I am convinced that the most of the "excitement" for lack of a better term happens in the commute to my next destination.
Today I was headed to Trieste where I would stay with Adrian's mom and her husband Jon. I had never heard of Trieste before but I was excited to stay with someone I knew and not in a hotel. I was hoping the trip would also offer a bit of relaxation since I have been running around Europe so much and the exhaustion is really catching up to me.
I was flying out of Charleroi airport which is in South Brussels and by far the worst airport ever since it is impossible to get to. The two times I have flown from there I have taken a Flixbus and had to take it t 6am for a 6pm flight. So basically I have spent more than 12 hours at the airport studying and it was very painful. Today, I decided to take the bus to Maastricht and then two trains to Brussels Midi where I caught the Charleroi bus.
Everything went smoothly and it took me about 4 hours to reach the airport. Ryanair always boards extremely last minute but we were still on time. We reached Trieste except our plane was not allowed to land due to rainy weather conditions on the runway. We spent nearly 45 minutes circling Trieste until the captain announced that the weather conditions had only gotten worse and we were being rerouted to Venice.
I have not been to Venice but having done no research and without a plan I looked at hotels but then decided I wasn't sure that made the most sense. It was also past 10pm by the time we landed and I was exhausted. Everyone was frantically trying to figure out how we were going to get to Trieste. Ryanair arranged a bus which took nearly 2 hours to arrive and then boarded us on a bus to the Trieste airport. The location of the Trieste airport was not the most ideal since I still had an hour from the airport to Rachel's apartment. She suggested I make friends so I had someone to split a taxi with so that is exactly what I did. I made friends with a woman from Slovenia which is less than an hour from Trieste and made a friend from Argentina who was meeting his mother and traveling all over Italy. I talked with the boy from Argentina for some hours however in the end when we arrived he decided to take the train home so I had to once again search for someone else to split a taxi with.
When we arrived at the airport it was closed and there were no taxis around. I found a couple from Belgium who were going to the city center and they told me I could tag along. More people later arrived and the policeman was trying to arrange people into carpool cars to minimize the number of taxis being called and get us out of the airport. Traveling with the French couple was funny as they spoke French and the driver spoke Italian and I was translating between the two of them. I found it hilarious as I really can't speak either but I can understand bits and pieces here.
I finally arrived at Trieste at 2am and Rachel was up waiting for me! I was so happy to have finally made it!
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