Venice: The Trip In/ Or, A Series of Unfortunate Events

I started off Monday with the expectation that I'd spend the morning walking to some of the other towns, and make it back to Riomaggiore with time to collect my bags from the hotel lobby and make it on to a train that would then connect to Milan and then Venice. Easy, right? I thought so, too, until I seemed to have the absolute inability to do anything on time or efficiently. I ended up getting a train ten minutes later than I originally intended, and just when I got to La Spezia (where I would switch for the Milan train) the Milan train was already boarding and set to leave in 5 minutes! And I didn't have a ticket. However, the ticket office was able to give me a different route with one extra exchange that would actually get me in sooner than I'd originally planned for. Crisis number one, averted. At least for the time being. This train is set to leave in 30 minutes, giving me plenty of time to get a snack. I go out on the platform about 5 minutes before my departure time, just as the train is arriving. I'm a little confused, since the track has two trains listed for two separate departure times (one is mine at 3:12, the other is to Florence at 3:40), but I at that point didn't really notice it. So I board the train... only to realize I hadn't validated my ticket, which is a 50€ fine. So I get off the train, validate the ticket, reboard. Now it's 3:25... 3:35, and I'm getting really confused. Of course there is no conductor or anyone else in sight. I'm also pretty sure the other train had not come through at all, unless it was early somehow and left before it's scheduled time. (Which seems unlikely as it seems to me that Italian trains either run on time or late.) Anyway, it turns out that this train also goes to the station I need to get to, so I stay put. Finally get to the station... (after accidentally getting off a station too early because of similarly named stations; think Newark Penn versus New York Penn), and it turns out that I am WAY too late for my train, which was the only one of the afternoon/evening. Of course. At least I realized that I would have already missed it even if I hadn't gotten off one stop too early by accident, so that mistake doesn't even count. Oh and I slept through one of my connections by accident (waking up and realizing just as we were pulling away). So basically I was really on top of my game on Monday. So I'm at this station, with no connecting train, so it's back to talk to the ticket window, where the woman behind the counter is extremely skeptical of my missed train situation. She's staring at my ticket and her computer screen for a long time without saying anything. For all I know, she's checking something that says that the 3:12 train (the original mystery train that I never saw) was perfectly on time. Which it could have been. Elise and I had trouble with the somewhat confusing train schedule when we first arrived as well. But finally another guy comes in, who tells her that its fine so she gives me yet another ticket with a new way of going (at this point I'm also pretty sure that I'm much closer to Florence than Venice... maybe I should just skip Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday and head straight to Firenze?) Good thing: I don't have to pay to get my ticket switched. Bad thing: my new ticket doesn't assign me a seat number, so I'm essentially standing for 90 minutes. Finally got in to Venice around 10:30. Luckily everyone else had already arrived so they were able to give me directions/ come meet me on my walk. Long day but all worked out! And I got to be a train pro... sort of. Not really. Actually not at all.