September 14th Venice, Italy
Today was a big day. I'll start at the beginning.
I went to school like usual, but today was my last day. Hooray! I even mini-graduated from the Dante Alighieri school. My teacher gave me a "diploma" and peanut M&Ms from the vending machine.
I was able talk to Direttore Bonomi in addition to a couple secretaries about meeting with the people from the radio station I will hopefully be doing my internship with. This upcoming Monday I should be visiting them and seeing the station. Exciting!
After that Amber and I went home and packed up for our first trip outside of Siena. It was frightening! We took a bus from our home to the Piazza Gramsci, the main bus station in Siena; we didn't want to carry our luggage all around town. We then took a bus to Florence. This whole experience was a little scary, but since we had already taken the bus into Siena from Florence, we were pretty confident we could find our way back out. And we did! Thanks to lots of confusion the first time in Florence, we even knew where the train station was in relation to the bus station. So we waited in a line that took a lot longer than you would think it would (seriously, how long does it take to say "I want a ticket to here"?) but finally got our train tickets to Venice. I liked taking the train a lot. It was relaxing and pretty, except every time I went into or out of a tunnel my ears got plugged. Weird. That's never happened before.
Thanks to very specific directions from the bed & breakfast we're staying at, we got off at the right train stop and found the bus station so we could take a bus to the B&B. It was getting dark, but we could still see out the windows of the bus. I got to see lights reflecting off some of the water and it made me so excited to spend the day here tomorrow. Also, Amber and I agreed this area looks very similar to Utah, which is weird, but also comforting. I started thinking about how we're more afraid of what we don't understand and I think that's applicable while traveling. I feel so much more at ease here than in Siena, even though that doesn't really make sense. It just seems more like something I've encountered before (medieval cities like Siena aren't all that popular in the U.S., haha).
Anyway, the bus drove out to what seemed like the middle of nowhere and took us to our "stop." It really was some place in the middle of what looked like grasslands with no nearby lighting and some graffiti-ed benches. But we followed our directions with faith. We were literally walking along the side of a busy street, with no sidewalk, in the dark and at one point a semi honked at us. But no worries, there were two other girls doing it too and they seemed to know what was up, so it's normal, right? Either way, we stayed safe and sound. I'm seriously so happy and impressed we were able to find this place! The only things that are nearby are a gas station and a pizzeria. I don't even know who eats there... Maybe in the light I'll be able to see everything I missed tonight.
The people who run the B&B seem really nice and helpful and they have a Hello Kitty coffee pot which means I, of course, am loving it here (because I like Hello Kitty, not because I like coffee). Hopefully I will post more adventures from Venice tomorrow, but now I am simply exhausted.