Another Long Day

A lot of things happened today. I've been busy.

This morning I got up early so I could go to the mall before French class... My camera broke and was irreparable by anyone I asked, so I needed a new one.  I left at 8:30, getting there around five til 9.

Every single store was closed.

One little coffee place was open and she said nothing opened til 10.  Wow. So different from the states.  I mean, some stores don't open until 9, or sometimes 9:30, but they're pretty much already swinging by 10.  Anyways, I went back to the apartment, read a chapter of marketing and returned to the mall.  I got my smurf sweatshirt and a new camera.  It's really nice and I'm really happy with it.  It has a rechargeable battery, but it charges off my computer, so that doesn't really matter to me.  Means it should last longer than my old camera ever did. 

Anyways, because of it being later, I showed up to French half an hour late, but picked up the words for foods.  Then I returned for lunch, had some tasty ravioli.  (What? It's cheap and it's meat and fast.  And really yummy.) I went to marketing next and we got through two chapters in record time. 

James and I caught the metro to Grand Central and caught the train at 4:02 to Charleroi, where RyanAir Airport is.  It's about an hour to get there, and then a good long bus ride.  Our flight was at 7:35, so we had plenty of time, but when we go to Madrid next week, we'll have to leave 3:15 at the latest.

Anyways, we got checked in, through security and got dinner in the airport. Really expensive, but really good pizza.  Then we stood in line.  You have no assigned seats with RyanAir, so people were standing in line an hour before.  We got in halfway point, and we got pretty good seats.  We were late boarding (about 30 minutes) but we did arrive about on time, but more about that later. 

When you step on a RyanAir plane, your eyeballs want to scream and commit suicide.  It's BRIGHT yellow, EVERYWHERE.  We sat down and the plane was packed.  And I don't mean every seat was filled, I mean my knees were hitting the seat in front of me when I was sitting normally.  James (who's 6'4") looked even more uncomfortable. 

I tried (and sortof) slept on the flight.  It was an hour and a half or so.  They apparently offered food and candy and drinks several times, but you had to pay for it all.  We finally landed and a trumpet sounded.  They had a recording of a trumpet and this British-sounding guy saying how awesome RyanAir was by landing 90% of it's flights on time and all this stuff. It was really funny.

We got off the plane, grabbed a bus and took a 40 minute ride through rather sketch parts of town to the water taxi.  We got on one and it was gorgeous.  I had been missing the water.  But now I'm surrounded.  =] Our boat ride was a good 25 minutes or so, and it was so pretty with the lights reflecting off the water.  We saw our hostel from the boat, and the front windows have a spectacular view.  This hostel is awesome.  Clean and inviting with breakfast included. Definitely one to recommend.  Tomorrow we're going to explore.  I can't wait to see everything in daylight tomorrow, as it was dark by the time we got here. 

It's so crazy to me.  This morning was a little different because I had to run early errands, but then everything else was normal.  I got a waffle in the subway on the way to the mall. I had a normal breakfast when I got up. I had normal French class and a normal lunch. Marketing was a little more fast-paced, but that was only because the chapters were short.  And then, incredibly, an hour train, an hour and half plane ride, a half hour water taxi ride, I'm sitting in a hostel in a different country with a different language, a very different terrain.  Such a small amount of time to travel seemingly so far. 

Even though I've only seen it in the dark, Venice is gorgeous.  The water's amazing, the alley ways adorable, and every house seems to either be on or face the water (of course, I think it'd be hard not to).  I had a feeling that I would really like Venice, and I hope that proves true tomorrow. The whole island is 2 miles wide, so we'll be doing a lot of walking.  It should be a ton of fun.

It has, however been, an incredibly long day, so time for bed.

Goodnight, world.