Planes, trains and automobiles...the trip from hell

I'm finally over the trauma, that was Venice....here is the story. Warning...this is long....

It started out great. I met my friend at her house and we headed out to the airport without a hitch. We arrive at the airport and there was no parking. You think I'm kidding, there was none. It was a smaller airport and a long holiday weekend for the Germans, so I'm guessing that was the reason. We saw a sign at a Mazda dealership where we could park for a fee and we felt pretty good about it. Melissa, my friend, had to use the restroom so I waited out front. She comes out with a huge wet stain on her pants. I guess the shape of the toilet and the force of which things left created a boomerang effect, if you know what I mean. So my friend, basically peed her pants before we even got to the airport. She gets cleaned up and we wait for our flight.
The flight was good. It was really full and I did get nervous during takeoff and landing, but we got there in one piece so I was happy.

Once we landed at Treviso Airport we had to catch a bus to the train station. So we find the bus and head out. It takes about an hour from the airport to the train station, but we had some nice scenery along the way. Once we get to the train station we figured out what train we needed and luckily it took us to Quarto Di Altino. (It was about three stops from Mestre which is where the bus took us) Luckily when we got off at our stop, the hotel was right by the train station. Which is great cause we had to schlep our luggage the whole way. The hotel was WONDERFUL!!! It was a brand new Holiday Inn and we felt like we were in heaven. Hotels are so expensive in Venice and we got such a great deal on this hotel. We couldn't have been happier! At this point it's about 7 pm but we really wanted to get dinner in Venice. So we took the train to Venice. It took about 30-40 minutes to get there from our stop, it's all a blur now. But we finally get there. Once we found our vapporetto (water bus) we thought it would be good to get dinner at a cafe by San Marco square. The vapporetto are slow and we were starving. We started looking for anything that was open. We finally get off the vapporetto and find a cafe and order. It was ok, but nothing special. I ordered the canneloni and it tasted like something you could get from Lean Cuisine. Melissa ordered a pizza that was pretty good. The ambiance was wonderful. It was fun just to be in a new country.
After dinner we headed back to the train station. The trains only run till about 1am, if you miss the last train out of Venice then you're stuck there till about 5 in the morning. It's about 11pm and we're trying to figure out which train to take back to Quarto. We finally just took a chance and lucked out. We were not going to get stuck in Venice at night. There were some real creepos hanging around the train station.
We get back to our hotel and crash at about midnight. It had been a long day of travel and we were exhausted. We're both looking forward to our next full day in Venice.

So we get up and around and unfortunately we take so long to get ready that we miss the last morning train into Venice. Since we had a little time to kill we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The cappuccino was awesome, but the breakfast was not so good. Europeans have a weird idea of breakfast. Mainly cold cuts, cheeses and bread. But the cappuccino and croissaints were wonderful!

We finally catch the train into Venice and I remember the view from the train was beautiful. You have to ride on a bridge over the water to get into town. It was a slightly overcast day, but it was still beautiful. The town itself is gorgeous, it definitely has a romantic flair. My friend and I had decided that we wanted to go to Murano island first. This trip was mainly for shopping and Murano is famous for it's glass jewelry and artwork. The vapporetto ride was long to get to the island. It's not that far from the main island, but there are a lot of stops along the way.

We had a great time shopping on Murano island. We both bought some really nice sterling silver and glass jewelry and just had a great time looking around. We also had our first of many drinks of the day. Hey, what is a vacation without kickin back the sauce?!Next stop, San Marco square. We were getting a little hungry and also wanted to pick up some souvenirs for our families. We were looking around and all of a sudden I felt something hit me on the head. I instinctively reach back and touch my head only to find I'd been pelted with bird shit. Oh....GROSS!!!! My friend thought it was funny and decided to take a pic...thanks! (I will not be posting that pic, it makes me squeamish!) Now the search for a bathroom begins. We find this nice little cafe in San Marco square that we thought would be good place to get a couple of drinks and some food. Luckily they had a bathroom where Melissa washed my hair in the sink. We must have looked like weirdos. Me leaning backwards over the sink, her laughing and trying not to touch it while cleaning it out of my hair.

I think this was the best part of the day. We probably spent a couple of hours at this outdoor cafe in San Marco. It's pretty expensive to eat and drink there, I think we paid $15 per drink but the ambiance was worth it. It was so much fun just sitting there drinking and listening to the orchestra while people from all over the world walked by. We both had a great time people watching. It was so fun. I was a little bumbed that by the time we got to the square the big church there was closed. It was absolutely beautiful.

After that we did a little more shopping and at that time it was getting time for dinner. We found a nice cafe near the train station that I wanted to try cause it was one of the few places that had a good choice of pasta. Most places served seafood dishes and neither one of us were huge fans.


(This pic is one Melissa took of me right before we realized my bag was missing)
Since this was our last dinner in Venice we ordered quite the spread. We spent a good hour or more eating and enjoying the evening. Then it came time to pay and head back to the hotel. I reached for my camera bag and it wasn't there. I wasn't too alarmed, I figured Melissa had picked it up with her bags or something. (I had set my bag down by my feet under the table because these cafe tables are small, she set her bags in a chair right by her) I asked her if she had it and she looked around and said "No, I don't have your bag." Then I started to panic.

I had that feeling that you get when you can't find your kid. That feeling of sheer panic. For convenience sake, I had put all my money, ID's, credit cards and souvenirs in the camera bag. I couldn't believe it was gone. I didn't feel anyone get close to the table. Melissa was facing me all throughout dinner and she doesn't recall seeing anyone get close enough to swipe my stuff. Needless to say at this point I LOST IT. I started bawling. The more I thought about what was in my bag, the more upset I got. I had everything in there. I felt like someone just stole my whole vacation, my whole identity, my life at that point was in that damn bag. I felt like a fool for not protecting it better. But I felt like it was safe there. How did they get under the table without me knowing it? Melissa tried her best to make me feel better, but I couldn't stop crying. So dear Melissa paid for our meal and took me to the Italian police station. From here on out the vacation turned in to the seventh circle of hell.

I went to report the theft to the police, but I guess there wasn't someone there that could take my report. So they asked us to come back in the morning. Great! They had me call my credit card company so they could put a stop on my debit card. That took what seemed like forever. I just thought about someone out there trying to use my hard earned money for their own. I finally got through and luckily nothing had been tried yet, so I got it done in time. At that point it was probably about 11 pm and we decided to get back to the hotel. I needed to contact the US consulate in Italy to see what they could do for me, so I could get back to Germany. I also needed to call my husband. I absolutely dreaded that call.

I call the consulate and they were closed for the weekend. I was able to get through on an emergency line and he basically told me that I could try to get back to Germany on my return flight. He thought they might take a copy of my passport since it was only a return flight(we were flying back on Sunday) and it was still in the European Union. He said if that didn't work we could get back on the trains, since they don't really check passports. The last option was going to the consulate first thing on Monday morning to get an emergency passport. However the closest consulate was in Milan, which was probably a two to three hour train ride away. We decided to try the airline first. I finally called my husband and told him what happened and told him we may not be back on Sunday. He wasn't happy with me, but he tried to be supportive.

So we get up on Sunday morning and we returned to Venice to report the theft. We had to hurry cause our flight was at 5 pm and we had to check out of the hotel at noon. Once we got the police report we still had a little time to shop. Melissa was kind enough to spot me a few bucks to get a few souvenirs since mine were stolen (one stroke of luck...the expensive jewerly we bought in Murano wasn't stolen because I had put it one to wear it!). We still fully expected to fly out that night. Everyone we had talked too seemed to think the airline would take the copy of my passport. We finished our shopping with plenty of time to take the train back to Mestre were we would catch the buses back to Treviso Airport. However once we got to the bus station we found out that we had missed the bus and had to walk back to the train station. Just one more thing to deal with!! We had little choice but to take a taxi (which was not cheap in Italy) to the airport. Let me tell you this guys could fly! So we get to the airport about 3 hours ahead of our flight and start trying to find someone that could help us get on that flight.

The airline we flew with was Ryan Air. They are a airline based out of Ireland but they fly all throughout Europe and at VERY cheap rates. It's great. UNLESS you have anything out of the ordinary happen. You can not reach a human being to save your life for any customer service problems. They do not have any representatives to help you at the airport. The people that check you in work for the airport. It was so frustrating because they people at the airport were REFUSING to do anything for us. No passport, no fly. I could understand the need for safety. But this was my return flight. I had a good quality copy of my passport and we were traveling within the European Union. They were firm in their position, so Melissa and I had to come up with a plan B on a Sunday evening. Awesome, we just wasted money on that damn taxi only to have to turn right back around and go to the train station in Mestre. We could have gone to the consulate in Milan and just stayed in a hotel overnight, but we didn't know where it was or if there would be any affordable hotels with availability. The other option was the trains. From what the consulate told us they don't really check passports on the trains, so we looked into buying a train ticket. They had an overnight train to Munich from Venice leaving that night and it was only 75 euros a person. When we heard that we said BOOK IT! Lets get the hell outta this friggin country! LOL!

So we had a lot of time to kill and not much was open while we waited. We walked around town and got a gelatto (italian icecream....Yummy) and waited......

and waited.....

and waited....
then it was finally time to leave! The first thing they ask me for was my passport! SHeesh! But they were nice enough to take the copy I had as proof. I thought we were going to get kicked off the train. It was quite the experience riding on the night train. We were in a sleeping car that had three bunks on one side and three bunks on the other side. It was kinda cramped, but we were lucky enough to have the car all to ourselves. I can't imagine how you'd sleep with four other people in this car! Ugh. We were so tired from the days events we slept like rocks.

We arrived in Munich at about 6:30 Monday morning. From there we caught another train to Kaiserslaughtern which arrived at about noon. We had one more train to catch and that was to Landstuhl. And that's where we split ways. Melissa needed to pick up her daughter from the sitter since her husband was at work. My husband was in the middle of out processing so neither one of our husbands could pick us up right away and Melissa's car was still in the parking lot up in Frankfurt. I only had to wait at the train station for about an hour before Dave could pick me up. However things weren't done yet. As soon as Dave picked me up we started working on the passport replacement. We took my passport pictures that day. I looked like hell. You guys know how the rest of the story went.
So I guess the synopsis goes like this...Melissa peed her pants, I got shit on by a bird, I was robbed and stranded in Venice and we had to find our way back to our family. Venice really is beautiful, even if I had to learn an expensive and stressful lesson. I'm sure I'll look back and laugh about it all....someday...