Date: July 22, 2024
Location: Venice
Blogger: Mary Lyssy ‘28
Hometown: Hobson, Texas
Howdy everyone! I started my day by waking up 15 minutes before my alarm goes off. Once I finally got up and dressed I made my way over to the breakfast area. I had a croissant with Nutella, a piece of Brie, a cup of hot tea, and of course my coconut Dr.Pepper. When I was finished I gathered my luggage and started to make my way over to the train station, and to my surprise it was raining outside. I arrived to the station with Chesney and Nic where we found out the train had been delayed. While waiting we went into a convenience store/ bakery and I finally found Gatorade and immediately grabbed the blue one. After waiting around an hour we were finally able to board the train.
When we started to pull into the station in Venice everyone started to get their luggage down and moved towards the doors. Now at the station I waited for the door to open…that never ended up happening. I then realized that I had to click the green button that said “Open” for that to happen. Once on the platform we waited to make sure everyone got off the train, then made our way to the ferry. When I found out that we were going on a ferry I wondered what it would be like because I have only been on ferries where you drive on it in your car so I was very curious to see what it was going to be like. The ferry was a smaller boat with a compartment for luggage and a section of seating with about 12 rows of seats on the inside. I was one of the first ones on and managed to snag a seat next to an open window. This made for the perfect view to take pictures from.
Once at our final destination we unloaded the ferry and redistributed luggage where I found out one of the wheels on my big suitcase was broken (sorry Brandi😬). When everyone got their bags we started to head to the hotel. On this walk I quickly realized that we were not staying in the Venice that I was thinking of. I pictured the town that is made up of canals with bridges that gondolas would pass under. This Venice was more modern and reminded me of New Orleans with a few nice canals. This turned out to be not a good but also not a bad thing. It’s good because there are modern stores to shop at but that’s bad for me because I probably shouldn’t spend more money. After we get settled into the hotel Sarah, Addi, Chesney, and I decided to take a look around town. We went to a few shops where I only purchased one sweater (super proud of myself).
After shopping around a little bit longer we went back to the hotel for about an hour then headed to dinner. We were sitting in the outside section and were served lasagna. It started to rain a bit so they put out the awning and dinner continued. A group of us decided to go to the beach to take a walk and collect shells. That was a good way to end my first day in Venice. I can’t wait to explore the surrounding islands in the next two days!