The Dutch in Italy

The countdown has begun. I’ve arrived in the last village, Polcenigo. It’s near the previous town, Pordenone, so I continue following classes there and going to choir and not least of all, keep in contact with my new friends.

So what happened? Well I had some friends over from Holland, which was great. Thanks to Birgit I have now a “Gelderse Rookworst” waiting for me to eat, which I save for the moment I crave it the most.

We went to Venezia to celebrate Carnevale, a feast that I was never interested in, until I came here. Carnevale in Venezia is like walking in a museum, but al the statues are alive and have created themselves.

The atmosphere was very positive, everyone was enjoying themselves and lots of people were dressed beautifully! They were very aware that everyone wanted to take pictures of them and they kept on seeking the best places to pose and gave us as much time as we needed to take their picture.

Also Femke came by, with whom I’ve had a great time playing with Elia and who brought me a new friend from Holland. We saw Vicenza which is a beautiful city, and I’m sorry I had to leave, so I will come back. We also wanted to walk in de Dolomiti, in the snow. We awoke a little late, but when we took the bus at 12:30 we thought we’d had at least 2 hours of walking. We arrived in Claut at 14:35 and before we left the bus I asked the driver at what time the last bus went to Pordenone. He gave me funny look and said: ’14:40.’

I responded by saying I didn’t need to know the next bus, but the last bus. Obviously I thought I’d made a mistake in talking Italian.

This time the bus driver didn’t give me a funny look, but the ‘oh, she is a tourist and doesn’t know how we do it’ look. He assured me that the bus, 10 meters in front of us, was the last bus to leave to Pordenone that day.

We were perplexed. We sniffed 2 minutes of fresh air threw a snowball and than went into the bus, for another 1,5 hour ride home.

Luckily Femke did enjoy this bus ride, even though it was a pity we didn’t get to walk. But the next day we’d decided to wake more early and take an early bus to Claut.

We arrived at 09:00 at the station and bought another ticket to Claut, then we went to bus stop to look at the timetable. We had difficulty finding the bus to Claut, it wasn’t on the “arrivals & departures” board. In the end we found out, the earliest bus to Claut was at 12:30, the bus we took the day before.

As you might imagine, we were perplexed. There’s only one way to go and come back! It’s crazy but true.

I remembered another town, one valley before Claut, near a lake where was also snow. So we changed our tickets to Barcis and had a beautiful walk.