Day 56 – 2/28/2019 (Erik)
Separate post coming at you this week as me and Andrew went separate ways this weekend. For me it was a journey to the land of canals gondolas and carnival. I traveled to Venice Italy over the weekend to explore the winding streets with Ellie. It started with a 1am bus ride to Barcelona, Spain on Friday. My flight left there at 9:50 and I got int Venice around noon. I hardly knew I was even there as the entire area was covered with a thick blanket of fog. You could barely see the length of a football field and the city was rather spooky, with very few people around and the fog cover. It was exciting to explore the city in these conditions and we spent much of the day just wondering. After a little while I got the good fortune of being pooped on by a pigeon, which according to Italians will grant you great luck. So, I will have to wait and see if the Italians are right. We got a nice dinner on the island and then returned to our hostel where we met a group of mostly Australians and played some cards with them. We woke up thee next day and headed to a city that was transformed overnight. On Saturday the city was clear of thee fog but had instead been flooded with people. There were masses of people many of whom were in mask of full out, extremely ornate costume. We decided to take a ferry ride to an island called Burano. It was truly a beautiful little island. All the houses were painted in these vibrant colors so that when the fisherman come back, even in bad weather they can find their houses. We walked around there for a while, the whole time it seemed like a movie set to me. I couldn’t believe such a pace would exist. After a hot chocolate to warn up we went back to Venice, and stumbled upon a parade, with everyone dressed up like medieval knights. After the parade we fought the crowds and walk through the pedestrian version of rush hour traffic, taking an hour to get back to the train station. The same walk the day before took only 15 or so minutes, just to give you an idea of the crowds. We had dinner on thee mainland then went back to see the carnival at night. It seemed we had got there after all the big shows, but we did stumble upon a pop-up rave. Everyone was in animal themed onesies and looked like they were having a “wild” time. I woke up far later than I would have liked the next morning and rushed to my flight. I got through security 15 minutes before the gates were supposed to close, thankfully nothing in Europe is on time and my flight was to begin boarding in 20 minutes. I found myself with 8 hours to kill until my bus left from Barcelona. I did my best to make the most of it. I went to their Arc and sat in the park there for a little while and read. Then I headed down and walked along the beach for a while, soaking up the sun. Andrew and I plan to go this upcoming weekend, so I didn’t want to see to much. At this point it was time to start heading to the bus stop and after hopping on and a 5 and half hour trip I was back to Montpellier. Thankfully there were Ubers up at 2 am and I took one back and fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow. I got to experience, at least briefly, 3 countries over what was a great weekend! Cheers! – Erik
Rue 16 