Fine dining- of a kind

In a 24 hour period, I had a foccacia bread sandwich in Genova, Italy for lunch, a nutella crepe in Nice, France for dinner, a croissant in Touluse, France for breakfast and tapas in Barcelona, Spain for lunch. Although this fact in itself is what I would classify as "badass," it also reflects my completely insane lifestyle from last week.

I left Bosnia in the early afternoon on Monday 11/2. I spent the following 24 hours getting to Venice, first on a long bus ride to Zagreb, Croatia where I had a layover, and then on a night train from there. On the bus, the man sitting next to me clearly wanted to engage me in conversation, but I didn't even know enough Bosnian to tell him I didn't speak the language. He eventually figured it out (I tend to become a mute in countries where I don't know the language, because I don't like admitting more than I need to that I am foreign and ignorant), and then he resorted to offering me these dark, sweet vaguely-licorice flavored candies for the rest of the trip. It was pretty cute.

In my compartment on the train there were two French guys and an Italian, all around my age. I could have tried to talk to the French guys, or spent more time eavesdropping on their conversation, but I decided to try to get some sleep instead. I figured I would need the energy when I got to Venice. I did talk to the Italian a little, in English. He was very nice, and gave me some recommendations of where to go in Italy (Milan, his town, Lucca, a small university city, later seconded by another traveller, and some other similar place I forgot the name of). I didn't end up going to any of them yet, but hopefully I will later on the trip or on another. He also lent me his jacket to use as a pillow. He also happens to be a music critic for Vogue-Italia, which I think is pretty flipping cool, considering he's literally a few weeks out of university.

So I got to Venice around 7 am on Tuesday. I didn't have a plan of how long I would stay or where I would sleep, I kind of thought I would take a night train out, probably to Florence, if such a thing existed, so I could avoid paying for a hostel, which were more expensive in Venice than I had found in London and Budapest (the only places I have needed to use them thus far). I stored my bag at the train, and they charged a flat rate for the first 5 hours, so I figured I might come back to the train station 5 hours later and reevaluate my options.

Sadly, it was raining when I got to Venice. It hasn't rained too much on my trip, but it is kind of a big damper to my plans and spirits. It's nice to be inside when it's raining, to be somewhere warm and cozy with a book or a movie or a friend and a cup of tea. It's a lot less fun to be randomly roaming an unfamiliar city by yourself, looking for interesting things and inpsiration.

My first impression of Venice was that it was a very wet place. It is anyway. In the place of main streets, there are canals. Often when you follow a winding street for a little while, you dead end at a canal. Then with the rain, the sky was wet, and the ground flooded. They put down all these duckboards (I think that's what they call them?) and the famous plaza was like a giant wading pond. It was kind of cool and quirky and interesting, but it was also very wet.

It was also in Venice that it started to dawn on me in a big way that I'm not really cut out for proper tourism. When it comes down to it, I don't care that much about seeing popular famous places and things and going to museums. I like to be in places where no one is trying to sell me anything, and I vicerally object to places where the opposite is true. So Venice wasn't really my cup of tea, even though it is a really unique place that is fun to explore and look at.

...I've decided to break this up into more manageable chunks, because it's going to be long. See next installment coming soon!