i thought thursday was over in the last post. but no it wasn't.

So where did I leave you. oh yes the bug lights, my eyes dipped in acid tired, and me facing the greece balled-freckle connecting Gorilla. oh well the story of my thursday actually just started right where I left off on my last post. We finally arrived in Venice a little "retardo" (no I am not being offensive, it is the Italian word for late) Having come ever so slightly unprepared, we got off the train and moseyed our way through what looked like Hogwarts train station.  In fact, the lady across from me on the train actually looked like Professor McGonigall's sister. The station was completely empty, no trains, just waves of fog and lost students with luggage at hand ( I actually think they filmed HP there) Thank goodness our roommates came Venice last weekend and thank goodness we asked them for directions literally two minutes before we left (in life two minutes might not seem that long, you brush your teeth for two minutes, my mom can sneeze for two minutes and it takes my dad two minutes to say one sentence in the heat of a story...but in Gorilla and sidekick time, two minutes can mean the world) and while two minutes doesn't seem like much those two minutes partially saved our lives.  We got on bus number 5 that was "apparently" going to take us to the airport, that would then "apparently" take us to our hostel. Venice is an extremely expensive city, so most hostels (aka a students five star hotel) are located all over the out skirts of the city.  Bus number 5 did indeed take us to the airport (one down) but little did we know that the bus from the airport to the hostel stopped running at 9:40 pm.  At 9:40 pm the Gorilla was listening to Brittany Spears on the train, while I was writing my last post. At 12:30 am, the Gorilla and I were trying to get on that same bus that stopped running AT 9:40!! Slightly nervous, slightly confused as to what we should do, we attempted to go inside the airport but our first test was a failure and the doors were locked.  At this point, I just wanted to cry and I thought we were going to be sleeping on our backpacks wrapped in our towels outside the airport.  But like in all Gorilla and sidekick adventures, the number one rule is to never give up.  We followed our motto and proceeded to walk around the other side of the airport and just was we approached the door a lady was leaving and we snuck in.  At this point, I was accepting that we were going to sleep on our backpacks wrapped in our towels inside the airport.  Right when we entered, I just happened to stop a rather young and charming airport attendee to ask him where we might find a number for a cab.  I explain to him that we missed the bus and needed to get to our hostel (I did find the name of the hostel by the way) He stops and instead offers us a ride to the hostel.  He told us that it was right on his way home and that he would have no problem and no charge.  A little hesitant at first, charming young man could tell we did not trust him and he told us that the cabs were very expensive. $$$ (but imagine those dollar signs as euro signs...and then you get a little dizzy...it could cost 80 euro and that is almost 160 U.S dollars and that is 80 things we could potentially buy at the euro store and that is 80 euros we were going to use to pay for our hostel and all of our food for the weekend).  As soon as he said that the Gorilla and I looked each other straight in the eyes and decided that death was better than an expensive taxi ride (and who knew if we could even get a taxi and who knew if Mr. taxi man would even be safe) Instantly, the Gorilla and I forgot everything we had ever learned since the day we could walk and talk at the same time and decided that we would rather die than pay 80 euro to get to our hostel.  So Ricardo, the airport attendee kindly walked us through the miles of fog (the fog was so bad, you could actually not see more than 10 feet in front of you) to his euro style Fiat car. The entire walk there I kept thinking of all the items that I had in my backpack that I could offer him/ attack him with if god forbid something happened.  I had a pair scissors, an exacto knife, really stinky farts, and the most important weapon of mass destruction...the GORILLA.  And I could also bribe him with an ATM card that is worthless without the pin code (hahaha), 20 euros and possibly he might want my janky cell phone (but probably not) Through the fog we zoomed in and out of the street and around a couple of rotaries.  With only a few moments of awkward silences, and sing-a-long to Amy Winehouse, we were able to tell Ricardo our names in Italian and where we were from and he gave us tips about going into Venice. [mother I know you are probably having a heart attack, but Ricardo was a kind young man, a safe driver and works for the airline company] More than anything, I was scared we might be road kill because it was impossible to see out of Ricardo's bitty mobile but he reassured us that he had done this drive for over 3 years now. Luckily Ricardo, the airport attendee was a nice young man, and an episode of Law and Order: International Crimes, did not occur. 20 minutes later we arrived at our hostel, Alba D'Oro (or as one of my roommates told me how to remember it, Alba, as in Jessica Alba) Now if  you think that our rendezvous with Ricardo was sketchy, just wait until you hear about the "hostel" we arrived at.  Our roommates had stayed at the same hostel last weekend and came back describing as being similar to a fema trailer park and their description wasn't anything shy of that.  We arrive at the gates slightly concerned we were a. at the wrong place and b. that we were not going to be able to check in but luckily pimp daddy nigerian hostel man was waiting for someone to arrive.  At this point it was now 1:00 in the morning and he told us that we didn't have a reservation but before I could start convulsing, the Gorilla found my name on the check-in list. In order to get a full understanding of what this hostel was really like you need to pull out your little imagination button and press it REALLY hard. Imagine a huge plot of land that has just been hit by a tornado, a hurricane, maybe even a tsunami, or better yet a crater from Mars followed by rain. Got that in your head, then imagine that the red cross came in for an emergency clean up and then habitat for humanity invested their money into purchasing trailers instead of building homes. I bet your imagination is going wild because my entire world has now changed since this experience.  Setup like small prison camp barracks, each individual trailer is designed a little differently.  You have the singles in one row, you got the doubles in another, the triples and so on. Okay, I am posting pictures but sometimes photographic images are not able to capture exactly how something might be and words are always good to use.  Exhausted from a full day of class, a 2 hour train ride, a quasi hitch hike car ride and a long check in, we hauled our stuff across the park and arrived at our pin. Pin number 27 (they called each trailer a pin) The door was unlocked, so the Gorilla made me go first.  While the Gorilla is a Gorilla, I am a little more brave when it comes to opening trailer homes at 2 in the morning when the door is unlocked.  A bunk bed, a cot, a remote control heater, a bathroom, a closet, two shelves and two blankets was what we got, but it was really all we needed. We truly paid for what we got. For 16.50 euro a night, I was pleasantly surprised. As a young girl growing up, my sister and I always fantasized that our dream home would be a mobile home that was parked outside of Disney World and in some bizarre way, I was fulfilling .00001 percent of the long lost desire to live in a mobile home.  Many people say that Venice is a fairy tale city and Disney is exactly that. Oh and one more thing to add to the day.  When we made our reservations online we could only find a three person room/trailer and we assumed no girl would travel alone, so we wouldn't have to worry but when we arrived we found out we would be getting one. Well I think that now raps up my thurs-day-night-fri-morn.  

p.s. I just "free translated" the word Alba D'Oro from Italian to English and it means dawn of the gold. I still need to do a little thinking about this one.

p.s.s. Mr. Webster you can add that word "free translated" to your 3,000 edition!