We had quite an entertaining ferry ride back to Italy. The first random friends we made were this old couple who stood on the bow with us as the ship pulled out of port. The gentleman, who spoke with an unrecognizable accent, later confirmed to be Israeli was kind enough to take some pictures of our group for us. He was with an attractive young blonde from Las Vegas who was an opera singer and not too many years older than us. He, was an accomplished software program developer who no doubt sold it for millions and had been traveling with his young "lady friend" for the past 2 months- driving all over Italy and Croatia. An older man with enough personality for every person I know who works and develops software programs, he struck up a friendly conversation with us. He got such a kick out of our stories of our adventures through Europe thus far and how lucky we are to have the chance to "spend daddy's money" .. he went so far as to ask each of us our majors and potential career paths.i absolutely dread this question. i am so affirmed in my choice of International Business and Marketing as my majors and french, bien sûr as my minor, but that in no way means I have the least bit idea what I want to do with it. I know things I dont want to do .. like end up like every other stereotypical college grad.. or the cliché McDonalds worker .. but I am constantly reworking my plans, thoughts, ideas, myself, and frantically trying to piece it all together to form some sort of cohesive and well functioning member of society. Anyways, after a nice chat that concluded with some solid law advice for my friend Libby and suggestions of good restaurants to eat in Venice .. the last thing he said before he walked inside was to me .. and he looked me straight in the face and said "young lady, you are going to go far in life. i can just tell". i dont think words like that have ever meant so much to me. coming from a complete stranger, who i interacted with for a total of 45 minutes on a Italy/Croatia ferry felt like he had a good enough impression of me to confidently pay me such a compliment. it blew my mind.
not long after, we made friends with these 2 Croatian girls. Sisters from Split, they were traveling to Italy to watch their other sisters play volleyball. Why such a committment? Because 2 of their sisters are on the national Croatian beach volleyball team. at nearly 6ft, blondest of hair and prominent features-- despite the fact that they were friendly and nice as could be -- they were beautiful. Ana, 16, and I hit it off immediately, swapping opinions of every major American pop culture star and evening singing along to her ipod while the boys played poker nearby. her older sister, Katrina, 23, showed us pictures of her gorgeous Croatian boyfriend and regaled us with her plans to star in the 2016 summer Olympics. no big deal. cant wait to watch and tell everyone "I KNOW HER". Ive said it a million times but i LOVE meeting people. especially those from other cultures and getting to experience how their cultures mix and interact with ours. the amount of similarities astounds me. they knew every justin bieber song/fact/recent news and spoke perfect English .. as well as Croatian and Italian. If it was not for the accents, i would have thought they were American .. judging by the way they interacted with us, simple nuances and small little things like the way they carried themselves, laughed and spoke about boys!
so we arrived at the train station back to Ancona and almost immediately jumped on a train to Venice. Absolutely packed with Europeans traveling for Easter, we were unable to get any sleep so we passed the time playing rummy.
i will never forget the feeling of stepping out of the train station in Venice and seeing the waterways abuzz with boats, gondolas and vaparettos (water taxis) .. its more beautiful in person than any photos or Madonna videos could ever produce. it nearly took my breath away. we were aware of the limited amount of time we had to spend there so we quickly rushed to our hostel. Ostello di Venezia. the most hostel-y of all hostels i have ever seen. we were in a 16 bed mixed dorm room. . 8 bunkbeds and lockers in the corner-- bathrooms down the hall, separated for the sexes, dinner served from 5-1am and free breakfast. no towels offered and very limited private space. but hey, 22 euros a night, right on the water.. what can ya do. please see previous post about what traveling as a college student does for your standards. we freshened up, showered and hit the streets to jump on a vaparetto to St. Mark's square.
i would like to dedicate the whole next paragraph to the woman we conversed with on the vaparetto to St. Mark's . Per usual, whenever I hear English, particularly American and if I am feeling in the right mood and the situation calls for it-- i enjoy striking up a conversation. Such is the circumstance where we met this couple from Boca Raton, Florida. First of all, she looked to be pushing 45-50 and he was maaaaaybe 30. ah c'est la vie. and i asked her if they had any advice on what to make sure we saw whilst in venice. first thing she says to me. "honestly, i dont like it that much." i can only imagine what the face i made looked like to her. she continued "its dirty, smelly and the people are rude." .. so far, 3 of the most complete opposite opinions i could ever imagine hearing. "the pizza is terrible and is the thickness of paper. geez, i just want a nice Pizza Hut pizza" ... im sorry. COME AGAIN? youre really comparing PIZZA in ITALY to PIZZA HUT? i could not believe my ears. apparently they have been traveling Italy for 2 weeks .. and she had these opinions of their past ventures.. Florence: "ugh too many students, just bar scenes and nothing to look at or see" .. Rome: "i got bored of all the old things." SERIOUSLY? and this lady was well put together, obviously educated and well off given the outfit she was wearing and her Boca address. I literally cannot stop thinking about this poor and miserable woman. that must be how she lives her life. i could not imagine EVER entertaining such thoughts. She gave American tourists a terrible name. I felt so bad for all those nearby who could comprehend our English conversation. |
| Libby, Trey, Ian, Kory, Moi, Kat |
just means i will HAVE to go back sometime in my life.