Running down A train

10/14/2009

Today we left Torino. We didn’t have exact plans for which train we were going to get on (we had to catch a train to Milan and then transfer to one to Venice, both lines ran two or three times every hour), so we took our time with getting out of Claire’s house. Susan told me that I could leave some things at the house because I will be coming back after I depart from Katherine. It is amazing how just a single grocery bag full of random things that I kept throughout my pack can make all the difference in how full and heavy my pack was. It is quite a relief to have a lighter pack, especially when walking through train stations. The grandmother that Claire lives with makes the best jam. We had it on already toasted bread that you can buy and it was delicious.

Claire took the bus down to the train station with us. She is going to meet us in Florence in a couple of days and wanted to look into ticket prices and trains. A guy on the bus kept staring at Katherine and trying to talk to her. He was extremely bizarre, which we picked up on when he started asking her questions like “What is your origin?” (meaning what nationality are your parents?) and “From this moment I will never see you again?” in additionally to not ever taking his eyes from her.

It ended up being a very good thing that she came along because we had to buy reservations for our trains and the reservation man in Torino was the first one we encounter that did not speak English. He was being persnickety about Katherine’s card because the back where her signature was is scratched off and he was not understanding that we wanted to pay separately. In the end, I put both of our reservations on our card, which was ok with me because then I get more rewards points. Apparently Italian trains are like French in that the majority of them require reservations. I just hope that all of the reservations are not 10 euro a pop, which could get pretty expensive.

The train ride totaled to about five hours. I finished the book I was reading, Eat Pray Love so that Katherine can start reading it. I am going to start Dale Carnigie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” next. Hopefully that will come into play on this trip, especially when I am on my own. Haha. I also had some thoughts on my travels after I split up with Katherine. With it obviously becoming fall weather, I am not sure how pleasant northern Germany will be. I think that I might throw Berlin and Heidelberg out of the plans and stick to more southern Europe. I can always hit those two places up later on in life. Katherine flies out on the 23rd and that day I will head back to Torino to meet up with Claire and her brother Miles, who is coming to visit her on his way back from a business trip in India. Then hopefully head to Cinque Terra with Miles and Claire, then Im thinking about going to Lugano (I haven’t fully decided on this stop and if anyone has an opinion about it or things to do there please let me know. Pretty much the only things that I know right now about it is that Kerry studied there and it is one of Dennis Manning’s favorite places (and while using parentheses with in parentheses, could be worth checking out just to see what he gets to hyped up on)), Munich to see the castle that we missed the first time around, then heading back down to Italy and stopping in little towns like Orvieto, Bologna, and Prugia. Well see how I feel about all of these matters once the time gets a little closer. That is the beauty of this trip, I can do what I want!

Once we arrived in Venice, we had to take a water bus from the train station to the hostel. This was a cool experience because it really made us aware that Venice is in fact a city built on water. The directions from the confirmation email about how to get to the hostel were again money and we made it without getting turned around. The hostel we are staying in is called the Venice Museum and is in an old building that looks pretty run down from the outside. Once inside we realize that the interior walls and ceilings were decorated beautifully with ornate molding. This hostel is by no means the nicest one we have stayed in but it is right in Venice, serves free breakfast and dinner, and has free wifi (even though it is very spotty). When looking for a hostel to stay in, we try to fulfill as many of those qualities as we can. We will only be here for two nights and this one will do for that. The major point against this hostel so far is that we had to pay for it in cash, which means we will have to hit up an ATM soon again.

Right after we got settled into the hostel, we set off to find a place to eat dinner. We wanted to go somewhere that served good Italian food (this would be our first meal out on our own in Italy) and be able to sit for a while drinking wine. We stumbled upon this extremely cute restaurant, so where close to the hostel. I got the impression from it that it was a place that locals frequented, so in my eyes perfect. The waiter spoke mediocre English. This is an important point to know because when we were ordering he was very pushy with what he wanted us to order. Instead of just letting us point to what dish we wanted, he kept trying to sell different dishes to us and obviously we had no idea what he was saying to us. Luckily the two dishes he was pushing we two options of mine, so in the end it worked out for me. I ordered taglitelli with porcini mushrooms and Katherine had carbonara. We ordered half pitchers of the house red wine, which I thought was delicious and it was served at the “below room temperature” temperature that I like. I did think that is seemed to have a little bit of a bubbly effect to it that you normally don’t experience when drinking red wine, but that was ok because it still tasted good to me. Obviously we got dessert. I had a tiramisu and Katherine had a chocolate cake. Both were wonderful. Three pitchers of wine later and multiple free things the waiter kept bringing over for us to try (like this berry liquor, fried vegetables, and grappa soaked grapes) we decided it was time to order another dessert to split, so we ordered an unbelievable meringue cake. The waiter brought over another half pitcher for us and after that it was time to go. When we got the bill we realized they charged us for sitting at a table and getting service. Interesting but oh well.

It was a highly enjoyable night and right at my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light!