Touristy Venezia.

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July 9

Travel day! We are going from Luzern, Switzerland to Venezia, Italy. Venice in English. Tonight is our first night staying in a hostel and not a couch surfer’s place. Exciting and scary. It turns out that the 2 bed private room we booked is actually a tent. I should have guessed; the name of the place, Camping Jolly, should have been a dead giveaway. But I guess I was hopeful. To its credit, the place really isn’t that bad. The tent has a little sliding door with a lock, so we’re able to leave all our stuff here during the day and lock it up. And we’re given beds and linens, so no sleeping on the ground. And the campgrounds have a bar, restaurant, pool, and even a workout room. Pretty nice for camping. And now for the bad news. Everything is way overpriced, so it makes me not want to eat or drink here. The bathrooms are very public. Meaning we have to share with everyone else. There is no toilet paper in the bathrooms. Or towels. And the bathrooms are pretty gross. Our tent is right next to a highway, so I can tell it’s not going to be a restful night. But for $16 a night per person, it will have to do.

July 10

Woke up really tired. Sleeping was not fun. Besides taking forever to get to bed (I think the tent next to us was having a fucking tent party or something), I got woken up many times throughout the night, from the heat, the cold, the mosquitoes, the neighbors, the music from the “Disco Pub” the camp offers, and the honks and beeps of the highway. Therefore, walking through the city was not as fun as I was hoping. The city was a mix of good and bad. Venice itself was built on top of a mud bank, which makes it unique in its own right. Because of this, the city is an island and is set up very much like Amsterdam, in the way that it has canals running throughout the entire city. The buildings were very old, colorful, and spaced strangely so walking through the city was like walking through a maze. Some walkways were very big, others were narrow, some led to nowhere, and some led to a canal. I loved the canals and the way that the buildings were literally right in the water. This is the city that is popular for gondolas. However, this brings up the tourist fact. The gondolas are not ridden by the locals anymore; they are solely for the tourists. The reason why we had to get a hostel was because not many people actually live in Venice anymore, so we really couldn’t find a couch to crash on. It is such a big tourist city. It was very annoying. There were SO many people there. To the point where the city wasn’t fun to visit. It was very disappointing. After this day, we went to a local pizzeria and got some Italian pasta, which was amazing. So that made the day better. And some Italian gelato helped too. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

July 11

Today we decided to not go into the city during the day. We spent the day lounging out by the pool at our campsite. It was a much needed day of R&R. After being active nonstop, from sunrise to sunset, for 3 straight weeks, I was exhausted. It wasn’t really a vacation anymore. Isn’t the point of a vacation to relax and have fun? Instead, I was stressing about where we were going to sleep next, how to get from point A to point B, which train to get on, which bus stop we needed to get off of, when we were going to run out of cash…well, it never ends. This “vacation” is turning out to be much more work than I would like. So it was really nice to spend a day doing nothing. No worries, stresses, or fears, just nothing. After a nice lunch, a day of lying in the sun and swimming, and showers, we decided to see Venice at night. It was a much different feeling because we were energized, it was cool outside (it was pretty hot during the day yesterday), and it was a different atmosphere. The lights and buildings played off each other well. And the fact that most of the tourists went to their hotels made the city much more enjoyable. We ate at another Italian place for dinner (can you get anything besides Italian food in Italy?) and after some gelato, we went back to the hostel. One more night in a tent. I think I can handle it.

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