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Venezia - see it before it sinks
We had an early train, but the early-morning train routine is getting to be "old hat" for us. Luckily, we'd had the foresight to purchase tickets with reserved seating. Lillie didn't think it mattered where we sat, until we saw how crowded it was. I realized then that the reserved seats were for real, and our only guarantee of seating for the three-hour trip. We had gotten on the wrong car, so we got off the train and found the correct car. We picked the wrong side and had to slowly make our way through an overcrowded train filled with tourists with suitcases far too large to be considerate of their fellow passengers. We came upon yet another gaggle of girls - Canadians this time - in our assigned seats, and greeted them with the bad news. Being Canadians, they were very mellow and polite about it. The folks who held tickets for the seats across from us were another just-married couple from Houston, TX and - I believe - Lafayette, LA. They were very nice people, but - again - we were sort of taken aback by some things they said. The wife is Catholic and the husband Baptist. Owing to the wife's Catholic upbringing, they elected to stay in Rome near the Vatican for their whole honeymoon except for today, when they were making a "day trip" to Venice. Of course, Venice and Rome are like 6 hours apart in either direction, so this was a little insane as far as Lillie and I were concerned, but hey whatever. My/Lillie's personal favorite "REALLY??-isms" from them were, (1) "We're going to lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in Rome tomorrow and pick up some souvenirs," (2) "We don't really care for the pizza here - it's more of a thin-crust. We had that at the pizza place I managed back home, and I never liked it there, either," (3) "We don't even try to speak Italian," and (4) "When they tell us to stop taking pictures in the museum, we just find a sneakier way to keep taking them." I still love America, but do the majority of us HAVE to be such Philistines when abroad? Despite all of these horrifying disclosures, I actually liked the couple. Venice, although completely topographically different from Siena, shared the common trait of being a city somewhat frozen in time, with attendant navigational frustrations for new arrivals. As with Siena, we arrived hungry. Actually, Lillie arrived hungry, as I was still working my way through my stash of steak sandwiches. At least, this time, one of us wasn't cranky from hunger. Arriving in Venice, we decided to buy train tickets in advance, to insure seats on the train to Milan, since we figured they might be as scarce going out of Venice as they are when coming in. Naturally, most of the ticket machines were broken and the one that worked was confusing, so we ended up in line for a real person. Next up, waiting in the wrong lines for the Vaporetto, which is basically a boat-bus. Information is in short supply, and at least one came and left before we got clued-in. Other similarly-lost tourists followed us to the wrong stop as if we knew what we were doing. While dealing with this matter, I got a series of phone calls on my cell, presumably from our rental apartment landlord. Every time I picked up, however, I couldn't hear anything. When I tried to call the number back or use one of the other lines, I got someone on the other end who lectured me about international dialing on the assumption that I was using a phone from Italy. Nice. Thanks, buddy. About two weeks later and long after we'd returned to the United States from our trip, I would finally get the voice-mail from that day, asking why we were an hour late for our appointment. Way to go with the international roaming and voice-mail, AT&T, Vodaphone, and Orange. Apparently, even electrons get lost when navigating Medieval towns. We finally managed to get on a vaporetto that would take us somewhere from which we could navigate to our room, a process which involves a certain amount of pushing, so as not to end up in the canal rather than the boat. I worked out our winding route from the vaporetto stop to our apartment with the aid of a fairly decent map we'd bought at the train station. Venice's medieval streets are so winding and unpredictable - with dead-ends and sidewalks that abruptly put you right into the canal - that the trip would have been impossible - or would have taken three times as long without it. This latter assertion would be proven the following day. We arrived at some variant of the address, but couldn't find the exact one, so we enlisted the help of a nearby restauranteur. He got on his cell and - a few minutes later - our landlady arrived. It turns out that the unit was upstairs from the restaurant, and that our location was actually just a few yards from a vaporetto stop for another line, which would have been useful to know ahead of time.... The apartment itself was HUGE and beautiful. I'd guess that we had about 600-700 square feet of space, complete with king-sized bed, kitchen, one of the largest bathrooms of our trip, and a living room. Our contact only spoke Italian, but I understood enough of what she said as she talked and pointed to things that this was no problem. Probably the most critical thing that she demonstrated was the opening/closing of the unit's shutter-like windows, which had a brilliant (almost Transformers-esque) dual mode of "open" - one that tipped in from the top, and one that opened inwards like a door. Very clever. After she left, Lillie and I drank some coffee and ate a little herbed risotto that Lillie made from what she'd found in the kitchen cabinets, then crashed out on the living room's two couches for an afternoon nap. I awoke before Lillie, did some reading-up on how to spend the rest of our day and the next day. Unfortunately, we slept through the sunny part of the afternoon, and it started dumping rain on us as we got to the nearby vaporetto station. Our goal was to try to take in some of the Biennale art exhibition, but we got on the wrong vaporetto and ended up taking the long way there. This really was no tragedy in the end, as our vaporetto ride took us around the Murano island known for artisinal blown glass and kept us under cover during the short period of pouring rain. En route, we overheard conversation by more fellow Americans of a completely different stripe. This bunch was a pride of cougars in town for the Biennale. On the plus side, they actually knew a few things about art and Italy. On the minus side, they were clearly aspiring modern art sugar-mamas from the New York exurbs. Sample quote, "I'll be going to the opening party tonight. It's invite-only..." If it's invite-only, then why blab about it, except to rub it in everyone's face that you are such a high-roller? 
We arrived at the Biennale site to find
that it was closing down for the day and
cost 15 Euro per person to get in. It
looked like they were still charging
admission, but I didn't feel like haggling
for a pro-rated admission - so we
proceeded onward. In the end, we saw
about as much modern art incidentally as
we probably had interest in seeing - there
were various street performances of avant
garde dance and numerous satellite
exhibitions that were free to the public.
We wound our way through various streets
to what I would call an "old man" Italian
restaurant that had been recommended to us
by one of Annie's friends. Nothing
nouveau about it, but there were plenty of
Biennalists in the joint and there was a
line around the block by the time we left.
We were seated at a table that we shared
with some Austrians, who were nice enough.
Since Venice is right on the water,
seafood is the thing to do. We got
gnocchi with crabmeat sauce, salad, some
fish, and half-carafes of white and red
wine.
After dinner, we made our way to the
Piazza San Marco, to take in the "dueling
orchestras," which are basically just two
classical/jazz ensembles playing at
adjacent cafes in the square. Rather than
play over each other, they just take
turns. Since the seating area for each
was mostly flooded (which is the case
about 100 days out of every year), we
stood a hundred yards back and took in a
few minutes of music before moving on.
Our way home took us over the famous
Rialto Bridge, which is a landmark that
didn't really register that significantly
with me, other than that it's an
impressively-engineered bridge for the
period. We stopped at a cool wine bar in
the neighborhood near the bridge and
enjoyed a Soave (white wine from the
Veneto region) and a Merlot with enough
tannen in it to make me forgive it for
being a Merlot.
Around the corner from the bar, a crowd
had gathered in the square where a barge
had put down anchor and had a DJ playing
techno and projecting images on the side
of the building. It was neat, presumably
Biennale-related, and a little surreal.
About a yard at the very edges of the
square was under a quarter-inch of water.
There was something all at once cool, fun,
and sad about an open-air dance party in a
sinking city.
Lillie and I decided to take our own party
back home. We made a literal leap of
faith (the water was a little choppy and
the boat was lurching) onto the next
vaporetto, without double-checking to make
sure that it was the right one. In a
pleasant reversal of the day's fortunes,
this was exactly the right vaporetto and
only one stop away from where we needed to
disembark.
We got a beer and some wine from a pizza
place, and drank it while sitting outside
and taking in the activity in the square,
as drunks passed by and shopkeeps closed
up for the night.
Thanks to our shutters, large bed, and ear
plugs, we slept very deeply.
Venice Day Two:
I ate a leisurely breakfast watching MTV
Europe until Lillie woke up. It was
interesting to see what gets played on
Italian MTV - more AAA and techno/dance,
and a LOT less hip-hop and metal. Can't
complain. The new Eminem video is kinda
cool, and now I finally can put a
song/face to this Lady GaGa person I'd
read about. The musician in me is
underwhelmed by Lady GaGa and I don't
think she's all that cute, but I have that
stupid hook to "Poker Face" lodged in my
brain, now. Damn her.
Some of the English-language AAA acts
sounded just like the radio from 3-5 years
ago, which led me to speculate that
American artists get a second life in
foreign markets after the US has moved on.
Maybe I'll send Tautologic's demo to the
A&R for foreign subsidiaries of major
labels... kidding.... Or maybe not....
Having walked most of the way home last
night, we decided to wander over to St.
Mark's without getting on the vaporetto.
We could have used a vaporetto in the
square itself, as it was even more flooded
than the day before. Foot traffic was
limited to some very narrow dry spots,
places where the uneven pavement was
less-submerged, and some areas where
elevated pedestrian walkways had been put
into place.
St. Mark's Basilica is a very cool
Byzantine style cathedral, apparently
built in the style as part of an alliance
with the Eastern branch of the Christian
church, since they were trying to fend off
the influence of Rome. I think it's
interesting that architectural style is a
sort of political statement in this case,
and it reinforces what Lillie had told me
about Italians identifying more strongly
with their hometown/region than they do
with the nation.
After St. Mark's, we visited the Doge's
Palace, which connects to Europe's first
prison via Bridge of Sighs. It goes
without saying that the Palace was
beautiful, enormous, and impressive and
that the prison looked like an unpleasant
place to spend a few years or the rest of
your life. I found it interesting to have
a prison so close in proximity to the seat
of power - seems a little ill-advised, in
the event of a jailbreak.
After the palace, we elected to simply
wander around Venice, walking across the
canal to the other side, then back again
over the Calatrava bridge under
construction near the train/bus stations.
We had lunch at a cafe. We had salad,
pizza, and spinach. There were some
high-spirited Finlanders at the table next
to us, and they were very friendly.
They'd been at a wedding in the Veneto and
elected to drop by Venice before heading
home.
We got lost somewhere on the north side of
Venice, in an area that seemed to be more
recently-built than the historic quarters
where we were staying and most of our
tourist stuff took us.
We got some
groceries and other necessities along the
way, but our attempt to buy fruit was
thwarted by the fact that we hadn't
weighed it before getting in line.
Apparently, the technology for scanners
with built-in weights hadn't made their
way into Italian supermarkets to the same
degree that it has in the US.
Feeling some measure of gratitude for our
downstairs neighbors for helping us
contact our landlady, I talked Lillie into
having dinner at the restaurant below our apartment, which is
basically a pizza and beer place. We
split a calzone and orders of grilled
vegetables and the first chicken I'd seen
on the menu all trip long. Since Lillie
loves chicken, I figured that we'd order it.
Unfortunately,
the chicken turned out to be chicken
nuggets. I suppose that this was an
object lesson to do as Venetians do when
in Venice.
I suppose that I also should
have been more mercenary in our restaurant
selection, as I'm sure that the owner's
sense of a good deed returned was probably
nowhere nearly as great our sense of
disappointment in what we'd ordered. I
probably also should have paid more
attention to what seemed to be Lilllie's
strong reservations about the place. This
was arguably the worst meal we had in
Italy.
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