To Venice

In the morning, Shandra showed me where to get true Italian pastries, explaining that that's what real Italians eat for breakfast. Fiesole is a small town, so Shandra was good friends with the pastry shop owner. She showed me her favorites, so I got one of each. They were absolutely delicious. One pastry was filled with blackberry and chocolate, and the other, cream with forest berries. It was a wonderful breakfast. Afterward, I said goodbye to Shandra. The night before, Sean and Shandra sat down with me and prayed for me and my journey, and I thanked them for all their hospitality and kindness.

I went down to the train station, and sat there for about 2 hours before I could get on a train to Venice, but I finally found one, and traveled on it to Venice Central Station. The main part of the day was basically spent traveling, and then as usual as soon as I got off the train, my time was spent ensuring my survival in a new city.

I got off the train, found a map of the city, and went looking for a hostel. It was really difficult to find one in Venice. They, like most of Italy, don't really have much of a hostel culture. They have lots of hotels, but very few hostels. I found two and they were both completely full. Traveling in the weekends has been really hard. Everything's always booked solid. Things get booked in the opposite way than I expected before this trip. The first things eaten up are the crappy really cheap dilapidated places. For some reason, on the weekends I can't get into a cheap crappy place for the life of me. The only places that have rooms are the nicer 3, 4, and 5 star hotels. That's so frustrating, because I don't want to have to spend almost 100 euros a night for a hotel room I won't even use but to sleep in, when I would be perfectly happy sleeping on a rusty bunk bed for 20 euros. I finally found a place that was willing to give me a room for 60 euros, but even that felt like way too much, but what choice did I have? I checked my funds in an internet cafe across the street after settling in. I was struck with disbelief when I discovered I have only about 4,000 dollars left for this trip, which meant I'd already spend more than half. Then I thought about it some, and went over what I'd payed for in my head, and realized I'm actually almost about halfway through this trip anyway, so for the most part I should be all right. In the beginning, through the UK and parts of the middle east, I hemorrhaged money, most places paying way to much than I had to, which is the sign of an inexperienced traveler, which I certainly was/am. I'm slowly getting better, however it still seems I'm grasping to hang onto money. So many of you have been so amazingly generous in donating me money for this trip, and I've been really trying to use it well, but it just always seems to go by so fast. Part of it is the exchange rate. Every euro is worth a dollar and a half, and things in Europe (especially in the major cities) are expensive even by euro standards. I have been getting all your donations though, and they've payed for a good majority of my eating so far, so thank you. I was also thinking that in the countries to come, a lot of people have already come forth and given me places to stay in, of which I am extremely grateful. I tried to make a list while I was in Florence, of people who had gotten back to me that it was ok for me to stay with them, and then I accidently deleted it while I was making room on my phone when I ran out of space. I'm sorry! So if it's at all possible, that some of those people who are allowing me to stay with them could email me and confirm that it's ok, I would be again, so grateful (liveforgod2087@yahoo.com). I'm sorry, I was just stupid and didn't write the information on another place other than my phone. Or, if any of you reading my blogs know of someone who might be willing to take me in for a couple days, I would really appreciate the connection! The places I'm still planning to travel to are: Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Sweden, and Norway. I know of a couple people whom I'm planning to stay with in some of those countries, but email me anyway if you could, I would much rather have too many people to meet and hang out with! Well all that has been my greatest concern as of late. It's really difficult jumping so many countries like this. It takes a toll on your mind, trying to keep track of so many things. That solitude time I took was well needed, however now it's like I've jumped right back into the fire.

By the time I'd taken care of my finances somewhat, I needed to go out and look for my exit point from this country so I would know what I was doing when the time comes to leave on Sunday. I decided I'm going to try to take an all night ferry from here to Debrovnik (if that's how you spell it), Croatia on Sunday night. There were two main ports represented on the map, so I picked one and made my way towards that direction. When I got there, the guard on the way in told me the port was closed down, and that I had to come back tomorrow to book a ferry to Croatia. He seemed to at least know what I was trying to do, so that told me maybe I was in the right place, but I'll have to find out tomorrow. The internet access and phone service is all very fragile around here for some reason, so I'll do my very best to answer any emails and check comments and all that as soon as I possibly can. Thank you all for traveling with me thus far on my journey. It makes me feel like I'm not alone when the road starts winding so far from home.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&TDave Gilbert