Wednesday, 27 May 2009

  • Adventures in Italia - pt 8

    Day 7 - Executions, Flying Rats, and Kissing Italian Boys


    Jordan maintains they kill birds outside our Venice apartment window. I can't say for sure, because I was sleeping in pretty good on this vacation, but she swears by it. I do remember hearing about a dozen birds screaming their heads off around 7am, but I wandered back into whatever dream I was having before I could hear the events occurring shortly after. Jordan heard the screaming get louder and louder, as though chickens on leashes were being herded closer and closer to our window. She then noted that one at a time, a bird would stop screaming until no birds remained.

    I, of course, had some serious questions about the logistics of this. How would a bird, so stupid it shits in midair (or genius?) know that it was about to die? What happened to all the blood? What about the children walking to school? Jordan stuck by her story. I put it away for the day, agreeing to give it a good listen tomorrow morning.

    I left the apartment on my own looking for an internet connection. Jordan has limited tolerance for me taking up her time with my incessant writing, so I wanted to upload Day 5 while she was in the shower, lest I suffer the same fate as the Screaming Chickens at dawn.

    There was no connection to be found. The one I had in Rome must have been a fluke. My blackberry can always connect, but I need the Macbook to upload the things I write. Bastard Venetians and their password-locked wireless networks.

    I did get a chance to wander through the Jewish Ghetto for a few minutes. There were several delis, bookstores, libraries and gift shops catering to the local, and tourist, Jewish population. Gam Gam, the corner kosher restaurant, hosts free Shabbat services for any and all Jewish people, regardless of language spoken.

    The apartments, which have since been renovated so people would actually want to live there, have windows almost right on top of each other, a clue to how tight living spaces were in pre-WWII Italy.

    It is on this little solo walk that I realized I must look more Italian than when I am with Jordan, whose freckles don't exactly scream "Mama Mia!"

    I was greeted and full on approached with Italian conversation, none of which I could respond to. Damn, why didn't I finish that Rosetta Stone again? I can't blowdry or flatten my hair here, so my days are spent with the wavy, dark brown mop on my head pinned back. Seems to fit right in.

    I wandered back to the apartment, finished getting ready, and we left for our first, and only, full day in Venice. The first thing we had to do was figure out the taxi-bus system on our own. This wasn't hard. There are dozens of docks along the grand canal where big boats pull up, you get on, and it takes you where you want to go. Each boat is numbered and it shows you the direction its going so you can make sure to go the right way (a nice feature we would inevitably screw up at 2am the next morning).

    We climbed onto the patio boat with 150 other people. The seats were all filled, so we had to stand.

    Note to fellow Venice travelers: stop being assholes and pay attention when there are people around you. I am tired of being impaled by your heels, run over by your stroller, and slammed into a gate like a WWE wrestler because you think the boat is going to take off before you can get to the exit. This isn't 6am before a Macy's Red Tag Sale...this is Italia! Take it easy.

    Jordan picked the restaurant. La Piscina. Right on the waterfront of the Ocean. We ate bruschetta and paninis and drank Peroni. After this, we walked to the Gelateria Nico, famous for their "gianduiotto da passeggio," which is a block of chocolate-prailine gelato placed in a cup with an offensive amount of whipped cream all around and on top of it. We shared one, and I am still surprised I am alive to tell the tale. As even our Rough Guide points out, that thing screams triple bypass.

    We would learn throughout our stay, however, that the best gelato in the cities we visited was undoubtedly found in Venice.

    We sat in silence, too full to move for several minutes. Then, it was off to the museums!

    First was the Gallerie dell' Accademia. This place is ordanized into dozens of rooms filled with works from the most famous Venetian Painters Veneziano, Bellini, and Carpaccio, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, etc.

    The best thing in the gallery is the famous "Last Supper," which we've all seen. In real life, however, the damn thing takes up an entire wall. Its probably near the size of Michelangelo's "Last Judgement" in the Sistine Chapel. Thing is, it isn't actually called the Last Supper. The painting is called Christ in the House of Levi. Turns out Veronese almost got in deep shit from the Inquisition because the painting depicts all kinds of weird guests around the table: drunks, a midget in a court jester costume, animals running around, and so on. By changing the caption, he was apparently able to slip by. Don't ask me how that worked.

    The grisliest painting is Carpaccio's Crucifixion and Glorification of the Ten Thousand Martyrs of Mount Ararat (say that one 10 times fast). Apparently, Ten thousand ancient Roman soldiers were scared silly to fight the Armenians. These crazy pagans went so far as to ask Jesus for help. The were shown how to convert and what not. The Emperor threatened to torture and crucify everyone who converted just like Jesus. So as you can imagine, the painting is of hundreds of Jesus look-a-likes in various forms of crucifixion. Gnarly.

    In fact, all of the paintings have a really dark theme that seems to suit Venice. Faces moaning, death and dismemberment scenes, plenty of La Piete ("The Pity," meaning an artist's take on the scene where Mary holds her dead son after crucifixion), and alot of blank, expressionless faces. The plague hit Venice hard, so many of the subjects have a sunken, deathly look to them. How interesting that the architecture and the art so accurately portray the energy of this sinking city both now and as it has been for the past several hundred years. Even the paintings themselves are darker, almost as though the canvas is soaking wet. Then again, this could be from less restorations.

    Jordan and I decided that we also had to see the Guggenheim. This sounded like fun because it houses all contemporary art and for the past week, we'd been looking at really old shit.

    Turns out, contemporary art is really weird. Some of it is definitely amazing in its creativity, color, perspective and detail. For the most part, however, I can't tell where the inspiration comes from. Further, I firmly believe that come of it was bullshit. For example, one of the staple pieces is Brancusi's Bird in Space. I looked really hard at it and all I saw was a brass banana. There weren't any grooves or markings. Just a smooth, banana shaped hunk of brass. Hell, a cone would have been more interesting. Much of the place looked like the house from Beetlejuice.

    We did see Yoko Ono's wish tree in the garden though. That was pretty cool.

    After we left that acid trip, we headed to the Piazza San Marcos. This is the one, big, famous piazza in the city where most tourists go. I was totally stoked when I saw it because I immediately recognized it: it was that place they always show you in Italy with the thousands of pigeons all over the ground. I think it was most recently in a diamond commercial of some kind (spoiled bitch gets an Italy vacay AND diamonds).

    I will say it was hilarious to find out that hundreds of people combined with hundreds of pigeons causes all the problems you think it will: I saw a 12 year old brat kicking one, pigeons practically dive bombing into crowds of people (requiring them to duck), and a stroller ran over the tail of one until it shrieked. If you're holding bread or fruit, they will just land on your shoulder. Only in Venice would jackass tourists pay $20 for a ramekin of seeds to attract 10 pigeons, have them climb all over you, and then have your picture taken like its a magical moment. I bet they won't think its so magical when they take the Avian Flu home to their families. Let it be known, pigeons are gross.

    The piazza, however is beautiful. One side shows the Basilica San Marcos, built in 1083 and officially the current resting place of San Marcos, Another is the Campanille, a big tower that fell down in 1902 but was rebuilt, and the rest is the Commune di Venizia, a bunch of shops and restaurants contained within a very old Gothic building stretching around the piazza. The building looks like it was originally white, but time and moisture have left long, black wear marks that give it a crazy eerie look.

    Jordan and I slammed down a pizza and headed home to get ready for our night. Her little book told us there was another little piazza where all the cool college kids and 20 somethings hang out until wee wee hours. We finally made it out around 11pm, where we plopped ourselves down at a nice, outdoor table amongst a hundred or so other people our age - Italians, college kids, tourists, etc. We noticed two guys pretending to speak Italian to each other right in front of us. As it turns out, they were drunk US Army guys stationed in Italy. One was from South Carolina, and the other from Texas. You really can't impress girls by saying the same 5 Italian words with a heavy southern accent. It just doesn't work for whatever reason.

    We mingled, drank, drank and mingled, and decided to head home around 2. Around 2:30, after 15 minutes or so of standing on the taxi-boat dock waiting for the night ride, we were greeted by four Italian guys about our age, who were also waiting for the bus. What ensued was one of those amazing examples of human communication where actual spoken language takes a backseat to, well, whatever it was we used to get the message across. These boys spoke about 5 words of English, and I speak about 4.6 words of Italian. Yet, through a combination of those words, charades, grunts, eye-rolls, and sign language, we were able to establish the following:

    1) The night taxi-boat does not make as many stops and does not go in both directions. The next one comes at 3:22 am and we have to take this boat up two stops and wait for the other boat that comes the other direction to take us to our stop.

    2) The guys worked for the coast guard. They drive boats. Boats can only go so fast in Venice because the wakes can damage the foundations of the buildings.

    3) 2 of them were from Sicily and I didn't catch where the rest were from.

    4) They like Facebook. We "friended" eachother.

    5) The would love to come to America. We LOVE Michelangelo's David.

    How this was able to get across, I will never know. The real hilarity has come in the messages we have exchanged on Facebook since that night. All parties have to use a translator to say the simplest things.

    "Here the time and beautiful, ago very warm...."

    I'm gonna go ahead and assume he was trying to tell us the weather was really warm the weekend we were there. Then again, who in the hell can tell.

    I will say that the language of flirtation is universal. I kissed me a beautiful Italian boy. Made the whole goddamn trip.

    This would be the last kooky event of the vacation. The next morning, we would have to return to Roma to prepare for the journey home.

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