I was so so so excited to go to Venice. Its just one of those places that you dream of going to one day, and I was on my way there. Of course I would have loved to be going there for a romantic getaway with the love of my life like in the movies, but this would do for now ( and I can always go back one day ;) I was like a little kid in the candy store when the train was about to stop, and the initial view of the city was everything that I expected. It was a gorgeous day and we walked out to one of the large canals and beautiful bridges crossing them. The journey to the hostel was frustrating and nice all at the same time since Venice is a massive maze and a map is completely useless, we walked around in circles for some time and it was wonderful to see all the cute small streets with the canals and gondolas with men in striped shirts singling and all the couples awwww.. so romantic!! After dropping our things we started exploring and within 30 minutes Jess saw a group of people that she traveled with earlier in the trip. It was such a coincidence but really great because they had been there for a few days and were able to show us around. We had dinner, got some wine and hung out in Piazza de San Marco for a few hours and headed to bed early since we only had the next day to see the city, we wanted to be well rested.
We got up and planned to be packed and out the door by 10am. We were right on schedule when we realized Jess’s clock was an hour off and it was actually 11.. not happy! Good thing is, as beautiful as Venice is, I think you only need a day to see the important things (minus the lovey dovey). We didn’t stop all day and really got quite familiar with the city. There are so many amazing mask shops and after seeing how they are so big on the masquerade (as they should be since it originated there) I really really want to go back for the carnival in Feb. hopefully I can work that out. My favorite part of the day: Picture us at a corny souvenir shop looking around listening to an English woman on the other side yell at her kids..”Stop touching everything.. you don’t have to touch it to see it.” I decide to non saliently whisper to Jess “Ha well I do” as im trying to open a compact mirror. Still trying to open the stupid mirror I flick it and it goes crashing into the ground, completely shattering. I quickly pick up the mirror, run inside while yelling “don’t worry I’ll pay for it!”.. as the woman walks over to me and points and says “SEEEEEEEEEE this is why you don’t touch when your looking!”… then proceeds to look at me and say “thank you for being an example for my children.” Haha!! Still makes me laugh! Im just glad it was a mirror and not something super expensive. Slightly embarrassing. Anyway, after all that we enjoyed our the rest of our beautiful afternoon and early evening strolling around the streets, doing a little window shopping and being jealous of all the disgustingly romantic couples everywhere. We grabbed our bags from the train station where we had stashed them for the day and then headed to where we thought the bus was going to pick us up since we asked the entire town of Venice where we could find out where our bus would be and not a single person knew. We prayed for it and vua-laaa it came. Not a bad ride, except that my legs well my calfs really have been starting to kill, flip flops have not been the most supportive shoe to explore these cities in, and my legs are yelling at me for it. Got a little sleep but charlie horses kept waking me up.
About an hour early to what we had expected at 5:30am, we arrived to Budapest. First time I think I ever was mad a bus was early because I just wanted to sleep more. We made our way outside and it was freeeezing. I definitely didn’t pack properly, I guess I didn’t expect to get this far north during this trip, so I thought it would be a bit warmer. Thankfully Jess has a few bits of warmer clothes that shes benn nice enough to let me borrow. We knew it was much earlier than our check in time, but we decided to try to get into our hostel anyway. Thankfully there were a few people up (still from the night before) and they let us in and this was my favorite hostel yet. It was just like a big apartment and everything was done very family like. We had our own room which was SO nice, and the common area was so comfortable, and the people so nice. We met a group right away and went to grab some breakfast and go on a 3 hour walking tour. Great tour guide, she was hysterical. We learned a lot about the history of the city and got to see how pretty it was. She had us rub a horses balls for good luck (the things those Hungarian people do.. weird) saw the castle that Walt Disney designed his castle after and brought us to a yummy proper Hungarian meal afterward. Jess had this meat and pumpkin baked thing that was absolutely out of this world. I should have ordered that! Next a group of us broke off and considered going on another tour about communism but we got back and sat down, and after sitting for a few minutes decided we were too tired and relaxed for about an hour instead. We bought tickets to the opera..we were in the nose bleeds, but it was really cool to go and listen to the music and see the theater. We saw Mefistofele which was a weirrrrd opera, there were grown men playing with doll houses and barbies, and plastic lawn mowers, and wings and toothbrushes, supper strange, and completely in Hungarian so I have no idea what it was about but I enjoyed being there. We left during intermission and back to the hostel for a night out. As typical I was tired so only stayed out for a few hours, but the nightlife is crazy here so had to get a little taste.
So now Im in Vienna, and we are just about to have a really nice homemade dinner, but I will get to that later when I finally catch up to where I actually am on this trip. Till then! Much love!
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