S: I woke up this morning at 6:30, after less than 3 hours of on and off sleep, jumped out of bed and got down to bed bug business. All my clothes came out of the drier and got folded up into plastic bags and jammed in my backpack. We each had hot showers and hightailed it out of there as fast as we could.

Our next adventure awaited, and I wasn’t going to let this ruin it. For the last few years I have had this dream of going to Venice, and I was beyond excited start a fresh day in the city I’ve been so longingly dreaming of. I could barely contain my excitement when our train rolled up to the station. I was almost in tears getting off the train, and Meaghan kept crazily grinning ear to ear. We excitedly walked for over half an hour, almost getting lost on purpose towards our hostel, which thankfully seems to be exactly what we needed after the last one.

With everything going on we decided to shell out for a private room for the first time this trip, and boy was it worth it. We spent the next five odd hours meticulously checking every single item we had, seam for seam, with not a bug in site. We both felt significantly happier and more at ease knowing that the worst was over, thank goodness.

M: Throughout this long and tedious search of all our earthly belongings, we kept thinking we’d found the worst item to search through. First Savanna thought the worst was socks, but that was quickly blown out of the water by black pantyhose then black overalls and jeans. We agreed in the end it all sucked and that true friendship lies in searching through each other’s (clean) underwear for bedbugs.

S: My overalls definitely won the prize for worst item to search through! With newfound relaxation in our bones, and tension released we set off to explore Venice a little bit and grab some dinner.

M: By this time it was dark and we made our way to Piazza San Marco, about a ten minute walk from our place. The skinny little streets and wide open piazzas were mostly empty until we got really close, then it filled up quickly with lots of people and expensive shops. When we popped out from the small side streets in Piazza San Marco, we were greeted by the sounds of a grand piano and violin serenading a little restaurant. Basilica San Marco was beautiful all lit up by the square. We thought for a nano second of sitting down around here for some food, but Savanna turned around as fast as she possibly could when she got close enough to read a menu. €8 for a coffee? Nope, not happening.

The search for reasonably priced food was on. It took us quite a while to find something that was not ridiculously expensive. We also had a hankering for some wine to bring home with us to watch a movie. After getting turned around and ooh-ing and ahh-ing through closed shop windows, we found an open shop selling wine and candy. This is my kind of store. By the time we realized we did not have a corkscrew almost everything was closed.

Worry not, dear friends. I had a solution! Right before I left home my dad gave me a leatherman for the trip. I’m not sure he intended it to be used for this sort of thing, but here we are. I spent quite a while youtubing how to open a bottle of wine with just a leatherman, getting to the point where I found videos with this specific model. Eventually we just went for it with the knife and pliers. Unsurprisingly, it was not nearly as smooth as the videos made it look! Savanna sat there, alternating between laughing at me, telling me to not cut my fingers off because we would not be able to find our way to the hospital in the maze that is Venice and coaching me on my technique. Keep in mind that she has not done this either. Sav jumped in and things did not get better. Eventually Savanna somehow pulled out half the cork and shoved the rest of the cork into the bottle, which resulted in a big splash of red wine all over both of us. With the cork in pieces, we now had to drink the whole thing. This is all your fault, dad!

S: Oh no, a whole bottle of wine that requires drinking? Whatever shall we do!? (Thanks Kevin!)

We drank it. And watched a Fantastic Mr. Fox! Which is even better after half a bottle of wine!

S&M