Boat trip from Croatia to Venice

Venice, Italy

11th August 2007

This morning we woke up at 6:30am to catch a boat from Croatia to Venice, Italy. We had to rush to get ready and force food down our mouths in order to not be hungry during the 2.5 hour boat ride or before we sat down for lunch in Venice. It cost us £50 each for a return boat ticket which isn't too bad. I think I've paid more to go from Estonia to Finland and back in the past.

There was a guide on the boat which had an incredible ability to speak in English, German and Russian without any problems and with fairly decent accents in each of the languages. I admired that he had this ability and I hope I'll have it too one day.

Neither the border guards in Croatia or Italy came within half a meter of my passport, I've never been able to enter the EU in such an easy manor with the exception of driving from Norway into Sweden where there just wasn't any check at all. After my scare entering the UK a few weeks back, this is a nice change. The only down side is that I don't have any Italian stamps in my passport.

We got off the boat and walked to St. Mark's Square. Just as we got there, rain began to downpour and did so for about 15 minutes. It was incredible looking at all the shop windows and how nicely setup they were. I had forgotten all the items and brands that Italy is famous for.

We had bought a restaurant ticket onboard the boat for about £13 each. We weren't sure how expensive lunch would be and didn't want to hunt around for a decent restaurant when we got there. The lunch was shit and there are heaps of cheap and lovely places about so I wasn't too happy with that. We were swished into a room with about 25 other people which normally should have about 15. We had a German couple swishing us against a wall as we ate food that probably cost £1.50 to make.

Venice is a fucking crowded place. If someone told me there were 8 million people all visiting Venice the day we did, I would probably believe them. It's like the London central line tube trains at 9am on a working day except with fewer Italians. I don't like being in a crowded place or taking public transport on holiday since that it most of my non-working life here in London.

After lunch I got really sick from the food and came across a public restroom that charged 1 euro a go. God they are stupid, I've never had £13 of food go through me so quickly and they'll be spending another 6-7 euros cleaning it all up.

We did enjoy a nice water taxi ride around Venice and one of the neighboring islands. Venice was as I expected it would be. Insanely typical and few surprises. It was nice to go there but there is no reason to ever go twice.

The boat ride back was long. We sat next to an English girl with huge fake breasts and watched her play scrabble. She had heaps of words with spelling mistakes or words that actually aren't words. At one point she said "what is 17 and 5, I can't do big numbers". Anja ended up talking to two Germans across from us and I spent most of the ride sat on the back on the boat looking out at the Adriatic.

Sometimes I go somewhere and the feeling I get from being there doesn't live up to the hype. The places I go to are what motivates me to travel and sometimes when I come back from somewhere mediocre it can kill my ambition to travel.

The boat ride back did give me some time to reflect on myself and my behavior. I think I changed as a person a lot in 2000 with turning 18, 2001 when I moved to England, 2002 when I moved to Germany, 2004 when I moved back to London, 2005 when I began hanging out with the Estonians and now again in 2007 when I became dissatisfied with what I have, certain goals I haven't achieved and the realization that money is a tool, not an objective and that I should focus on things that will make me happy for the time being that you cannot buy with money.