The other Number 11 (why camping sucks)

So they let us out of hell (read: Friday field trip for both history classes) at around 4:00 Friday afternoon, at which point we've been on our feet for about 6 hours straight with no lunch break. Following our basic survival instincts, we immediately make a break for the train station. Trains=seats=SITTING. Sitting=my feet stop twitching in death throes. It's time to catch a train to Venice for Carnivale! And that can only mean one thing: sitting for five glorious walking-free hours.

And Venice, too, of course. We get into Mestre at around 9:40 (Mestre is on the mainland, which is also where our hostel is. The desirable place to be is on the island of Venice itself, of course, but all the hotels and hostels (below €1,000,000,000) are already booked, so we have the hostel on the mainland, with the cosy campfire-type name Camping Fusina. That's somewhere you know you want to be when it's rainy and cold. Excited to get to our fun hostel, we wait for the number 11 bus, just like the directions to the hostel say, and get on to ride to Fusina. After maybe a 20 minute ride, all the other passengers have gotten off, and the bus stops on the corner of a deserted intersection in a dark, empty section of town (We'll call this Lot A). Adrienne, Peregrine and I look at each other worriedly, and ponder the pros and cons of asking the bus driver if the bus goes to Fusina. Finally, after we've been sitting in the empty lot for approximately 5 minutes, we creep up to the front of the bus. "Ummm, questo bus va a Fusina?" No, the driver (we'll call him Luigi) tells us rather sadly (he looks pretty lonely, as though he's 40 and his wife just left him). That would be the other number 11.

Of course, the other number 11! Which of course someone BOTHERED TO WRITE ON A SIGN SOMEWHERE WHERE WE COULD HAVE SEEN IT. "Ma che facciamo?" we ask him. I guess you could get out here at this stop, he suggests, gesturing to the dark, abandoned street corner. The other number 11 should be coming soon, though I don't know when since I don't have that bus schedule. We look out into the night. There doesn't even appear to be a bus stop on this side of the street, but a little way down the way on the other side of the intersection is one. "Dove aspettiamo? C'è anche quella fermata li," we point out. Oh, not a problem, says Luigi listlessly. The bus stops at both stops. Ummm, we respond, the stops are like 20 feet apart. Why would any bus driver stop at both if he could get away with just stopping at one? I suppose Luigi felt bad for us (three lost kids such as ourselves), because he got out and walked to both stops to see if there was a bus schedule posted (there wasn't), and finally he told us just to stay on his bus, since he would be going to Fusina anyway at 11:17. If we came to another stop where we could catch the other number 11, we could wait there.

Okay, fair enough. So after waiting at SKETCHY Lot A for a good 40 minutes (during which time we probably could have gone to Fusina and back about 15 times), Luigi finally turns the bus back on to finish his bus route. As the bus pulls up next to a dark, creepy park surrounded by tarp-covered fence (we'll call this Lot B), Luigi starts calling at us to get off here. The other 11 is on the other side of the park, he points. Forza! We leap out of the bus, barely taking the time to thank Luigi for his extensive helpfulness, and race through the pitch black park to the other side, where a number 11 bus is just getting ready to leave. We leap into the bus even as it's starting to close its doors, ask a passenger if it's going to Fusina, get a positive response, and collapse gratefully into seats at the back. We even dare to give each other relieved high-fives. "Good job, dudes," says Peregrine. "We made it."

About 20 minutes later, we're the last ones on the bus. Just to make sure we know which stop to get off at, we go up to the front of the bus to ask the bus driver, whom we'll name Gianno. "Dove scendiamo per Fusina?" we ask, bright-eyed and innocent. Gianno, turning in his seat to look at us with concern, responds: This number 11 doesn't go to Fusina. You want the OTHER NUMBER 11.

Well. As though on cue, we arrive at an intersection that's horribly familiar. Remember Lot A? That's right, guys. It was the very spot we'd just escaped after a 40 minute wait. "Quanto tempo stiamo qui?" we ask Gianno timidly, afraid to think how many more precious minutes of our lives are to be spent at Lot A. Oh, only 30 minutes. A half hour down the drain, that's it. So we hang out with Gianno. He seems nice enough, though he can't seem to accept that we can actually speak and understand and read Italian. As though we haven't just been talking to him for 20 minutes IN ITALIAN. He tells us we can wait at that intersection for the next number 11, which should be around soon enough, though he too doesn't have the bus schedule (go figure). "When you wait for the other number 11, read the schedule at the stop - leggete l'italiano? bene - to make sure it goes to Fusina. And then when you get on the bus, ask the bus driver - parlate l'italiano? bene - if he's going to Fusina. That way you have to get there!"

At long last, we depart again from Lot A, now with more sentiments because it's become so like a home to us. A few stops later, we recognize the twisted evil trees of Lot B (sketchy park place), and Gianno points across the way to another bus. That's a number 11, which is going to Fusina! Get it! Grazie, grazie, we chorus to Gianno, and race (again) across the park to at last get on the number 11.

The bus is pulling away as we run up, and we knock on the door even as it's moving. Reluctantly and rather bad-temperedly (is that a word?), the driver opens the door for us, and we race to the front. "Questo va a Fusina?" we ask, gasping for breath and expecting the answer yes. "No," he says, not opening the door. "Well, then can we get off the bus, dumbass?" we say, though of course in slightly politer terms. As though it were a tremendous grievance to his very existence, he makes a face and effortfully makes a show of pulling the tiny, simple, easily maneuvered lever to open the door next to us. We don't bother saying thank you.

So we wait. On the edge of highly sketchy Lot B, with its abandoned-park vibes. It starts raining (and not one of us said "It couldn't get worse" - well, at least not at the point when it started raining... maybe the rain was just delayed from a point earlier on when we said that). At last (long last!), who should arrive but dear old Luigi, on his 11:17 run which goes to Fusina. Gratefully we get onto the bus, asking, just to be sure, "questo va a Fusina?" "No," he says. He's joking. It's not funny.

Finally, arrived. Open the door, ready to fall into bed, inside where it's warm, since it's pouring rain and freezing cold. And the electricity is out.

Venice Part II coming shortly (decidedly less depressing than the number 11 debacle, but no less adventure-ful).