italy day 4: VENICE!!

now i am only 11 days behind!! yay!!


Friday: Day 18
Italy day four: VENICE

In the morning, we went back to Venice by the bus again.  The hotel was nice enough to let us leave our bags there so that we did not have to carry them around.  We ate breakfast at a coffee shop by the canal.  Afterwards, we searched for Italian Leather purses!! I found mine in one of the stores!! :D :D was sooooo excited.  Its definitely the coolest purse I have ever gotten, and I am really excited cause it will work PERFECTLY for my school visits this next year. 

We walked to St. Marks Plaza and we tried to go in the Basilica, but you had to be dressed appropriately, and most of us girls were in tank tops and shorts so we decided not to go in.  The girls had found an awesome pizza place that sold pizza by the slice to go in one of the alleys, so we ventured there and got THE BEST pizza we have had this entire trip.  Even better was that it was pretty cheap!! Kyle, Sarah and I shopped as we made our way back to the bus station.  Sarah left to catch a train with some other friends to Florence while Kyle and I headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags.  Of course we could not resist yet another gelato before we left Venice… our way of thinking was that every day we are literally doing nothing but walking and only stopping for lunch and dinner and therefore deserve daily gelato.  Not to mention it has been SOOOOO hot that the gelato is an excellent cold treat to cool us down. :)

Kyle and I successfully got off at the right stop at the hotel this time! Sweet.  We picked up our luggage and followed the hotel’s directions to catch the bus to the airport.  The bus the man told us to take was going the wrong direction though! So we asked the bus driver how to get there.  He didn’t speak English, but some of the people near the front over heard us and instructed us to get off the bus and go to the stop across the street.  Eventually we successfully found ourselves at the airport around 5:15pm.  The rest of the group was there waiting, and we found out that we could not check in until 6:15 for our flight (which is still 2 hours before our flight was supposed to leave).  So with our free time, we ate dinner at the pizzeria in the airport.  There was actually a sign outside the dinning area that told us that we could only sit in there if we were actually eating something and that we were supposed to leave when we finished.  So of course we did the logical thing and just took turns eating. Hahaha. We checked in for our flight at 6:15 and found out we could only take one bag each on the plane.  Kyle and I both had our backpacks and a small duffle, so we got Daniel to help us out by stuffing my little backpack in his big backpack so that we could check just the one bag.  Overall it worked out. 

We got to our terminal to realize that the seats on the plane are “first come first serve” which was a new concept for us.  We were at the very front of the line waiting to board only to find out that our flight was crazy delayed.  The craziest thing was that we went from literally the first people in line to having probably a good 15-20 people ahead of us… and we didn’t move. People were literally just pushing around and in front of us.  Some even took down the rope things that make up the lines, stepped in front of it, and fastened the rope back in place.  Apparently they REALLY wanted a good seat on the plane.  After going through the line, we actually had to take a bus to get to the plane.  Now, that was an experience! Everyone took one step onto the bus, and then stopped attempting to keep their front door status.  So of course it was ridiculous trying to get an entire flight on a bus.  The bus arrived at the plane, and people literally took off running for the stairs to get on the plane! We ended up getting separated, but Kyle and Amy held a seat for me next to them when I got on. 

That’s when we realized how CRAZY HOT it was on the plane.  They made announcements saying that they were sorry, but they could not turn on the AC until the first engine was running… this of course meant that we had to be ready for take off before we would get some cool air.  So everyone was really really hot.  The plane started to smell, and people were actually starting to feel sick.  People were still fighting over seats and storage space for luggage, though so we could not get moving.  People ended up having to check bags, and in general it was pretty chaotic. We realized just how much we appreciate American airlines, assigned boarding zones, and even assigned seats as well as the general idea of lining up in a single file line and not cutting people in line or even pushing them to get by.

Needless to say, our already delayed flight did not take off until 20 minutes after the time that we should have already ARRIVED in Naples.  Once we were in the air, the flight was fine.  The AC came on and everyone was relieved, and we successfully arrived in Naples 2.5 hours after we should have.  By then it was almost midnight, and we had to find our hostel. 

The people at the tourist desk in the airport were of little help to us.  Eventually, they told us the best way to get where we needed to go was to hop on the bus right outside the airport. We followed their instructions, and we each paid the bus driver and told him where we were going.  Within minutes, we were already realizing what a different place we were in.  The drivers in Naples are CRAZY!  They literally blocked in the bus, so the bus driver was just laying on the horn waiting for the car to move so that we could leave the airport.  Eventually the car moved ever so slightly, and the bus passed within INCHES.  It was so close that we literally found ourselves sucking in and holding our breaths! Now, remember that this is after midnight.  Apparently in Naples it is very common to have TRAFFIC JAMS AT MIDNIGHT.  There were sooooooo many cars on the road! Between the cars jumping in and out of lanes (sometimes lanes going the wrong direction even!) and the Vespas (spelling??) speeding right though multiple lanes of traffic, the 5 of us were in complete shock.  There were also all sorts of people on the streets, and it did not look like the nicest parts of town.  In fact, at one point while we were driving down the road this group of 5 or 6 guys pretty much jumped in front of the bus and started banging on the bus and yelling at the driver.  The driver started yelling back and doing some hand motions (none of which we understood), and the minute the outside guys backed off the bus, the driver floored it to get away! We were a little scared…

We were supposed to get off at a stop in the middle of nowhere and transfer to a different bus that would take us to our hostel.  The bus driver told us the number of the bus that was supposed to be coming, but then said if it didn’t come in a while that we should try going through this dark alley, around a corner, and wait for a different bus number… yep. We knew this was going to be AWESOME.  We asked him for a phone number of a taxi service just in case and he replied with “oh. 8888.” Hahaha. No joke.  The bus driver motioned for us to go wait at the stop, so we very hesitantly walked off the bus.  After we got off though, our bus driver stepped off the bus and literally waved down the next bus that passed.  We watched from the bus stop as he got on the other bus and talked to the second driver.  Then, he waved us over saying “Come! Come!” We quickly walked over to the second bus where he told us to get on and that this driver would take us where we needed to go.  Even better is that he told us “this bus safe bus.” Yep. REALLLLLLL reassuring!! But, from our previous experiences, we decided to just trust the bus drivers and see what happened. 

The way we saw it, we could either get on a “safe bus” with a driver that at least knew the city, or we could stay where we were by a scary bus stop with no idea where we were or how to go from there.  I think we made the best choice.  Especially with Kyle and I’s past bus history, every time we have been lost the bus drivers in places have been the most understanding and helpful people.  We have really come to rely on them.  So while some might say that we were risking a lot by riding this bus in the middle of the night in a city we had no clue about, we think we handled the situation to the best of our ability.  We had debated outside the airport just taking a taxi, but now down from our group of 6 to a group of 5 that would have meant two taxies, one with 3 and one with 2 people, and we really did not want to risk anything happening or risk getting separated.  Not to mention the bus we got on at the airport looked relatively nice compared to most of the other public transportation we had seen up until then.  So, we took the risky bus ride and like real travelers we went on an epic adventure that we still talk about days later. 

Anyways, back to the story, we road the second bus for a good while until the driver asked to see where we were headed.  We showed him the address of the hostel, and he told us that his route did not go there!! There was a moment of panic among us, and I think the driver could see it because he quickly said that he would to his best to get us there even though it was not in his route.  He told us all to take a seat and that he would let us know when to get off.  So, for the second time in that night, we left our “fates” to the bus driver and sat in our seats to observe the pretty sketch city of Naples.  After another hour of driving and pretty much the full driving tour of Naples, the bus driver motioned that the next stop was ours.  It still looked like we were in the middle of nowhere, but we left our trust in the bus driver’s hands and thanked him for helping us as we stepped off the bus. 

Turns out he dropped us off right in front of the little alley we had to walk up to find our hostel! Too bad we didn’t realize that until we had walked up and down the street both ways… We showed up at the hostel at 1:30am (almost 4 hours after we planned on arriving), and at first no one answered the door.  We almost panicked, but after ringing the door bell twice more a man finally answered the door.  Finally, we had made it to our hostel and could sleep for a few hours!  We found ourselves in an 8 person dorm style room with three people already sleeping inside (two in one bed…) over all an interesting experience.  I felt bad cause it was really late, but we were so gross we had to take showers, and then we still had to make our beds up and climb in.  Basically we did not get to sleep until 2:30 or even 3:00am, and I am sure our roommates were not too happy with us for it.  Daniel had to wake up really really early to get back to the ship in time for a SAS trip, so he left before I even woke up in the morning, and the rest of us were up and out of the hostel by 7:30am ready to attempt to find our ship. 

After that day's adventures, we decided that we would not be doing very much sight seeing in the city of Naples… instead, we would stick to places like Capri and Pompeii. :)