From Chambéry to Venice in 12 hours

Hello to everyone from Venice! I am glad to be able to update you all today, as David and I finally got internet at our host's place today. But that is getting way ahead of the story, so I will start from the beginning:

At 6am David and I woke up in Chambéry (for the last time ever) to begin the final preparations for departure on our 8:25 train to Paris. We packed up all the last items, ate breakfast (I made French toast believe it or not), made sandwiches to take for lunch, and cleaned our way out of the apartment. Actually, we left the eggs in the fridge which I realized once we got to Paris so I texted our landlord my apologies and alerted him to the situation. But other than that, we have currently not found anything that we forgot to bring or forgot to do concerning the apartment. We'll see if that changes, but so far so good.

Getting from our apartment to the train station proved itself to be more difficult that we had originally anticipated because although we only have 6 bags, 3 each, they weigh a ton. Ok probably not 2000 pounds, probably not even 200, but it is rather close to that, about 150-175lbs I would say. We arrived in a very exhausted manner at the station, and boarded our train about 3 minutes before departure, so things got off to a tight start. However, after that our travel was quite smooth. Actually, it was after about 1 hour into the train ride that my motion-sickness subsided and the fun of travel began.

We arrived on time to Paris, it was now 11:18am, and we had half an hour to get to our meeting with the storage facility (henceforth Shurgard) where David and I would be storing our luggage. With the metro system in Paris, you can normally get anywhere in all of the city in under 30 minutes, so I figured this would be no problem. One tiny detail: the metro stairs. Did I mention we had between 150 and175 pounds of luggage on us? As mom can attest, the Paris metro has about 0 escalators in the entire system and about infinity stairs, so David and I not only took 45 minutes to get across town, we arrived tired, sore, and sweating buckets. Joy. On the other hand, though, the man at Shurgard was more than happy to help us and was eager to hear about our travel plans, telling us about how nice Venice is, and explaining to us how our storage box would work. He also got a kick out of me trying to say the word "verrouiller" (which means to lock) because it is really hard to say! That is the second time I have had to say that word in formal conversation and both times it has resulted in a smile. It is seriously difficult. But in the end, that appoint went smoothly so David and I were left with almost 2 hours before our train left to Beauvais airport. We alked to a nearby park (see picture below) and ate our sandwiches.

This is the park we ate our lunch in in Paris. We don't know what the thing on the hill is but we are going to check it out when we are back in Paris! It was a beautiful, albeit hot, day.

We made it to our next train in plenty of time and enjoyed a problem-free trip to Beauvais. Once there we were astounded to learn that the bus form the station to the airport only runs every 40 minutes, and we would have to wait 30 minutes more to get to the airport, but luckily at that point it was 3:15 and our flight wasn't until 6:55. In fact, when the bus did come and we finally did arrive at the airport, we still had to wait 45 minutes before check-in for our flight began. This was not a problem at all, as we enjoyed the free restroom (this is a rare commodity in France) and some card games and pretzels as we waited. Once checked in, we went to our gate and eventually prepared to board the airplane. In fact, we met another young and married American couple in line (I know, what are the chances) and we talked with them for a while, and again on the bus from the airport to Venice after the flight, and are even planning to meet up with them for a lunch one of these days in Venice. We certainly clicked and it will be fun to enjoy some more time with them. Here is a photo of us before we boarded our first RyanAir flight:

So here are the interesting aspects of RyanAir that help to explain why the tickets themselves can be sold at such low prices. First, they are extremely stingy with their baggage requirements. 2) There are only about 12 seats on that whole plane which can be reserved in advance. All the rest of us just get to pick our seats in the order we get on the plane. 3) They sell various items on the plane such as lottery tickets, perfumes, and the usual food and drinks. and 4) They have insanely positive statistics. They have the least number of lost bags of any airline, and the highest percentage of on-time flights, just over 93%! In fact, when our plane landed, there was a fanfare that played announcing our on-time arrival. At first it made some of us jump, but then most people we left smiling. Overall, a really great flying experience. 

This is a picture I snapped of the Alps as we flew overhead. I was admiring how awesome they looked when suddenly I realized that this was the first time in my entire life that I had flown over mountains. Even though I grew up in Colorado, I never flew to the West so I never actually flew over them. It was a really cool sight. I just loved it.

 Finally, we landed in Venice and in a relatively smooth fashion met up with our Couch Surfing host. As many of you who read David's blog post will know, there was problem with the guy that signed up to host us , and he informed us the day before we left (about 2 hours before we had to turn in our internet supplies) that he would help us find alternative lodging. Though this was not preferable, we felt we had no choice in the matter. Anyway, he gave us directions to our new host's house (which we have to pay for, but it is indeed much cheaper than a hotel for these two nights) but I would be lying if I said that they have only spoken a grand total of 3 words to us. It is probably the most socially awkward situation in the world. They aren't mad about us being here or anything, they just don't speak English and therefore avoid us at all costs. If it weren't for the price we probably would have left by now, but we figure it is only two nights so we'll make it.... what an experience though! I will give many more details in retelling this story at a later date when it is not permanently recorded in electronic history. I will say however, that we are both super happy that the change happened because it lead us to find the world's best and cheapest pizza joint right across the street. We ate dinner there last night and the owner/chef (who speaks very little English but loves conversing with us in English/Italian, which I decently understand) even poured us a free glass of wine each to enjoy as we chatted away over a fantastic pizza which served both of us for 4.5E. We have promised that we will be back in for dinner every night of our stay. We figure it is fun, a great price, and delicious, so why not?

Today marked the start of our Venice adventure, and though David and I walked ourselves into the ground we had a great time exploring the city. I'll let the photos tell the story:

This is David and I on one of the four bridges that crosses over the Canal Grande which runs through Venice. Whenever we needed a picture taken we would just wait until we heard some other Americans talking nearby and then offer to take their photo, and in exchange get our photo taken. It worked out well.

This photo is an exception to the rule above, because it is a timed photo that I set up on one for the more deserted bridges and less touristic parts of Venice.

I just loved all of the colorful boats floating in this canal.

Here is another canal picture. Venice sure is a gorgeous city.

Here is one of the many churches we visited today. Unfortunately Venice is a little particular about their churches, so that you can not enter most of them, male or female, if you are wearing shorts, and you have to pay. There were two exceptions that we did enjoy seeing, though for the most part we just saw them from the outside. In our other tourism days to come we have more places to see that are not just churches, we just figured we would use the first day to orient ourselves so that we didn't waste one of the three days during which we will have unlimited travel on public transport. (We start that tomorrow).

I loved the "street sign". Only in Venice.

Here are David and I on bridge number 3 that overlooks the Canal Grande. At that moment I was enjoying a wonderful though rapidly melting Pistachio Italian gelato (ice cream). It was delicious. 

I am particularly fond of this photo, which really shows off Venice culture in a picturesque way. Although I do harbor a bit of animosity when I see it because this really rude, unrightfully spiteful Venetian woman decided to literally shove me with her entire forearm and a grunt as she passed behind me. Not only did it startle me, it hurt, and could have made me drop my camera. I have no idea what her problem was, but it was very intentional and after she had passed onto the road you see on the left she turned back to glare at me. The situation made me mad because she was seriously so rude and inconsiderate, but I figure that it was my opportunity to "turn the other cheek" if you will. Just not the "other camera" because there is only one of it, and quite a collection of memories.

Well, I think David and I are going to head to dinner soon at our pizza place, but here is letting you all know that we are safe and sound and happily touring around Venice! (We probably won't cross any more grouches, haha). I'll try to keep you updated frequently! Ciao!