Day 39 - Munich Bound

Gotta catch a train. I'll update when I get settled.

Okay. I´m settled, basically. By the way, the germans use the letter Z a lot, so it is swapped with the letter Y on the kezboard. Correct absent minded mistakes accordingly. Oh yeah, and the "at sign" moved again. Sigh. Oops. And I was going to go visit the at sign shaped staircase in Venice. They apparently invented the at sign to distinguish a package´s origin from it´s destination on shipping manifests. Ah, geek history. I can´t tell how much time I have left on this PC, so I´ll just try to hurry and hope for the best.

• Whoomp. The main part of my day yesterday revolved around visiting Torcello, and island to the northwest of Venice propper. I now know why Robert took a speedboat. Even by water bus, the trip took over two hours out, and probably an hour and change on the way back.
• Pre Island. There's only one water bus to Torcello, so you have to wait on the island it leaves from before you can go there. This turned out to be a pretty cool thing as the houses there are decorated in all sorts of crazy colors, just like Caminito in Buenos Aires, only more stylish. Caminito people did it because they were poor. People in Venice do it because it's cool. They had curtains, flowers, and paint and trim all matching. It was almost unnatural.
• Torcello. After missing a ferry and spending a full hour on the island of the lollipop guild, I finally got to Torcello. The only real attraction there for most people is a nice church. On the scale of churches I've been seeing, quaint would be the best description. But it was still well built. They also had a model of dead jesus in a plastic crypt in the back. Between the realism of the model and Tuesday train incident, this was spooky. So to take my mind off it I climbed a bell tower. There really isn't anything on Torcello at this point. In most directions it's swamp as far as the eye can see. It gives one an idea of what the area must have been like before the Venetians showed up.
• Weiner Scottie. After coming back down from the bell tower, I got an opportunity to do something I'd been meaning to do for a long time: take a picture of one of the dachshund / scottish terrier mixes that seem to be so popular in Italy. The lady who owned it seemed pretty tickled that I was so happy to get a picture of her dog.
• Yeats. After finding a nice patch of grass, I read my Yeats. The poem and Torcello really did go well together. The feeling of deep faith and lost love mingled with the weathered church and empty swamplands and just seemed to spread out forever.
• Night Train. Some of the folks at the hostel wanted to head back into the city and hang out. Not having been involved in any nightlife for a while, it seemed like I was due. We spent two hours lost in Venice trying to find the place. It was fun and goofy. One of the gals from Australia found Venice magical (partly because this was her first trip in). Again, seeing the world through someone else's eyes made it more beautiful. But we didn't hit the plaza until eleven, and the last train was due to leave at twelve thirty. I was definitely having Paris flashbacks, so I left early. The funny part is, they all made it back way before me. They had been using the busses, which I didn't even know went all the way out to Venice. I still feel like I made the best choice at the time, but I'll try to give my fellow hostellers the benefit of the doubt a little bit more in the future.

So that was yesterday. Today was a very relaxing train ride through Austria. I had stocked up on food and drink beforehand, so all I had to do was sit and enjoy the Alps. You can never get the pictures you want from the train because trees and power lines are always in the way, but it was still lovely. Speaking of pictures, I still have my CD from Rome to mail. Luckily the post office is right next to this internet place. I'm already thinking of extending my stay in Munich. There are a lot of cool, weird things to see here. I mean, how great is it to be able to visit a place called The Center for Unusual Museums. They also have a place like the Exploratorium, only bigger (430,000 square feet). I can take day trips to Neushwanstien, to salt mines where you get to slide down chutes, ride mine cars, and cross underground lakes, to Salzburg to catch a concert, the list goes on. I'm already booked for a six day stay here, but we'll see. I would like to make my next reservation early. Oh yeah, and there are strip clubs all over the place. What's up with that? I never figured Munich would have more naughty bits than Rio. ;P