venice, italy

            Before Katie and I set out on our adventure, we sat down and decided that our trip to Venice had to include two things, wandering the city and eating. Lots of eating. After a couple of days and a couple of pounds, I’d say it was definitely a successful trip to Venezia.

            We started our journey by walking down to the train station in Canterbury on Thursday afternoon. After a train to London, a Tube ride, a train to the airport, a plane, a bus and two boat trips we finally arrived at our hostel at 12:10am. We were slightly panicked because the hostel had informed us that reception closed at midnight, and with no map of the city and no phone to contact them with, we didn’t think we would make it. (After the last hostel disaster in Brighton, we did not want to take our chances). As we waited for our second boat we contemplated our options, which included potentially sleeping in a docked gondola…

             We finally found the place and rang the bell several times, but received no response… not a good sign. Then, all of the sudden we heard a voice from above, and an Italian man named Matteo appeared on the balcony! I’ve never been so relieved. He let us in and after a couple minutes of waiting he informed us that all the private rooms were located at their sister-hostel, which was a seven-minute walk away. At this point several things were confusing us. Seven minute walk? Private room??? Looks like our hostel booking was messed up once again… We quickly informed him that there had been a mistake. Being extremely cheap, we had booked the 10-bedroom dorm and once again I had all the confirmation numbers and emails. Unlike the Brighton hostel, he apologized for their mistake and told us he was still taking us to the other hostel (at this point we were slightly shocked at our terrible luck with hostels but mostly we were just relieved not to be homeless). We began our walk, which consisted of me Katie and Matteo venturing down tiny alleyways for about 5 minutes before we made a slightly awkward and sketchy alleyway tradeoff to another guy who we were told would take us the rest of the way. Turns out he was an extremely friendly English guy and Katie I were so relieved to hear a familiar accent. Turns out that our hostel mix-up was once again, a blessing in disguise. We ended up in a private room with its own bathroom while still paying the price of the dorm! Guess everything happens for a reason… but next time I book a hostel I’m not taking any chances...

            The next day we set out to explore the city! We had a delicious breakfast of pastries and nutella coffee (which literally consisted of Italian espresso and straight nutella) I wish I could start every day like that. From there we walked around and window-shopped. Adventuring through the neighborhood and getting lost. We grabbed a slice of pizza and ate on a little bridge overlooking a canal. So very Italian of us. Our next goal was to ensure that we stayed hydrated for the day, so we stopped into a wine store and picked up a bottle. In a city where the wine is cheaper then the water what do you expect??

            

Just chilling with my new Italian friend...

            We then left our local neighborhood and headed to the Basillica de San Marco where we braved the tourists and saw the city’s major attractions. After a near death experience with a pigeon darting straight for us, we sat in the square, soaking up the sun, drinking our wine and indulging in some first-class people watching. Life was good.

            We walked around the area and went to the top of the Campanile, where we saw a beautiful 360 view of the city! We also enjoyed a double scoop of Gelato. Yum! Eventually we had some dinner before getting back onto the water taxi just in time to see the sunset on the Grand Canal. It was absolutely stunning.

        

San Marco 

Awkward photo, but the Gelato made up for it 

Sunset on the Grand Canal 

         The next day we devoted to more wandering and most importantly more eating. We splurged on ourselves and had our morning coffee break at The Florian Café, which is one of the oldest cafes in Europe and was rated the number 2 most beautiful café in the world! Notable attendees included Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, Casanova, and of course, us.  While is cost us a small fortune, we sat and enjoyed our cappuccinos and biscotti and soaked in the amazing ambiance of the place. We spent the rest of the day adventuring the canals and seeing the rest of the sights. Time went by so quickly and soon we were having our final supper of red wine and bruschetta along the canal. We went to grab the bus back to the airport, but not before grabbing another double scoop of gelato for the road! (I am now broke and slightly heavier then before I left, but it was all worth it). We then began our long journey back to England, which of course, included several complications including almost being denied entrance at the UK border patrol despite having our Student visas. In the end we eventually made back to London where we stayed in our friend Charlie’s amazing home! We spent the next day wandering around Portobello market, which is walking distance from his house. It was so nice to be able to explore London a little more as well as meet Charlie’s family; it was the perfect way to unwind from the busy week, thanks again for all your hospitality Charlie!  Ciao!

Living luxuriously at Cafe Florian

The Grand Canal 

A final glass of Wine before heading out!

Whitstable, England

A couple weeks ago we went and visited Whitstable! Although we had originally planned to go to Dover for the day, we missed the bus and ended up going to Whitstable on a whim! Whitstable is an adorable little beach town not too far from Canterbury. We spent the day walking the beach, eating ice cream and window-shopping. Despite being excessively windy, I really loved Whitstable, reminded me of home!

The best ice cream ever! 

The boardwalk in Whitstable is lined with these colorful beach huts! 

After about 50 attempts, finally a decent group picture! 

brighton, england

Our trip to Brighton was all about timing. We got up “Brighton early” (as Charlie reminded us) and were ready to start our adventure. By the time we all met up and walked to the train station, we were already late. We collected our tickets and boarded the train just in time. We had to change trains in Ashford and quickly realized that we weren’t the only ones headed to the beach during the October “heat wave”. The two-carriage train was packed, and we all somehow managed to squeeze into the “standing room only” circumstances. Lets just say it was a bit of a rough journey as we were running on no sleep and no food. However, once we arrived in Brighton, it was completely worth it! Brighton reminded me of a European version of Santa Monica and Venice Beach. We walked through an area called the Lanes, which was lined with unique shops, boutiques and cafes. As we made our way to the coast, I felt oddly at home…it was great to see the ocean again! Brighton has a huge pier with rides and shops that we walked around on. The boardwalk felt so alive, and the beach was absolutely packed because of the great weather. We were lucky enough to have David, who lives fairly close to the area, as an excellent guide! We just didn’t know exactly how lucky we were to have him quite yet… but that will come later…

            After walking the boardwalk, we ran to the grocery store and picked up the necessary supplies for a picnic in the Royal Pavilion. The pavilion is a beautiful Taj Mahal-looking building with large gardens surrounding it. David informed us that some king built it a long time ago, but we were more entertained by the beautiful views and the multiple weddings that were taking place there. We sat, ate and relaxed, while people-watching at the weddings and enjoying each others company. As it started to get dark we figured it would be a good time to start the 1.8 mile journey to our hostel. This is where the real adventure began… I apologize now for the excessive length of this story but I feel it needs to be told…

            With little information or well-thought out planning for this trip, we set out for the hostel. Seven of us with our seven backpacks that we had been carrying all day long. After a bit of confusion and a great deal of walking, we finally found it! Upon arrival, the rest of my group was herded into another room, as I, the reservation-maker, was the only one allowed to stay at the front desk. I collected everyone’s money and told the lady at reception my name and reservation information. After about five minutes of entering various reconfigurations of my name into her database, she informed me that there was no record of our reservation. I knew this was impossible because I had received a confirmation email of my booking as well as had been charged 10% down payment on my card. Once I told her that, she informed me that the same thing had happened to two Australian girls the night before. She told me that that had been a “real” problem since they were two foreign girls (I stared blankly at her, I know I live in England now but come on…not a true local quite yet…) She told me that since it was the fault of the hostel booking website and not of the hostel itself, there was nothing they could do and that we had to leave the hostel. She then proceeded to joke about how all of Brighton was overbooked and that even if we “could afford to stay somewhere nice like the Hilton”, that it was too full. Two insults in one sentence. Ouch.

            We funneled out of the building for a group meeting to discuss the game plan. Then the hostel bouncer came out and informed us we weren’t allowed to linger around outside, and that we had to leave immediately. Talk about insult to injury. We moved around the corner of the building, and after failed attempts to get a hold of the hostel bookers, we bravely re-entered the hostel to get some more information. As I approached the counter once again, I was informed that they no longer had time to talk to us, as they were now “extremely busy”. I looked around the room to find no body else, except a man folding a large stack of towels, to whom the supposedly “busy” woman pointed to as she informed me of this (big night for them, I guess…) She said the only thing she could so was take my email down, which I could hardly scribble down fast enough before she asked me to “please hurry up”. Before we left, we asked her for her name as a future reference to the terrible service we had received. She quickly replied with a name sounding like a combination of the Greek letter lambda and a llama. We were too worried about wasting any more of her precious time to ask her to write it down, so something along the lines of “llamda-la” quickly became the heart of every joke for the remainder of our trip.

            So there we were, homeless (and slightly panicked) at 9pm in Brighton. We sat pathetically on a street corner discussing our options. This is when David heroically offered up his home to our nomadic group, and we are all eternally grateful to him and his family. As we sat on our corner finalizing our plans, a seven-passenger cab miraculously appeared in front of us. At this moment we knew our luck was changing. We quickly piled in and everything was up hill from there! We had a great night out in Brighton and then were able to come back to a true English home in the countryside! When we arrived back, David’s mom had set-up a line of blankets and pillows for us all in the living room. It was SO nice to have a little motherly love! The next morning, after collectively sleeping in until noon, David singlehandedly cooked a truly traditional English breakfast for ALL of us. It was the nicest thing in the world, and we were once again eternally grateful.

Our lack of a hostel turned out to be a true blessing in disguise as I was able to get a taste of my first English home. We eventually made it back to Brighton in the evening where we ate Fish and Chips on the beach beside the pier and watched the sunset before boarding the train back to Canterbury. Overall it was a truly unforgettable trip, and the perfect weekend getaway! Also, after finally getting a hold of hostel bookers, I was fully refunded and informed that it WAS the hostels fault after all…. A word of caution to everyone, never stay and the Smart Sea View Hostel in Brighton, they aren’t as “smart” as they claim… 

   

The beach was packed!

Picnic at the Pavilion 

The Royal Pavilion 

stranded on the street corner

finally enjoying some of the infamous brighton nightlife 

always on the move 

delicious homemade breakfast! 

The Pier at sunset!