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Today has been quite the adventure and it's only begun. This morning I'm heading to Venice for the day. I went onto the Trenitalia website last night to book my train ticket but received an error message before it officially booked. I took this as a sign maybe I should wait to buy my ticket until I reach the station. The front desk mapped out the directions for me to the train station earlier this afternoon. I would have to take the tram to the metro stop twelve and then take the metro to the Centrale F.S. Odds are, I will get lost. I'm no expert on metros, I usually leave that to Julia when we travel. So to buy a ticket for a specific time was probably not a good idea for me.
Last night, I chatted with the front desk about what time I would leave for the metro to make it on time. This was after that spritzer so I believe I was repeating myself. With agreement from the hotel clerk, I would shoot for the 8am train to Venice. I scheduled a wake up call for 6am.
At 6am I was awakened by my the call and absolutely went back to sleep. This was one of the most comfortable beds I has slept in and I was jet lagged. Surely Venice wasn't going anywhere. I would take the later train.
I showered, got dressed made a café and headed out the door. I arrived to the tram stop successfully. Eva and Bianca had thankfully showed me yesterday. Now riding the tram, I knew all I had to do was get off at twelve. But where was twelve?
I was looked back down at my map and grew entirely confused. Every time we made a stop I looked at the map, compared with the streets and had absolutely no clue how to read the guide. Disguising the fact that I was a tourist was literally impossible. I asked the woman behind me what stop was for the metro and she looked at me with confusion and said "No English!" I pointed to the metro stop on the map and all she said was "Twelve." But where twelve was and when to get off, I could not figure out. I thought we were on twelve. This is when I wished I had the girls still with me. We had been on the tram a while now and I was beginning to feel panicky. I was worried I would miss my connection to the metro. At the next stop, the woman behind me got off so I followed. Bad idea. I was in what appeared to be China Town. Now I was walking with my pack, down a brick alley at eight in the morning. No shops were open and I was aimlessly wandering in what I was hoping to be the direction of the metro. I decided to just follow the tram tracks. Could I have just flagged down a taxi? Sure. But I just wanted to ride this thing out. I wanted to see if I could survive without any help.
After I got out of China Town, I walked through a beautiful archway of trees. There were people on their morning run and I came to the conclusion maybe this side trip off the metro was not all that bad. I passed a park and continued to walk through the city. I reached a map and I was only two more stops to the metro. This was perfect.
When I reached the metro, I thought my worries were over, I made it. Incorrect. I had to buy a metro ticket and I had zero clue how to decide what stop I pay for. I was trying to think back to when I went to D.C to visit my cousin April. Again, I had let her do all the work when it came to transportation.
It was still early and the metro was pretty empty. I had no one to ask for help. I walked to a vendor and tried to use the Italian App on the iPod but failed. Irritated, the vendor replied "No English." Deflated, I walked back to the ticket machine. Now there was a cute Italian buying a ticket. I asked if he spoke English and he said "Yes." He helped me to purchase a ticket and said he was going to the same place so would walk with me. He asked if I was from the USA. I find it so funny when people call it that because we usually just say "The U.S" or "The States." I learned his name was Thomas and he was from Northern Italy. He had studied in Indiana for his Bachelors Degree. When I told him I lived in California, he grew very excited. He had heard a lot about California and thought it sounded like a dream. This was funny to me because I would say the same about Italy.
When I got to my stop, I thanked Thomas and hurried along. I clearly missed the 8am and 9am train, hopefully there would be another soon.
To avoid getting lost again, I asked someone in a uniform to point me in the direction of the train. As they were pointing, an older man said he was walking to the train and I was welcome to follow. He asked where I was from and once I said California, his eyes lit up. He grabbed his chest and said told me that was his favorite place in the world. He introduced himself as Denali and told me all about his last trip to San Diego. He told me all about his visit to La Jolla and Coronado Island as we walked toward the train. He was so happy to talk to someone who was from there. If he only knew I was from Elyria, Ohio.
Once we reached the ticket machine he asked where I was going, when I told him Venice he said I had only ten minutes and began rushing. He ran over to the machine and made it a mission to get me on that 9:30am train. Once my ticket spit out of the machine he grabbed my arm and rushed me through the train station. That process alone would have taken me twenty minutes to figure out what train, what time, how to pay. I would have never made it.
The entire time we were weaving in and out of people he was talking extremely fast in his strong Italian accent telling me all the things I must do in Venice. We reached the train and he stamped my ticket, reminding me you get fined if you forget. I was told this by many people before my trip and still would have missed that one.
He guided me right to the train gate and handed my ticket to the gate agent with four minutes to spare. It was a miracle I met Denali. I would be sweating by the ticket machine, still figuring out which ticket to purchase.
Life is a journey and you never know who you're going to meet. Had I not slept in this morning, would I have met a Thomas and Danali? Would someone else have helped me find my way to Venice? That I don't know, but something tells me all of that was set in place for a reason.
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