Part Six- Venice

I woke up the next morning the most grumpy and ornery I think I have ever been. Lewis felt revitalized and rested and ready to get up at 5am to take the train over to Lauterbrunnen, but I felt like I wanted to kill a kitten if it meant I could sleep longer. He persuaded me to wake up enough to stumble over to the train station so that we could take a lift at Lauterbrunnen up to Schilthorn where a bunch of James Bond scenes were filmed.
We got there and went over to buy the tickets for the tram (again discounted because of our EuroRail pass). We told the guy at the ticket counter where we wanted to go and he started shaking his head. "You don't want to go there!" He said. We started to push back and he turned his monitor around so that we could see. "This is what you will see!" It was a whiteout. You couldn't see Anything beyond a few inches away from the camera. Defeated, we sat down to reevaluate our plans. While we were talking we saw a group of Chinese tourist come walking up to the counter. One of them pulls out enough cash to get all of them tickets for the tram. Tickets were around $150 per person without a discount and there were about 20 people there. You do the math. The guy who had just barely refused to let us spend the money to go up there gladly printed out their tickets!

Lauterbrunnen

I look so cold! 

We decided to cut our losses and catch an earlier train down to Venice. It was lucky we did, because if we had gone on the train we were planning on we wouldn't have gotten to spend that night in Venice. We bought some chocolate milk and pastries and headed south.
You could tell the moment we crossed the border into Italy. At our first transfer in Italy we noticed some shady business going on. A local couple were pickpocketing tourists and stealing any luggage that people were foolish enough to let out of their grasp. We kept a tight grip on our things and were happy when our next train pulled up.
We got to the Venice Mestre (mainland) Station and found a pay-phone so that we could contact Michelle who we were staying with there. He was nice enough to send his dad to come pick us up and take us to the apartment. We were warmly welcomed by Michelle's mom (Sona) and brother (Stephano). Sona had an Italian to English dictionary and was so excited to try to communicate with us. She made us sit down and made us some herbal tea and cookies while we tried to understand each other using the dictionary, maps, and sign language. At one point Sona wanted me to come see her garden but the gesture she made with her hands looked like she was shooing me away. So I backed up. And she made it again so I backed up further. She was finally exasperated and grabbed my arm and dragged me over there :) I found out later that in Italy that gesture meant she was beckoning me to come closer.
The family gave us very explicit instructions for how to get to the train station. I mean they drove us around and showed us Exactly how to get there and back. We assured them that we would be fine and took the train over to the real Venice. We wandered around, buying a slice of pizza here and a slice there, and a Nutella waffle and gelato somewhere in the mix. We tried to avoid the crowds and wandered around the side streets, discussing the difference between Venice and Vegas.

We started to get tired and sore, so we decided to call it an early night and took the train back to Mestre. Somehow, somewhere, we took a wrong turn and started on this super long, impossible journey to get back to the apartment. A one mile walk turned into a three mile trudge through the cold rain and dark streets. We finally had someone point us in the right direction and made it back to the apartment.
The next morning Sona made us a great breakfast with tea, croisants, orange juice, and yogurt. We said goodbye and Michelle's dad took us to the train station where we put our stuff in a locker so we could walk around Venice some more. I couldn't believe that the quiet, romantic place we walked around the night before had turned into such a circus! We visited a beautiful church, followed the Grand Canal for a while and battled the crowds for a picture on that main bridge that is so "unmissable." By that point my patience had worn thin and I was ready to find a quiet corner to regroup. We found the quieter part of Venice, paid a reasonable amount for some pizza and found a market where we bought some cherries. We hung out on a bridge, talking and tying knots in the cherry stems until it was time for us to catch our train.