So a 20 minute
shuttle ride lead to the Venice everyone knows and
bright and early I got there with a day of
adventure planned...
...and as the
clock struck noon I thought to myself "oh shit, I'm
here for 4 days." Venice is completely, absolutely,
with barely another function: a tourist city. If
you're in Italy, it's worth a visit - but you can see
it ALLLLLLL in a day -- and then some. Tourism is its
biggest revenue stream and it shows. I believe
I heard Italian from people outside of the stores
maybe twice. Which kinda brings me to how
I travel in general:
My ideal visit to
a city would be emersing myself within the local
community and just living. I like people. I like
stories. I don't like attractions. It's specifically
why I avoided Rome because that seemed just
like a city of big attractions and I figured Venice
would at least have an interesting atmosphere to it.
It most certainly did, and I can't express just
how unique and beautiful that city is -- but it barely
feels like a city. It now seems designed from the
ground up for tourists and within a few hours I was
ready to go. Of course you have to go on the
Gondola...
WHICH IS ONE HUNDRED EUROS. I mean
for fuck's sake people it's a boat. Which is why you
try and team up with other people to share. 6 is
maximum, so ideally you find a group of
5...
The smile on my
face is because I'm realizing that it must seem like
I never spoke to a man the entire month I've been
gone. LMAO. The honest-to-goodness truth is that as I
was coming up to a gondala I saw a woman and asked how
many was in her group (there were 5 - jackpot) and I
asked if I could share since I was just one. She
said sure - and I look and it's 4 other women. I
thought nothing of it until I started doing these
shots and realized that from Africa to France to
Greece the overall theme is far more titilating than
the truth. But, well, cool. Why shouldn't it be. Guys
are boring anyway. HA.
The guy
that maneuvered that damned Gondola wasn't
though. Wow. They just never run into shit. I
asked him if he ever hit his head on the
bridge and he said that he had and he fell
into the water. Why couldn't I have ben
in that fuckin' boat. I'd have paid 100 Euro
for that shit any day. But I watched so many
of these guys kick off walls, balance off
other boats and just never run into anything.
It's pretty fun to watch. Just be sure you
share a Gondola 'cause at the end of the day?
It's still a boat.
..and yes
there are all the pigeons in front of St.
Marc's but again... they're just pigeons.
What am I missing here. Pigeons suck at
home, why are they cool here? There was a
tour guide on the shuttle telling people to
make sure they saw them and I saw 2
girls turn to each other and say "Oh yeah, we
have to see that". !?!? Are they MAGICAL
pigeons? Will they heal you? Or do they shit
a lot and try and take your food.
There is
apparently a history about the pigeons all coming to
this island and that's why people came here too? But
what stupid people. Why would you follow pigeons? I
hate pigeons. I dunno. See? I'm just anti-attraction
man. I want to do shit no one has ever done before and
when I'm repeating shit I just get all antsy. Tours?
FAHGETTABOUTIT. I'd rather peel my skin off. So I
tried to find where no tourists were walking at all,
and that was fun.
And I finally
found my video. Not the most original thing, as
everyone seems to get lost in Venice, but it was
awesome to be able to get so much footage with
absolutely no one else around. It felt all 80s video
and I had that old Billy Joel song in my head that day
as well. "Surprises" off The Nylon Curtain if anyone's
wondering... and it's a total Lennon rip-off, but I
like the little breakdown part I used. Oh and yeah,
the steps. Crazy. Like it's cool and pretty the first
30 bridges you go over... and then you're like - fuck.
Let's drink some water. That and the 10 pounds I've
gained on this "adventure" is starting to catch up
with me. For the first time in my life I'm actually
looking forward to a workout routine.
:-)
I'd be
remiss if I didn't mention the graffiti
which as Laura warned was shocking. It is.
Paris wasn't even this bad. It really is
everywhere and no matter how much I
agree with the sentiments of this
particular piece of "art", it's sad that
there isn't a way to combat this. You know
how frustrated I am with my own struggles to
keep Journey Mountain clean, but when it's
cities this old and this
beautiful - it's quite a
bummer.
As was the end of
the day for me...
I still
can't get any answers on what happened and
it's infuriating to say the least. I'm
realizing now that the news story I saw about
him in the airport was most likely his death
and because I couldn't understand anything,
or even see much of the screen,
I brushed it off. The lack of info is
killin' me. I hope I have good internet
access in Rome... oh that.
So as I was on the
shuttle right after that picture actually, I started
realizing there was no way in hell I could spend 4
days in Venice. So I decided to pull one last
mini-hail mary (even though Greece was one too) and do
a day trip to Rome, see it on Sunday, then a day-trip
back to Venice to catch my plane back to London and
then home. I know, I know - the last thing I want to
see our tourist attractions, but Rome is a little
bigger than Venice and I have to believe it will
have a little more interesting atmosphere. And of any
attraction, I'd go see the Colisseum. Gladiator was
badass. :-)
Alright... few
more hours on the train and we're there.
