Madness and Mayhem Wherever I Go!

Apparently I must be fond of politically unstable countries-- when I was in Fiji there was a military coup, and I just found out recently that the government of Italy no longer exists either. Well, to tell the truth, Venice is very much like Williams in that it is in its own little bubble and the outside world doesn't really affect it much, except for the hoards of tourists passing through everyday.

Which, by the way, I have noticed that tourists are really annoying! Venice has a lot of little streets, barely long enough to deserve their own names, and a lot of bridges. The "roads" in Venice work like this: people walk on the right, single file, to avoid "heavy traffic" and to allow faster people to pass on the left. It's a lot like normal roads with cars on them. Now imagine that every time you get to an intersection, people who don't live in your town just stop. Oh wait, that happens all the time in Boca. Well, so those of you who have seen it firsthand know how irritating it is to be walking at a decent pace and then all of a sudden stop short to avoid colliding with the person in front of you, all because some tourists got to a bridge and wanted to take a picture, or pulled out a map and tried to figure out where they were. Pulling out a map and trying to locate yourself is a completely lost cause; trust me, I've tried it. When in doubt, find a sign to Rialto or San Marco, and follow it. Eventually you'll get to a border somewhere. After all, the Fish (as I've been calling the main island, or historic center....it was designed to be in the shape of a fish with a wave under it) is only 7 square km, and its divided by the Grand Canal right down the middle. You can only walk so far in that little space.

I must say I'm rather bummed about the weather here-- it's been foggy and cold everyday after the first two days when I got here. Actually it is warming up-- today's high is supposed to be 52, and I can actually see the island next to us, which is a good sign. But the sky is still gray, and the Mental Institution I live in still looks incredibly spooky at night (it has a lot of bare trees and imposing buildings made of concrete and little windows....add a whole lot of fog and a statue of a "furry man" with a spotlight on him and it looks like it should be straight out of a Hitchcock movie). And the beach at the Lido (which is the next island over on the other side of San Servolo) still taunts me, being so close, and yet so far. This is, by the way, that beach that Lelo took Caro and me to the last time we came to Venice. The water isn't actually the Adriatic Sea....it's actually the Venetian Lagoon. I was told it's a beach "to tan, not for swimming!" I have no doubt that ties in with the whole canal/fishing situation. (Random aside: my Lonely Planet guidebook to Venice says that this city has the highest rate of tumors in Italy....attributed to the town directly north of here that dumps their industrial chemical waste into the ocean, which goes south to the Venetian Lagoon.) I do remember the Lido having a rather nice sandy beach though, so I won't mind going there to tan when it gets warmer out.

Classes start on Monday, and I'm still waiting to hear if I got in to the classes I signed up for. I really hope I did, because if not, I don't know what other classes I can take that won't have an oral exam. I do know that I was put into the 11:10-12:40 Italian intermediate class, so I'm pretty happy about that. Hooray for sleeping in!

Okay well speaking of sleeping in, I think I've done my fair share of that this morning, so I'm going to get ready for the day and perhaps go back to the mainland in search of that mask I saw the first day I got here and foolishly didn't buy. I leave you with some nice trivia facts (since I am, afterall, facts.com): did you know that both Antonio Vivaldi and Marco Polo were from Venice? Venetians don't seem to care much though; they don't have anything in the city dedicated to either one. In fact, they don't really care about the fine arts (including architecture) at all--the city has many beautiful churches, but they were all built before 1400, and they sadly are lacking in famous artists and musicians (with of course, one or two exceptions....who pretty much got out of Venice ASAP because their talents weren't appreciated). But they did have two whole islands dedicated to the looneys!