Orange Pants

Twenty eight hours and 45 minutes into my first “day” abroad, over 5400 miles from my home in Washington and with only thirty minutes of sleep, I found myself sitting at a dark bus stop outside of Venice Mestre with my travel partner, lost, and wondering if I will ever make it back to my hotel. This, however, I am sure will be only one of many lost and confused adventures during my three months of studying abroad.

The beginning of my journey, or at least the first twenty something hours, went amazingly smooth, with only a few late planes and sleepless hours. The adventure didn’t truly begin until we entered Venice.

I traveled with another student, Amy Santamaria, from the University of Oregon from Frankfurt, Germany to Venice, Italy, where we had booked a hostel. The plane landed late but both of us easily spotted our four bags of luggage and lugged it outside to an awaiting taxi. From the airport we went to our hostel, the Hotel Centrale, located in the center of Venice-Mestre, only a short bus ride from the island.

Even though exhausted, sweaty from the 90˚ weather, and starving for food that wasn’t served on an airplane tray, we decided to bus into Venice for the afternoon.

Before we left the hostel, the concierge told us to take bus #7 to Venice and to purchase the bus ticket from the driver. However, when we got on the bus the driver ignored us so we swiftly moved to the side of the bus and hoped nobody would notice that we didn’t pay. Luckily for us no one seemed to care, but before the end of the night, karma would make us pay.

After wondering the canals and pathways of Venice for a few hours and eating some delicious sour apple gelato and real Italian cheese pizza, Amy and I decided to return to our hostel and get some rest. This time we easily found the bus ticket booth and ask for two tickets for bus seven back to Venice-Mestre. Later, after paying, we realized that we were charged for a round trip ticket, thus paying for our way there in the end.

As we waited for the bus to leave, a German couple, staying at the same hostel, noticed out Hotel Centrale map and told us they knew where the stop was. So we joked with them about following them off the bus before they took their seats at the back of the bus. The older man of the couple wore bright orange linen pants with a white and orange Hawaiian print shirt, so we assumed it would be easy to spot him exit through the crowds of people huddled on the bus.

Around the third stop, Amy said she spotted the man with the orange pants exiting the bus. While I thought it was still too early to get off, Amy was already in the crowd pushing the way through to exit, so I followed. Disheartedly as the bus left and the man with the orange pants sprinted across the street, we noticed we were not at the right stop. Somehow, yet another man with orange pants and a white and orange stripped shirt had led us astray.

Now 28 hours and 45 minutes into our trip, late at night we sat at that dark bus stop and brainstormed how we would make it back to our hotel. With the last ounce of our energy, we decided to stay at the bus stop to see if another bus would come by. Only out of pure luck, I’m sure, another bus came about fifteen minutes later and we were able to navigate back to the Hotel Centrale.

While I wouldn’t describe getting lost in Venice as the best way to start a trip studying abroad, laying in bed in our tiny hostel room that night and laughing about our crazy first day, made all the difficulties drift away as we soundly slept for the first time in over thirty hours.