A travel day

We don't have much to talk about today. We spent 6 hours on a train. We had breakfast in our hotel and checked out at about 10:30am. Everything was closed in Bern because it was a national holiday. So basically all we could do was window shop until our train left at 1:30pm. We were a little confused about our train because it didn't actually say it went to Venice. It had Milan, Veronia, Vicenza... but not Venezia. But we double checked and it was the right train. Before we left we stopped in the only grocery store that was open- it was very crowded. We got the best swiss cheese (gruyere) and some bread for lunch. We also got a tray of little pieces of cheese with different seasonings on top, an orange, and some cookies. We had such a long train ride we wanted to make sure we wouldn't get hungry.

The train ride was fairly uneventful. There was some confusion with seating. We reserved seats ahead of time. When we got on the train, there were two guys about our age already in our seats. So we just took some seats across from them that were empty. Then when we got to the next city, some people got on the train that had reserved the seats we were in. So we had to move to other open seats. In the next city, some people had THOSE seats reserved. So we kind of played musical chairs. I was a little annoyed that the guys didn't take their seats in the first place, but they didn't speak English so we couldn't communicate the situation to them.

When we arrived in Venice, we realized that we weren't quite in Venice. There are two train stations. So we caught a quick train from Venezia Mestre to Venezia Santa Lucia. When we stepped out of the train station, we were on the Grand Canal. It took my breath away. I mean, I knew that Venice was surrounded by water, but this was unbelievable! We had directions to our hotel and knew we needed to take Waterbus 1. The tickets were 6 euros for one-way! Very expensive. Hopefully we won't need to take the waterbus again. Once we got off, we had to walk to our hotel. The GPS helped, but it didn't really seem to know where we were. There are so many really narrow alleyways. It was hard to tell what was a street and what was an alley. But eventually we found it. After dropping off our stuff we were ready for dinner. It was already going on 9pm and I was hungry. Luckily there were tons of places to eat right around the corner. We just sat down at some outside tables and a waiter came right over. I love Italian food so I was so excited for our first Italian meal. I ordered spaghetti with meatballs and Daniel ordered a margherita pizza. We also got some house white wine to celebrate our first night in Italy. It was all delicious. I think I may have ate too much, because I have a tummyache now. But it was worth it! There was even a pianist playing right outside the restaurant. We watched the sun set and all the tourists go by while we ate. We also had to get gelato for dessert. It was also delicious. We walked around a little bit, but it was hard to get a feel for the city at night. It was dark already and there's not really much nightlife here. As our hotel receptionist told us, everything closes at 11:30. I am so excited to see the city tomorrow! We only have one day here, so we have to make it count.