Day 23 - Leaving Venice

So, remember when I said I was very nervous about this overnight train ride? I had every right to be...

Let's back up a few hours before getting to that story.

After a relaxing afternoon at the beach in Venice, we headed back to the hotel to shower, eat and head to the train station. A few of us hopped in a "water taxi" to ride over to the station. This was more like a "water limo". In the words of the boys, this boat was filthy (apparently that means amazing in boy language..). Check it out:

Like a boss....

We enjoyed that taxi ride a little too much. It was absolutely worth every penny and when you visit Venice, you must take one somewhere.

We made it the train station with plenty of time to blow so naturally, we just sat around. So, now to the good part.

We boarded the train in sets of 6 people to find this would be our living space for the next 12 hours...

A couple of my roomies:

So of course we all had a good laugh and were going to make the best of the tight situation. Until, we learned that we would not have air conditioning for the next three hours.... Do you know how quickly a 6' x 7' x 8' box gets with 6 sun burnt people breathing and talking? About 15 minutes...

Now, this situation was made far worse with the "service" of the train. They were absolutely no help nor of any comfort. I ended up napping for about an hour on the floor in the hallway outside our little cart. I then moved to an empty cart next door, only to be yelled at in another language to get out. We all know my argument skills so, let's just leave it at me staying in the empty cart until we got air conditioning.

Have you ever ridden on a train for 12 hours? Did you get any sleep? Yeah, me either. The few hours I did sleep were a complete mistake for one reason: pressure changes. My sinuses are epically messed up right now. I can barely hear anything and my head feels like it will explode at any minute.

So after an uncomfortable train ride, a pillow the size of Duff and not being able to shower for 12 hours, we were all very excited to get to Vienna and the Marriott hotel; a small but important piece of America in this 6 week storm of cultures.

Again in the words of the boys, The Marriott Vienna is filthy... (reminder:that means in a good way)