So today I left Switzerland.
It started with an early breakfast (6:30 in the morning?! really?!) and man-handling my suitcase down the stairs. The thing was heavy to begin with, and going down stairs was a nightmare. Anyway, after breakfast it was out onto the (cobbled) street and up to the train station. It wouldn't have been nearly so bad if my suitcase did not pull incessantly to the right. Thankfully they had a decent-sized elevator at the train station.
Our first train was an hour's ride to Brig. We settled in and I continued my very good book, content in a quiet train ride. Then we got to Brig and knew we had around thirty or so minutes, but that we would have three to get on the next train after it arrived. We are all told how the groups split into cars and the leaders were given sheets with reserved seats listed on them, so we should have been good, right? No such luck; we heard a fuzzy, unclear announcement about a change of plans over the intercom. Our high-speed train apparently wasn't coming. So we piled on to a regular-sized train that came instead and tried to find seats-- the train was nearly full. Well, my suitcase is larger than every other suitcase on the trip, and it stands two feet tall and eighteen inches wide. There was no way it would fit overhead. I ended up in between cars with my overweight suitcase. Thankfully I wasn't alone-- Dr. and Rita Wohlers, the trip leaders, were also stuck between cars. Then someone from my group came up and said she heard that itwasn't the right train, that we had to get off at the next stop. Everyone turned to Wohlers, who coolly walked off to find a conductor and straighten the whole thing out. He came back saying that we would have to get off at the next stop but this was the train we were looking for. The high-speed to Venice would be at the next station. Apparently it never made it to Switzerland. So we train-surfed laden with suitcases while some unencumbered young men went through the train cars spreading the word.
We arrived at the next station without enough time to regroup and discuss which train we all thought it was. Some of us had very different ideas, but I trusted the guy in front of me and headed across the platform. Then I saw it, too: a sign above the train saying Venice. I knew it had to be ours despite the Swiss train system logo on each car. My group found car number four easily enough with six leaders finding it (we have a group of all leaders and haven't managed to bite each other's heads off) and I started the daunting task of finding everyone's seats. That's when I found out that the seats are numbered very strangely on that particular train. 105-108 was not, after all, in a row, but spread out over three seat pairings at odd intervals. Nor was 97 next to 98; 91-93 were scattered as well. We had to talk to some people who were just as confused as we were who were in our seats (but we had the reservation ticket that proved we were supposed to at least be in that area, so we had the upper hand). Soon we all settled down and I was finally able to get back to my book. At some point lunch was made and I ate two Nutella sandwiches and a handful of sour cream and onion Pringles and drank this really cool Swiss drink that tasted kind of like carbonated apple juice with orange and other tangy flavors mixed in with grain. I went back to my book, then fell asleep, then back to my book, then listening to people around me. Soon the announcement came on and everyone started packing up: we were coming up on Venice. I had left my hulk of a suitcase in the luggage area on the other end of the car, so I had to wait behind the noisy French school group to get it. Then we stepped outside and into the heat and sunshine of Venice.
Venice, if you don't already know, is a series of islands interconnected by canals and bridges. There is no room on the streets for any sort of vehicle other than maybe a bicycle. Maybe. This means that, unlike other cities in Europe, Venice has no train, trolley, or bus system. Instead they have a system of boats set up like buses, complete with lines and frequent stops. There is no other way to see the whole of Venice.
We got out of the train station and headed down a short way through a street that branched off the Grand Canal to a seemingly random alleyway that we realized went to our hotel. Speaking of, it is quite charming with a garden courtyard and beautiful rooms. I am so blessed to have a room off in the far corner of the courtyard. It just makes me happy walking to the room with its cheery surroundings! We had a little under an hour to settle in before heading out to see San Giorgio, and in that time we found the wifi and I found out that an old friend of mine is actually staying in Pisa. I haven't seen the guy in, like, four years, so I was genuinely excited because we're going to Pisa on Saturday, or Sabbath as I call it. We found our way to that boat system I mentioned and got our tickets. We hopped on the number 2 line to Lido and got to see Venice from the Grand Canal. I took so many pictures I had to switch SD cards. Then we found out that we had gotten on the wrong boat because Lido was as far as this one went-- it did not go to the island with the San Giorgio cathedral on it. After we straightened out that debacle (switching boats was interesting, but we all made it safely) we found out that we had a half our to be in and out of the church before the doors closed.
We headed straight inside after some guidelines from Dr. Wohlers. As it turns out, Tintoretto has at least two paintings inside, the two next to the altar being the most famous. One is The Last Supper, featuring more movement and drama than Leonardo DaVinci's serene piece by the same name. The other is something about the blessing of the manna. I felt quite proud of myself for one thing I found that no one else did: a small statue of San Giorgio (St. George) on the pedestal on the side of the entrance to the choir. And they say I'm not detail-oriented. We then quickly made our way back through the church, oohing and ah-ing over the detailed statuary and beautiful artwork. Outside, we gathered in front of some golden modern-art pillars and learned the history of Venice as told by our illustrious Dr. Diller. I have to say, I love her lectures. I get it when she explains it. After that we posed for a quick picture, hopped a boat to the closest thing Venice has to a mainland, and split off for the evening.
My main goal for the evening was to get to this wonderful pizzeria called Gepetto's which offered an amazing pizza called Pinocchio (I'm a Disney freak), but there was no such luck. Turns out no one near where I thought the place was knew about it. We did have a fun time cutting through San Marco plaza and walking by the Ferrari shop, though some guy in the plaza tried to scam my guy friend into buying roses for all of us girls nearby. That's just so wrong in my book. I had to give the rose back, though I had thought something was up when a street-vendor-type guy handed me a rose. We made it to the Rialto bridge just fine (though I would have found it even without the signs, and in fact the signs led us out of the way). We found a different pizzeria that offered a primavera pizza with tomatoes on top (just the way I like it!!). We had a wonderful time even though we had a table with nine people crammed into it. We were making new connections, right? Anyway, after pizza and the check were handled, some of us got gelato next door. I decided, and my mother and friend agreed, to wait. It wasn't urgent. Then five of our group got this sudden urge to go on a gondola ride, especially after finding out that the group price was 100 euros. Five or more people riding makes that around 20 euros a piece-- not exorbitant in the least. The other four of us were feeling too tired to try it tonight, so we went back to the hotel after a mix-up and a boat ride. We stopped for better (cheaper) gelato, hit the ATM (unfortunately Italy doesn't handle Swiss franks), and came back without another hitch.
I will say this about our group's version of telephone: we didn't hear anything about the rain in Spain staying mainly in the plane, so we didn't do too horribly.
