted a whole slice of cheese and onions. Once it started raining we decided that we could do without the store. Our walk back was wet and windy my 4 Euro umbrella is a little worse for the wear now.

I decided to write this up now, so I wasn't wasting precious internet time, and I wanted to charge my computer at the same time. However, this is harder than it would seem. We are more or less stating in a trailer and the only plugs are above the bed pointed downwards. This combination with heavy plugs does not work! So I just have to not move too much.

It is raining, thunder and lighting, and the trailer moves if we move too much... it's interesting.

On Friday Katie, Laura (Katie's friend from architecture), and I went to Cinque Terre. Friday was May first which was a local holiday in Italy. Plus, the sun was out and it was warm so everything was crazy busy! We started with the furthest away town and hiked to all five towns in just under 6 hours. The hike was gorgeous but because there were so many people it was a little disappointing to me. I like to hike alone or just with the people in my group not in a line where you have to keep going because people are on our heals or get stopped behind other people. I'm still happy that I went. Once we had finished we got back on the train and we were so happy that we found seats, however, we found out that even though the ticket said nonstop we had to change trains. We found this out when the train conductor came through and more or less yelled at us in Italian for not getting off. We were just about the last people on the second train so it was standing room only. Katie finally gave up and put her towel on the floor where I joined her for a while until a few seats finally opened up once people started to get off.

Traveling this time around has been a very different experience. I think my head is in a very different place than my last trip (I'm not really sure where exactly my head is though). Being sick so close to when I left hasn't helped anything and the fact that I am scared that my tonsillitis will come back doesn't do me any good either. While I am fine now I'm sure these things are lingering in the back of my mind and any sign of a sore throat makes me freak out just a little. I am missing SE Asia so much right now. Italy is a whole different ballgame that I just haven't quite figure out yet. I'm starting to get the hang of it but am not quite there yet.

Pictures will come later.