Venice & Verona Weekend

Man, What a weekend!

Since being in the hotel we've met a lot of people! Since I can't stand to stay in side all day I tend to migrate towards the front of the hotel and hang out under the awning. I've met many people coming and going this way.

After a few days, there was a collection of us that found ourselves out there hanging out together for hours. We are now called 'the brigade' HAHA. There's Angie & Rob, and their son. They came from Lewis. Lucas and Deidre. They also came from Lewis. Heather and Anthony, I *think* they came from stewart. The MILF guy. He is just an older creeper guy, who really amuses us. Then Dan, myself and our kids. All of us, minus the milf guy got here just about the same time. All of us wives felt the same exact way. So I think that is why we bonded so much. We could relate to each other. Vicenza has also grown on us all since we've arrived.

Lucas and deidre have been the go getters. They were out and about shortly after they got here. Not out and about to the market like me, but off to venice.

While hanging out one evening under the awning, we decided that on saturday we were all going to load up, hop the bus, go to the train station and take the train to Venice as a group. Everyone minus milf guy.

And that is exactly what we did.

So we met up in the lobby here at the hell-tel and began our journey to Venice. And what a journey it was! I truly haven't laughed so hard in my entire life! I really haven't enjoyed myself like that in a long time!

We take the bus to the train station- those drivers are crazy to say the least. We arrive at the train station and get situated to get the train. We stop to get a bite to eat in the mean time. We hop the hour and fifteen minute train to venice. We took the slow train because Lucas said to.

Note: Lucas is the most fun person to pick on and it is very amusing to blame him for any mishaps!

I did do previous research on the train and waterbus and venice itself but I didn't have anything on hand that I printed out, and my memory sucks. So we just flew by the seat of our pants. When we get to venice it was just so beautiful. And guess who left the memory card for her camera at the hotel, yup this chick right here!

We had to pay .80 euro to pee. I am not kidding. I had to PAY TO PEE! Seriously? I have to pay to get drink and then pay to pee it out? LOL

We walked and walked and walked. Looked at so many things. Boston was being a mr. cranky pants so we found a pharmacy and went in to get benedryl to knock hom out. They don't carry it. But he noticed this winnie the pooh doll its about 5 inches tall and wanted it. It shut him up. It better for 18 Euro. Sucka! I stopped and got some post cards to send home to family. While doing so, we noticed that there are just dogs everywhere. And they just pee anywhere. We continued our journey. We stopped at a restaurant and got some dinner. While eating the random dog just walks up in the restaurant. I think I almost had a heart attack. Dinner was amazing. We then began our journey back to the train station. We stopped and I got a very beautiful masque.

Now here is when it gets interesting! We get back to the train station and the ticket booths are closed. We had the men running around like a bunch of lunatics trying to figure out how we are going to get home, finally they find a window open, get our tickets for the fast train and we have like 6 minutes to catch the train... and my kid has to pee. So we book it to the bath room, haul back to the train and just to find out we are on car 7 & 9 ... so we have to run even further.

Lucas was then fired as our tour guide ;)

We get back to vicenza catch the bus back to Ederle. We put the kids to bed, then the gang when to the awning to hang out for some drinks and relive the day (harass lucas).

On Sunday, Dan stayed home with the kids and I got to venture out to verona with the brigade alone. I am glad we decided to give the kids a break because Lucas and Mr. Iphone got us all sorts of lost!

Oh Mr. Iphone, is Kits husband. They are the newest members of the brigade. Lucas and Iphone are friends from a previous duty station.

Same thing as saturday. We catch the bus and off to the train station we go. Well this time we found out that we never validated our tickets from the previous day. We didn't know (this came about when we were told to validate our new ones). I guess we could also be fined if they ever checked the tickets while en route. We take the slow train again... get to verona.

None of the 10 of us have been to Verona before. GREAT! Luckily kit can speak enough Italian to get us going. So the boys, Lucas and Mr. Iphone pull on mapquest on the iphone (hence his new name) and put in the arena to get us to where we need to be. We were trying to get to Juilet's castle. We walk... and walk... and go in circle and "u's" because of the cross walks. Almost get taken out by cars. And then we are there! By the Arena.... The Arena, not the coliseum by juliets castle. We are by the Arena where they just got done with soccer. So, while we try to figure out where we are going, we grab a beer for the walk. There are a bunch of rowdy people out in the street just having a good time. Then they start cheering. We figure out why! There is a guy on the 4(ish) floor of an apt building out on his balcony dancing in a thong! We were rolling.

Kit finally gets someone to be able to help us and we are on our way again. Heading back to where we started and then in the opposite direction from before. Before long, we are in the city center of Verona. Ahhhhhhh!

Now... Lucas and Mr. Iphone have been fired again.

Everything was just amazing. We walk the strip to Juilet's castle. The entire strip was just filled with wonderful stores! The whole walk way was marble. Holy cow is that harsh on the feet or what? I got my self some gelato. Ahhh-mazing! We finally make it to Juilet's statue. We rub her boob and take pictures. Isn't that we are supposed to do? Yes! If you don't know, rubbing her boob is supposed to bring you good luck.

We head back and its dark. We decided that since it took us like 17 hours to get there since lucas and mr. iphone got us all jacked up that we'd taxi it back. It took like 3 minuts via taxi. We were rather close to the train station after all. We get to the train station... and here we go again. Train leaves in 8 minutes. We Ruuuuuuuuuun! Flying up flights of stairs. We get to the train and we go to get on putting Angie's son up on to it, and the doors begin to shut, we rip him off the train, run to the next car, jump on... and then wait. OMG! we rushed just to sit there for 10 minutes. That was all lucas' fault too. We ride back to Vicenza, trying to decide where we will eat. We first said on the town, then worried about the bus schedule we opted for post. We get to the Arena on post and the kitchen is closed. Lucas was blamed ;). Everyone began to part their ways and go to their rooms. So, Lucas, Deidre, Mr.Iphone, Kit and myself went to the rooster house. Oh my goodness. The food was so good... and so plentiful.

I will post pictures in a new post!