Day 9: Venice, Italy (Saturday, August 16)

Another early morning for us today. I think I'm going to pass out for two days when I get home. Catch up on all the sleep I'm not getting. We were up and out of the hotel by 7:00. We needed to get on the rode for our six hour drive to Venice. We found a bakery close by and decided to park like the French while we quickly went in to buy breakfast. They just pull over to the side of the rode and turn their hazards on. We saw a lady do it yesterday blocking the wrong side of the street to quickly run into a pharmacy. She held up traffic and everyone was honking their horns. There were police men right by the car and they didn't even do anything about it. So crazy. But anyway, we bought some pastries and started our journey into Italy. 

The beginning of the ride was more of what we had expected our driving to be; close to the coastline so we could see the ocean. I attempted to take some pictures, but they don't look at all like what my actual view was. 

It was cool though. We'd go through tunnels in mountain after mountain and every time there was a little town in the valley between each mountain. 

We ran into a little bit of traffic on the way as well as some rain. I attempted to sleep for a while. Not sure how long I actually slept, I was quite uncomfortable. The rest of the time I just read or watched out the window at the beautiful scenery. Once we crossed the border into Italy we noticed a lot of vineyards. 

The plan was to finally meet up with our other friends, Russ and Ellen who have been traveling through Germany and Italy, in Venice. We kept trying to communicate with them since we nevwr established a time and meeting place. It's a little hard being in Europe without having service all of the time and having to rely on wifi when we can find and use it. But we eventually made contact with them through Facebook messaging. 

When we finally arrived in Venice, we had the hardest time finding a gas station to fill up! Tom is splitting off from our group and taking a train straight to Vienna while the rest of us are making a stop in Klagenfurt for the night. So we wanted to make sure we could figure out the gas expense. But every gas station we found only accepted euros, not credit cards. There were also so many that were closed. It was frustrating. Especially when it took out a ton of time from the already limited time we had planned to be in Venice. We finally just put €20 euros in at one so we could get back to the city and meet up with Russ and Ellen since we were now past our meeting time.

But then we still had to wait forever to get into the parking garage. There is only a small part of the island that allows cars. So everyone was trying to park their car to walk the streets of Venice. We eventually parked the car on the 10th floor and finally headed off. 

We met up with Russ and Ellen on this modern bridge. Apparently the locals weren't too happy when it was built because it didn't fit in with the authentic look of the rest of the city. I think I'd agree. It throws it off a little. But you get past it and there are so many other bridges that it doesn't matter. Anyway, it's going to be fun having Russ and Ellen around now. 

The first thing we did was find a place to eat. We ate at this little place and had some legit Italian pizza! So fun. 

We got some gelato afterwards and then we spent a few hours just walking around the streets of Venice. It's like a big maze! You really could get lost in there. We just walked aimlessly around not really knowing where we were going. But it didn't matter. We got to see and get the whole feel of Venice that way. The only thing we really knew to head towards was San Marcos Square where there is the Basilica of San Marco that overlooks the square. 

But guys, just take a look at how pretty Venice is:

If only gondola rides weren't so expensive. One day future husband and I will be back. Cause of course we'll be super rich and will not care how much it is.. I can dream, right? :) Except these guys weren't singing. So we'd pay them to sing. Or have our phones play music and pretend the guy is singing. 

It was cloudy when we got there and at first I was super bummed. I wanted clear blue skies! But it turned out to be the perfect weather. It rained on us briefly but it wasn't ever cold. The sun did come out as we were leaving the city and it was super hot. So then I was glad it had been cloudy the whole time. 

We got back to the car and said goodbye to Tom. He'll be staying in Venice longer before he takes a night train to Vienna where we'll meet back up with him. He served there and wanted to go to church and spend some time with the members there. So the five of us got in the car and made a stop to pick up Russ and Ellen's bags from where they spent the previous night and we were on the road again on our way to Klagenfurt, Austria!

You know, we did a lot of driving today, but when you have amazing views to look at the whole time, you don't really care. Seriously, everything is so green here! Beats driving through Nevada or the Midwest for sure! Then again, I don't think there is much that does beat driving through the Alps..

Ugh. It's so frustrating trying to take a picture behind a window in a moving car. Obviously these pictures aren't even close to how it looked in real life. Those pictures will stay in my memory. But at least these will help me remember later when I look back on this trip. 

We made it to Klagenfurt and since Liz and Logan were staying at a members house for the night (Logan served part of his mission here) Russ, Ellen, and I were dropped off at our Airbnb. I guess it's like a bed and breakfast type of thing. They've been staying at them for most of their trip. It's mostly just people letting us stay in an extra room in their house. So literally as I'm typing this, I can hear the guy and girl playing pacman in the next room with some hip music playing in the background. 

We got here around 9:00 which left us enough time to explore the city for a little bit. But of course we have wifi so we all sit and are glued to our phones the rest of the night. Pathetic. But oh well. It's dark and we have plenty of time tomorrow to explore after church. Plus I'm super tired and should really get to bed at a decent hour. 

Tomorrow: Klagenfurt, Austria!