Forearms and The Pope

I like Venice. I like Venice a lot.

First of all, the journey to get there was intense. Instead of dragging this out, I'm just going to list the types of transportation we took in the span of 7 hours: metro, bus, bus, plane, bus, bus, plane, bus, walking around aimlessly.

Let me start with the last mode of transportation. When we finally arrived to the island, it was around 7:30pm and we were starving. We only had a tiny, zoomed-out map of the area where our hostel was. This proved to be problematic. We began asking everyone how to get to Santa Croce. Unfortunately, the entire area was called Santa Croce. Great. After making several friends, one man finally offered to walk us to the street we needed to be on. He was amazing. Still, our hostel was only labeled with "555." It was a silly adventure. We dropped off our bags, met our 4 other hostel mates, and then went to dinner. We were going to go to a recommended restaurant, but it was trashy, so we skipped down a few and ended up at this glorious place. Let's call it "Donny's." Donny was our waiter who looked like Will Schuster from Glee, but Italian. I ordered gnocchi, Becca got lasagna. We shared a bottle of wine. We were so hungry from our journey though that we ended up ordering a pizza to share afterwards. That was the switch. As soon as we ordered it, Donny and his manager started to flirt with us-- his manager is old by the way. They end up giving us each a lemon cello shooter. Then, another. Then, cookies. However, they only charged us for the first dish and the wine. Not too shabby, eh?

We finally went back to the hostel after our 4-hour dinner and slept wonderfully. The weather the next day was horrendous. It was raining, windy, and coooold (brr, I'm shivering just thinking about it). This would have been fine if I had prepared for it, however, I didn't have rain boots or a poncho. I thought that this would just be an inconvenience, but about 20 minutes into our first walk around, we found that it was impossible to do. Parts of the city flooded because... well, let's face it; it's a city on water. So 15 Euros later, I had myself some mean galoshes. There were streets we walked down where the water was up to our mid-calves. It made for a really entertaining morning. We saw ... well, something of importance. This is awful that I can't remember what it was called, but I was tagging along with Becca on her whirlwind architecture Thanksgiving, so don't judge me. There were old columns with babies carved into them. We played "Posing with Friends" all morning and I got a gem of Becca in a special round of "Posing with Children."

We went to get lunch and got lured into a restaurant with the simplest of "Preggo"-s. "Preggo" means "please." The whole time, I kept thinking about a story that Jennie Cohen told me about her study abroad experience. She said that when her mom visited her in Italy, she told her to think of the tomato sauce, Preggo, whenever she needed to say "please." Well, Sherry Cohen kept getting a little confused and would say "Ragu," instead. I never forgot what preggo meant thanks to that story.

Anyway, we got ushered into a restaurant by a charming Italian man who sang to us. It's important that I mention what he was singing: Akon, Alicia Keys, etc. I'll come back to this later. The water right outside the restaurant was so high that it was flooding into the front room. This time, Becca ordered Gnocchi and I ordered spaghetti with seafood and of course, we shared another bottle of wine. Both were deemed as our favorite dishes we had eaten on the entire trip, despite creepy chefs that stared excessively.

We went to St. Mark's after that, which was flooded, yet beautiful. We strolled a bit and then we went to a church right on the corner of the island. It was completely dark because the sun sets at 4:30pm over here and it was already 5pm. I have never seen a church this dark before. It made it a lot cooler than the others since the only light used was candlelight.

Afterwards, we were so tired, yet so far from our hostel. We decided to just walk in the general direction of it and hope that we end up in a familiar area. An hour later, we were tired, cold, wet, and lost. Eventually, we found 555 and crashed for a little before dinner. I became mysteriously sick for a hot second (food poisoning?) but don’t worry, it didn’t slow me down. Becca and I went close by to get dinner. I only had soup though. I hated being so lame so we decided to gelato’s a few doors down- because you can’t go to Italy and not have gelato! Well, it was aiiight, but the man that was making the pizza behind the counter had these beautifully sculptured forearms. So, Becca and I ended up staying at this gelato-pizza place for about an hour and a half, watching forearms make pizza. Finally, we called it a night.

The next morning we woke to the wonderful surprise of SUNLIGHT! Becca and I headed out around what felt like 7am, but it was more like 9. The grounds were wet, but not flooded. It was so beautiful. The awesome architect that Becca is, we went to two churches on islands across from the city. It’s still Venice, but you have to take a water taxi to get there. Water taxis aren’t extremely expensive, but apparently, they work on honor code. By the end of the weekend, we had stopped buying tickets.

We floated over to see this one church and we were the first tourists of the day. I guess the ladies were excited to entertain us because they offered to take us to the sacracy that was in the convent. We said of course, but I honestly had no idea what a sacracy was (and I still don’t think I do). We walked into a dark room and the only things I could make out were HEADS. HEADS IN JARS. I looked at Becca in horror because I thought that this was going to be a scene straight out of Texas Chainsaw Murder. However, when homegirl turned on the lights, I realized that they were wax heads of bishops. Whewee, did it give me a fright. Basically, the only things back there were a variety of religious photos.

We left this jaunt and headed to another church. We had to take, yet another taxi. Oh, I remember! These churches are Palladio designs, for all you architects out there. So, the second one was a little busier than the first- probably because they had a tower where you could see quite the view of the city. Thank goodness we saved these for Saturday since the weather was beautiful. When we went to buy the ticket to go up, however, the guy that we paid was Russian and obviously very bored. He tried to pay us back in dollars because we were American. And then he whipped out this number, “Obama is your president? He gets a lot of sun, no?” Becca and I died laughing. This wasn’t the first racist remark we had heard on this trip, either. The first was when we were in St. Mark’s Square.

This very American man was waiting for walking traffic to die down beside Becca and I. After several minutes, he turns to me and says, “Well, that’s a lot of China’s.” I was speechless.

Back to the story. We were hungry after our morning adventures, so we went to a small restaurant in a tiny square. Best pizza from the whole weekend. It was so good. We shared another bottle of wine and then headed back out. For the record, our meals are not short here. I got the vibe that it was rude to dine and dash (with paying, of course). One waiter even told us to slow down.

Next stop was Murano, the glass-making island. It was a 30-minute water taxi ride. We didn’t really have a game plan for when we got there, but we figured it was worth a shot. I think we actually enjoyed the taxi ride more than the actual island because it was really peaceful. We walked around the island a little bit, did a little shopping, and then decided to spend sunset at Burano, the island next door that is known for vibrant colored buildings. It was another 30-minute taxi ride, so yet another deep thought, soul-searching trip and we were there. Oh gosh, we were on the water for sunset. So. Darn. Pretty.

Burano was my favorite place we visited all weekend. We arrived when all the tourists were leaving. Therefore, I believe that we had a genuine Italian experience here. We took some sweet pix yo of the homes. Then, we ended up on a pretty busy road. We were excited to see children running everywhere and Italians yelling enthusiastically at each other. We got a sweet shot of Becca posing with children. It took strategey and perseverance. We were almost ready for dinner, but since most of the shops were closing, we decided to go ahead and find somewhere to sit down.

We walked into one restaurant and homeboy looked confused as to why these strangers were walking into his restaurant. Even though there were other people eating, he told us it was closed. Rude boy. So, we went across the street to a place called “Galuppi’s.” When we walked in, there were 3 older men sitting around the door, as if they were waiting for something. We asked awkwardly if they were open and they enthusiastically ushered us into a table in the front corner of the restaurant. Becca and I had no idea of the events that were about to unfold.

Our waiter was the youngest one there (but, still about 30). He was charming as he gave us wine and cheese (from the market outside I think hahaha). He spilled the wine accidentally and told us it was good luck. Two minutes later, he was walking by and Becca spilled a lot all over her area. She was flustered, but homeboy came by and said, “that’s really good luck! Two kisses for me.” We didn’t really know what he meant because he left after he said that. So, we ate our bread until the waiter brought us more. Lots of carbs in this country, that’s for sure. We were finishing our second basket of bread when a group of about 15 old men walked in. They walked straight to the back of the restaurant to an area where they couldn’t see us. None of them noticed us. We assumed they came to watch the soccer game, however 5 minutes later we hear this deep-belly singing. And BAM! They are all harmonizing. This isn’t choir practice, either. This is genuine and passionate singing just for the heck of it. They were having such a good time back there. Becca and I were laughing so hard. This had to have been the coolest experience, yet. The bartender was giving them a ton of alcohol.

At one point, our waiter was finished his shift so he came over to us and gave us each two kisses on the cheek. It was so European of us. He was precious. After he left, the most ridiculous man I have ever met replaced him. He didn’t come over to us until the old men left, though. And when the old men left they finally noticed us. Unabashed, they stopped by the door and started to serenade us. I have never been so flattered in my life. They were calling us beautiful and something about the moon (we obviously didn’t know Italian). We responded by raising our wine glasses and yelling “Bravo! Bravo!” Good answer. They were singing another song on their way out the door.

Gahhh. I love Italy. But this story is not over yet, my friends. So, this old old old and gross-looking man scuttles towards our table. He is comparable to Darth Vader after he takes off his mask in the 6^th movie. He immediately asks us to marry him. He starts to brag that he’s the owner and that he’s met the Pope (he has, we saw the pictures). He goes on to ask us to take a picture with him… with our cameras. We get a few gems.

FINALLY, we order our pastas. My dish comes 20 minutes later with meat on it, so it became quite the task to scrape off (I refuse to be “that” American in a foreign country who can’t accept what they make for em). Of course, this man, who we assume is the Galuppi, returns to the table several times. I forgot to mention that in the photos, he was nuzzling Becca’s neck rather enthusiastically. When we finished our meals and were getting ready to leave, he gave us his card, which we then placed on the corkboard in the hostel. What a character. So, this meal was voted the best experience on the trip.

The taxi back to Venice was an hour long. Becca and I fell asleep. Something about these water taxis is so lulling. We got back to the hostel in hopes that we’d find hostel mates to play with, but apparently we missed the fun ones by 5 minutes. Disappointed, we decided to just get dessert and more wine somewhere. We went to the place below the hostel. After awhile, we finally called it a night.

The next morning, we had about an hour to kill before we needed to catch a bus to the airport. However, the weather returned to the horrible cold and rainy weather we had the first day. We were miserable trying to find a place to get coffee, so we eventually just waited for a bus. When it finally came, everyone stuffed into it- way past capacity. Windows were fogged and people’s personal spaces were invaded. Becca and I miraculously had seats. 30 minutes later, we arrived at the airport and repeated day one’s transportation cycle: bus, plane, bus, bus, plane, bus, bus, metro, walking.

We were surprised to find snow on the ground in Munich when we switched planes. We spent the entire flight to Prague hoping to see snow there, as well. And we did! It was a light dusting, but enough to get us giddy.

Looking back at that is a joke now. It has snowed approximately 10 more inches this week. Unlike Raleigh, however, the city keeps functioning. I had my last few classes this week and I only have 2 more to do work before I’m finished. The next week is freakin’ easy for me, but really hard for the architecture students. Ahhh, the easy life.

I am going to Kutna Hora tomorrow with a few of the usuals- Becca, Matt, BryBro, Rocio. However, after that, it’s the long stretch. I return to America on Dec. 12^th. Yikes… real life again.