Bring Me Back to That Wonderland (Part 2)

We open in Venice, We next play Verona
Then on to Cremona, Lotsa laughs in Cremona.
Our next jump is Parma, That stingy, dingy menace,
Then Mantua, then Padua,Then we open again, where?
Frank Sinatra – We Open in Venice

I wouldn’t say that you have to face the music when you didn’t read the previous post first before read this post. But trust me buddy, you’ve missed a lot. In my first part of the story, I told you about my first episode in Paris. It was gorgeous trip together with the Indonesian estraters and I guess we had the time of our lives to be there. I had been on Paris since 21 till 24 April before set off to Milan Malpenza in 6am. I’ve told you before that Paris always go the extra mile for the visitors. Therefore, we planned to come back to the town in 29 April after exploring Italian & Barcelona landmark. We would visit Venice, Florence, Pisa, and of course Roma! That was awesome, right?

Yeah, after spending our first four days in Paris, then we set off to Italy. We took an EasyJet flight from Paris to Milan which was quite cheap. We were in hurry toward Charles de Gauille since we had to be there at 5.30am. We just arrived in Hotel from Champs Elysses at 1am. We took off at 6.30am by that “fully commercial” plane.

Why did I call it “fully commercial”? Correct, there were too many commercials. As I told you before, I hate commercial so much. But I had no choice since my desires were limited by budget constraint. Anyway, I got a ridiculous experience inside the plane when the stewardess offered me cups of espresso, coffee, and cappucino. Here’s the conversation between us:

Stewardess : “Excuse me, sir. Would you like to drink some coffee, espresso, or something?”
Me : “Sure, gimme some espresso, please.” (with a bit lost condition)
Stewardess : “All right, here’s the cup sir.”
Me : “Just put it here, I’m gonna sleep before drinking it.” (putting the cup on the table)
Stewardess : “Four euros, please”
Me : “Ha..!?!” (innocent expression)
Stewardess : “Yes, just four euros, sir” (smiling)
Me : “Mmmm… you mean.. it’s not free?” (still not aware)
Stewardess : “No sir… it’s four euros. We’ve discounted it before. The original price is…”
**I interrupted her before it’s too late :p
Me : “Yeah.. I get it, here’s the cup madam, I thought it’s free..” (returning the cup to the stewardess)
Stewardess : “Thank you, sir”

It was embarrassing, right? I guess I got hot under the collar. Fortunately, nobody of my ‘running mates’ knew about that unexpected encounter. But it was OK. I didn’t give a hoot about what others think. So What?? :p

Milan Malpenza

Inside Milano Centrale

All right, back to the trip. We landed at 7.30am in Milan Malpenza with also a tired, sleepy, and a bit lost condition because of lack of sleep. The chill weather over there was in just 10 degrees of celcius where it can freeze our tropical bodies. And then, we moved to Milano Centrale by using a bus. I forget the name (Gosh, I guess I have a brain like a sieve), but we did it to get train tickets to go to Venice. In the next two hours, we made it. We arrived in Milano Centrale train station. You know, I would never had to mess up my diet as during this trip. But I was under the weather and very hungry. There were just bread & pizza. No doubt there were options but from a backpacker’s point of view it was quite difficult to get a decent wholesome meal.

Day 1

At 11.am, the train led us up to Mestre Station, one station before Venezia Saint Lucia. We needed approximately 4 hours to reach the station. We recharged and rejuvenated our body on the train whilst enjoying paddy field and classical building landscape in Verona, Cremona, etc throughout the promenade.

Our Hostel in Serenisima

We were in Mestre Station at 3pm. The breeze was blowing despite the sky was clear. Unfortunately, our hostel was not a couple of minutes walk away. It’s located on Panorama, and named Serenesima. We need a bus to go there and we must wait for that fu**in’ bus in one hour. The wind chill had even made it seemed like an eternity. Somehow we made it there without any frostbites. It was tough journey, you know. Sinatra joyful song about Venice journey might questionable. We arrived in Serenesima Hostel at 4pm but we just had 30 minutes to recharge our battery since we chased the sunset in Piazza San Marco. We needed 30 minutes also to reach Venice from our hostels by bus. When we awaited for the bus, some Italian kids passed by and called us ” China.. China..!!!” Huh, it was cheesed off, you know!!

Canal of Venice (1)

Venice Canal (2)

Finally, we reached Venice after a long enough journey. I guess, people won’t deny that Venice is awesome. It’s also been known as the ‘La Dominante’, ‘Queen of the Adriatic’, ‘City of Water’, and ‘The City of Bridges’. The city stretches across 118 small islands in the marshy Venetian Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea in northeast Italy. Venice is world-famous for its canals and there are classical Venetian boat named gondola. Needed about 16 euros to use it.

Before Rialto

Canal Grande at Rialto

However, it was not over yet. We had to reach Piazza di San Marco or our journey in Venice would be nothing. The bassilica was dozens of miles away from the terminal and we would reach it on foot whilst enjoying ancient building around the walk-street. It seemed deadly boring to see a homogeneous building. We must pass Rialto bridge first to reach it. Well, after the extremely tiring walking tour, finally we arrived to Piazza San Marco. Here the saying ‘The First Impression is The Last One’ also does not apply for us. When we reached Venice before San Marco, we were not too impressed and wondered what was so special about that place. We feasted our eyes to see classical buildings around us. What can I say? That was A-W-E-S-O-M-E!!! Wonders will never cease!! We took some pictures and videotaped that. We will never forget that very moment unless we got amnesia.

Piazza di San Marco (1)

Piazza di San Marco (2)

Piazza di San Marco (3)

And then, the sunset had come at 9pm. It was gorgeous despite people said Greece can’t be beat for it. At 9.30pm, we returned to the terminal by using a water Taxi. Just 8 euro per person and we can enjoy a wonderful scenery surrounding Venice.

Guess What

Venice Landscape (1)

Venice Landscape (2)

Venice Landscape (3)

Guess What Juga

We had to back to the hostel before 11pm or we got no bus. We bought some snowballs as souvenirs. But it was pity, Ronald’s snowball was broken and he had to buy one more to fulfill his ‘girlfriend’ wish. You know, her wish is a command for Ronald. I guess they will be an item, but I don’t know when. Can you tell me, Ronald?

Dude, what r u doing?

Fakhrul started plurking and Yayang was shot when he acted as if he was p**ing. Yayang picture is attached above.

Finally, we headed back to the hostel at 11pm with a lost condition. That was a complete day for us. We flew out from Paris to Milan by plane in the morning, took a bus to Milano Centrale, joyed the Italian train to venice, walked away for dozens miles to San Marco, and videotaped the Venice Scenery by water taxi. We arrived in hostel with tired, frost, a bit cold, and lost condition.

Day 2

We woke up at 8am and then we made a coffee morning. It was time to get ready for our next trip to Firenze! We were going to Saint Lucia station first. But it was lazy morning for us actually. It was saturday anyway where Ronald must go to the church. We were still little bit tired after previous tour and a not whole to sleep. We just made a pop noodle and cups of cappucino in that morning. It was hard to find a decent meal and then it made me hungry the whole way.

There were no important activities in that morning except taking some pictures. We took some ‘controversial’ picture that will remember us to fascism popularized by Hitler and Mussolini. Look at the pictures below :

Hail Me !!!

That’s it, Austria is Hitler’s homeland and Italy is Mussolini’s territory before second world war. Those are two keys of creation fascism.

Venezia Saint Lucia

And 9.30pm, we checked out from the hostel and went to Saint Lucia station. We left Venice in the afternoon for Firenze. The next part of the story will tell you about it. See you