Buon Giorno!

The first lesson I learned on this trip was why we wear seatbelts in the airplane when the fasten seatbelt sign is turned off. About halfway over from Miami to London, we hit a turbulent patch. Actually that's an understatement. I thought we were going to join the Titanic miles below the sea surface. Now I'm not normally a white-knuckler; I was on 33 planes just last year, so you could say I've got a fair bit of flying under my belt. I know the drill. But when the 250 pound monstrosity of a man overflowing out of the seat next to me goes flying out of it and almost hits his head on the ceiling, I get a bit worried. A lady a few rows in front of me almost passed out and was having such a hard time breathing that the flight attendant moved her to the sleeper cabin with a tank of oxygen (note to self: next time when you're stuck on the last row by the bathrooms, fake a faint and you'll get your own bed for the rest of the ride!). Flight attendants were handing out barf bags, and they were being snatched up as quickly as children grabbing for free cotton candy at a carnival. So began the trip of doom to Venice International University. Now that I'm here, sitting in my own smaller-than-twin sized bed, I can say that Venice is indeed just as beautiful as I remembered it to be (and also a fair bit smellier than my recollection). But this was not the case at this point in the story. Well, the plane finally landed in London, and the pilot offered a sketchy explanation that the turbulance was caused by an enormous tailwind. I managed to get all the way though passport control and pick up my bags....and I had to walk 15 minutes with them from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1. There, I attempted to check in with BMI. First I was told by some guy who really didn't seem like he knew what he was talking about that you can't check in more than 30 minutes before the flight left. I know that's a bunch of baloney because no one in their right mind would require you to check in, go through London security, and get to your gate in less than 30 minutes. So I thanked him, went and sat down for about an hour (I still had more than 2 hours before the flight departed), and came back and was able to check in. I suppose I should thank the lady who weighed my bags, because she let me pay only 100 pounds for being 24 kilos overweight when the rate is 5 pounds per kilo. I thought that was a bit excessive, but I couldn't really leave anything behind so I had no choice but to put it on the credit card. Then I had to practically empty my carry-on because that was also 5 kilos over the weight limit. Why don't people just lose weight? If 9/10th of the cabin weren't obese, they wouldn't have to charge for overweight luggage. Anyway, I got on the plane and quickly fell asleep, even though I was sitting next to the sketchiest man alive who kept trying to look down my shirt and talk to me. When I arrived in Venice I picked up my bags, bought the water bus ticket, and walked them down to the pier, where a very nice boat captain helped me put them on the boat. I mostly spent that trip asleep too, except for a few times where I started because I dreamed that I had missed my stop (and one time where I woke up with drool on my shirt...but you probably didn't want to know that). Anyway, Venice International University messed up big time: they put on their website to get off at the San Marco stop, when it would've been a lot less hassle to get off at the stop before that. Unfortunately I didn't know that information until after I had gotten off at San Marco. I took one look at the streets and wanted to cry. It was like trying to walk against everyone else at Disney World on Thanksgiving weekend. With two huge bags that each weighed 50 pounds. I was determined to get to that public boat though, because it costs 6 euros as opposed to 45. So I manage to spend 45 minutes squeezing my way through Italians in ornate costumes and tourists taking pictures....and I made it all the way to two buildings away from where I needed to be. I had walked about a block and a half of New York City blocks, the long ones, with more than 100 pounds of what all of a sudden seemed to be unnecessary belongings, and I came up to a bridge with stairs. With stairs! It was jam-packed with people and there was absolutely no way I would've even made it up the first stair on my own. But there was hope! I looked around and saw about 4 policemen standing in a corner nearby. I wheeled around to them and asked in shaky Italian if they could help me. I told them I needed to go to vaporetto number 20. One of them asked me, "do you speak English??" When I answered yes, he told me to go across the bridge and the stop was right there, two buildings down. I already knew that information. I wanted his help carrying my bags just up to the top of the bridge (I'd take my chances clunking them down the stairs by myself). He said "not my problem." And watched as I walked away, frustrated and upset and crying. Some tourist decided that a crying girl dragging two huge suitcases must be part of Carnevale, and asked if he could take a picture. I found that to be really funny, and would've laughed if I weren't already crying. I had overheard other tourists saying in French, Italian, Spanish, and English, "look at the poor homeless girl with her suitcases." I was really tempted to just sit down on the side of the street with a cup in my hands in the hopes that people would give me money for being a bum. Hey, if people donated as much as they commented, I could make good money like that. Anyway, I walked all the way back to where I had started from and took a private water taxi to San Servolo. You couldn't possibly imagine my frustration at having slaved away to get all the way within 2 narrow buildings of where I needed to be, and then having to turn back because of a stupid bridge. But anyway, I got here, and the island is rather.....well, it's completely walled-in with iron bar-covered windows, but the view from my third floor double is really pretty. Our building is right on the water, literally, and Suki (pronounced Saki), my Japanese roommate, is really nice too. So really this semester can only get better. Well, I suppose, unless they tell me that I didn't get into any of my classes or something like that. That'd be truly tragic. Anyway, now it's 10:45pm and my eyelids are 3/4ths shut. I believe I owe it to myself to lay down in a real bed, with my legs stretched out, where the floor won't shake or all of a sudden drop 1000 feet in midair. And no fat guys taking up half my seat! So I leave you with the pictures I promised Mom, just to prove that I wasn't exaggerating about the crowds (and then some pretty sunset ones):

I had to walk to the building that sticks up a bit next to the farther lightpost.

People everywhere!

This woman and her two daughters were rather plain costumes...I couldn't get close enough to the really spectacular ones to get good pictures because of my bags. I'm going to try again tomorrow though.

And the sun setting through the "prison bars". I thought it looked cool just sitting in the middle of the circle there.