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Europe, March-April 1998 Continued... Venice, Italy So my first mistake was not knowing that our train from Rome arrived at 10 p.m. By the time we got to Venice, the city was shut down and we were too tired to go in search of lodging. We ended up trying to sleep on the train station floor, currently being occupied by some other travelers with no other prospects. They seemed well prepared as they had sleeping bags and pillows. I had a small throw that my grandmother had knitted for me and my backpack. Casey had his backpack. So we lay down between the bars that marked off the lines for tickets and tried to go to sleep. By the way, I found out that night that it is almost impossible to stay warm without insulation on stone. Oh yeah, did I tell you that I can't sleep if I'm really cold? So Casey at first, says, "This is great! Usually I feel too hot when I sleep." So about an hour later, I've moved to the wire bench and he gets up and tells me he's really too cold to sleep. We pull out our train schedule and decide to hop on the train to Verona which leaves at 6:30 a.m. and arrives at 7:30 a.m. at which we can hop on a train coming back fifteen minutes later to arrive in Venice (again) at about 9 a.m. We get in the train compartment, close the door and draw the curtains. We pull the seats together to form a sort of lumpy sleeping platform and go to sleep. We wake up in Verona the next day, hop back on the train to Venice, and we're right back on schedule. We take showers in the train station for a reasonable fee, check our backpacks, and start to wander around. We stop off for breakfast at McDonald's. We feel a bit guilty, but we are in need of comfort. Everything gets better from there... It's a wet, drizzly day but we don't care. Life is grand, we are young, in love and in Venice, one of the most romantic cities in the world. Casey takes a moment in our wanderings to buy a pair of leather gloves to protect his cold-prone hands. We don't splurge on the private gondola ride, but take the easy way out to say we've done it by taking the gondola ferry to the market near the Rialto. At the market he buys himself a great stalk of broccoli. The lady we buy it from looks at us curiously. We head to the fountain behind her for some water and to wash off the broccoli. Then he strolls past her, munching on the raw stalk and she bursts out laughing and makes strong-arm gestures, jabbering about vitamins. We try licorice gelato near the Rialto and at the end of the day decide to buy a picnic dinner and head over to Budapest. At the station, we get our bags back and head over to a bench to make dinner. We had a ceci salad with mozzarella, tuna and tomato and a squeeze of lemon, mixed in a water bottle. Some terrible focaccia accompanied our meal and we had a passable packaged panna cotta for dessert. To season our salad, we had purloined a salt and pepper shaker from the cafeteria. Right before dinner, Casey decided to board the Orient Express and take a picture. Shortly after I took the picture, he was booted off the train.
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