Day 37 (Monday, June 19)

I was the first one up in the room around 7:20, and I took a glorious shower that was much-needed after a full day of head and sweat before. One of my undershirts made for a good towel since I forgot a real one. At least I was able to use real shampoo and soap that I ganked from the awesome Rome hotel instead of using the provided hand soap. :-)

I left the hostel at 8 and caught a bus to canal part of Venice. I had a map and started to wander through the city, but I hadn't gotten far before I ran into a group of GTL peeps. They were debating whether or not to take a gondola ride, and they decided to do it and asked if I wanted to come. I figured it would be a pretty cool experience, so I hopeed in and rode through the canals for 45 minutes. The city was absolutely gorgeous, and I felt like I was authentically in Venice as we went down narrow alley canals with flowers and ivy all over the buildings. That was probably the highlight of my day in Venice.

After the ride, I pretty much spent the day walking down every street in Venice. There were shops and vendors absolutely everywhere, and I did a little more shopping. But really, it was just nice to walk a little bit, cross a bridge, walk a bit, cross a bridge, etc. One thing I found out is that Venice is the easiest city to get lost in, ever. It is extremely difficult to orient yourself when half the street names aren't on a map at all. There were a couple of times I was on the clear opposite side of the city I though I was!

I had a great lunch at a pizzeria called Gino's. A tomato, cheese, and mushroom pizza and a sprite really hits the spot on a hot day when you're starving. A little later, I had a super-cheap, amazing gelato of strawberry and nutella! Yum! Today was my last day to enjoy Italian cuisine, and I fully intended to get my fill! :-)

In the end, I spent from 9 - 4 in Venice, and I'm glad I did. I had heard some negative things about the city, but I really liked Venice and enjoyed my time there.

Right at 4, I caught a train for Milan since I had an overnight train leaving there at 9. I got to Milan at 7, and tried to find a tourist information center so I could get a free map, but of course in Europe everything closes early, and this was no exception. So, I just walked outside and stayed close to the train station. Milan was a kind of shock after Rome, Florence, and Venice: it was a modern city, even more so than Rome. It looked more like New York than anything European, but it still had pizzarias, one of which I ate at. I had a four cheese pizza that was scrumptious to the max. They had a rather large single bathroom, so I did my best homeless impression and brushed my teeth and changed shirts. I had been wearing a dark shirt all day and it had white salt stains from sweat everywhere!

After the meal, my Italian experience was just about over. I went back to the train station and found my train. I found out that there actually was something worse than reclining chairs on overnight trains: a non-reclining chair in a compartment with 5 other random people. In fact, for the past two hours, I have been writing this commentary, and it is currently 4am. I got spurts of 20 minutes of sleep here and there from 11 to 2, but I gave up and came to the back of the train where there's light.

Well, I guess that about does it for the Italia trip. I should end up in Metz a little before 8am after a few train transfers. This has been an amazing weekend, and it has been awesome to see each of these cities that are so full of history. It was tough to get all the logistics down, but everything turned out just fine. Now, I'll just have to come back someday with Rachel since we both haven't seen the Vatican. :-)