Ben Murrell

Staying in Venice again – went with Aaron to the train station (he’s going to Florence) and I tried to get a reservation for the night train to Paris. It’s booked for the next 5 days. Not sure what I’ll do now.

In the morning (I got up at 8:30) I saw Amanda McCambridge in the hostel. Talk about random! I went to high school with her – what are the chances?

I sent Garmin an email requesting a later start date – I want to stay longer! I also looked for different plane tickets to get home but it’s not looking good. $150-$200 penalty to change my current ticket and apply the value to a new one. On Travelocity, the best I could find one way was about $750. It’s hard to find flights, but somehow Aaron got one for $220 the other day. If I get to stay longer I want to go to Barcelona for sure. Still trying to decide if it’s worth it (YES) and hoping Garmin gives me the OK.

Just saw Amanda come in (6:17pm) again.

(Here, I drew out a table of options for the 25th that tabulated how long it would take to get to each city and how far that city was from Paris).

I’m going to go buy wine, bread, prosciutto, and cheese and sit by the water

I got some people to go to the supermarket with me (Matt, Navied, Mathias). We got off the waterbus at the wrong stop and got lost a bit. It was 7:30 and we thought it closed at 8. After a lot of walking, we ran about 10 minutes and got there at 7:55. It didn’t close until 8:30. I got prosciutto, provolone, bread, and wine. While we were picking out wine, an Italian guy came and told us we couldn’t buy crappy wine in Italy or we’d think all wine in Italy is terrible. We still ended up getting the cheap (0.79 euro / L) wine, but also bought a bottle of wine that the Italian approved also. We took the waterbus back to Giudecca and had espresso at a small restaurant then I made my sandwich. It started raining, so we took the wine inside.

While inside, I met a British guy and heard the story of Mathias Holz. Mathias is a German and is walking from Munich to Rome. He had so many stories (getting attacked by a goat, 80km a day, 40kg pack, sleeping on beaches and in parking garages, crossing the Alps…) Later, a bunch of us went out to find Piccolo Mondo (a club that some girls from the previous night told us to go to). We finally foudn it, but it wasn’t open yet. We kept walking and found a ton of people wearing pirate stuff. Turned out to be a wedding party. We hung out with them for a while, then started to head home.

On the way home, I told the girl jumping story, so Navied and another guy wanted to do it. And they did, off of a small bridge. Then we decided we all needed to jump from the Rialto bridge – one of three that cross the Grand Canal in Venice. It was probably 30-40 feet up. First, Navied and Mathias jumped, then me and Matt, then the others. We did it. The water was so gross. So so gross. We all probably have AIDS now. We didn’t want to get our things wet, so we skinny dipped – it was crazy! We ran back up, got dressed, and 60 seconds later the Cabinieri cruised by. We got on the waterbus and got home at about 4. Jumpers: Me, Derek Chynoweth, Navied Mahdavian, John van Lieshout, Matt Barret, and Mathias Holz.

At home, I still didn’t know where I’d be going on Monday so I showered then went back down for wifi. I narrowed it down to Bern, Zurich, and Geneva. Then, three girls showed up to Venice/the hostel. We talked a bit, then went out to watch the sun come up over Venice while I kept trying to decide where to go. I finally decided on an 8:50am train to Zurich. Went to bed at about 6:20am. Also, Elliot and Chris Stein may come Tuesday! Fly into Frankfurt & meet up somewhere which would be really cool. Still haven’t heard from Garmin – realized yesterday was Sunday and that’s probably why. ALso, supposed to call home tomorrow but being in a new city may make that hard. Will try though.