A hard rain

You're not allowed to smoke on Italian trains, but people still do. There's not much reason not to since, according to the sign on the door in front of me, the fine for being caught smoking is seven euros. Does that deter anyone?

Trst is sorely lacking in restaurants, but we found a cute little homey one (toilet was a hole in the floor, whatever) and I've officially come around to white wine with seafood. After all the white wine, the waiter brought us free grappa. Then he brought us something ouzo-like. By this point it was pouring rain and we kinda wanted to have coffee and wait out the rain, but we really couldn't have handled any more free ouzo so we made a run for it. I spent the whole trip back to the hotel cursing Trst and rain at the top of my lungs. I hate Trst.

I woke up this morning to what I thought was a beautiful sunrise outside my window. it was actually a street light, and it was still pouring. I hate Trst. We spent about an hour alternating between MTV and CNN on the hotel TV hoping the rain would let up, but it just got worse. We ended up taking a cab the three blocks to the train station, and it was five euros well spent. I hate Trst.

The last stop on the trip was a sprint through Venice, from where we fly back to Barcelona tonight. I was so grumpy from the rain this morning that I didn't really even want to go to Venice. Heading straight for the airport and sitting there for six hours sounded better than doing anything outside. But even though it was crowded and cold and rainy (at least it wasn't raining sideways anymore) and a little smelly, I really loved it. The canals are cool and really didn't smell that bad, and the tourists stay pretty concentrated in a few areas so there are neighborhoods that aren't crowded at all. We walked around and ate pizza and had coffee and went to the Basilica San Marco, which is where St. Mark's remains are buried. That was all we had time for, but it was great. I'll definitely have to go back.