I would just like to share that I am in class right now. Spaniards have a tendency to recognize – better than in the States – that people’s attention spans are limited, so in the customary 2-hour class, they build in a 10 minute “descanso” or “pausa” so that we can rejuvenate…or something. My teacher for my Castilian Lit class seems not to understand this as well as others, however. She never stops talking. We spent an hour and a half talking about Petrarch’s life (in very abstract, difficult to follow terms), and for 30 mins of that she was promising us a break. Ridiculous. Because I have to leave 5 minutes early for my UAB class, I am here for a total of 25 mins more.
Anyway.
This weekend I was in Venice. It was supposed to be Milan AND Venice, but someone up there just doesn’t want me in Milan. When I booked the tickets, I thought I was going to have class until 1:30 on Fridays, so my flight was at 2:55. As it turns out, I am 100% free on Fridays, so I decided to try to catch the flight my friends Dana, Norma, Trevor and Dan were taking at 8:55AM so that I could hang out in Milan a little. I get there hoping to get on standby, and three different people on Easy Jet tell me they do not have such thing as a “lista de esperar” and the only thing I can do is buy a new ticket for more than 100 euro. My friends leave for their gate, I leave for home, proceed to eat my feelings, read a little and take a 2-hour nap, and then take my previously schedule flight. Well, imagine my surprise when I pick up the Easy Jet magazine once I reach my seat and see that it says in plain English that if you arrive early for your flight you can get on an earlier one for free. Those Easy Jet people are going to get a strong piece of my mind.
Anyhoo, we found our way to the shuttle bus to Milan’s Central Station, and there was finally a meeting of the masses. Allow me to interject here that Milan’s Central Station is a fascist behemoth. Ugly from the outside, it takes up a couple of city blocks and is impossibly large. It’s designed, basically, to make you feel very small and insignificant. The desired effect was achieved.
Norma and Liz had gone ahead to Venice, but Dana, Trevor and Dan met me, Vicky, Erin, Evie and Celia. We discovered that there was a 14E difference between the next train to Venice and the one after it, so we elected to stay a little longer and eat in Milan. We found a random pizzeria right near the station and had our first Italian meal. I had a pizza diavolo, we all got some wine, and we lazed around. Problem with the wine, though: we’re pretty sure it was oxidized cause it was all bubbly. It was a dolcetta, which I suppose is some sort of Italian wine. We tell the waiter, and he says, “No! It’s a good bottle of wine. If you want to, talk to the barman.” We go talk to the barman and he just keeps going, “It’s not dry, it’s a sweet wine. If you want dry try a chianti…” Trevor is a bit of wine snob – he took a class at Cornell in wines, and of course we’re from California – so he was just supremely offended at how they were talking down to us. The barman’s final thought? “No es malo, es VIVACE!” Right. We drank it, it wasn’t so bad, but I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to seem fizzy.
The train was hot and stuffy, but had nice headrests. It was a bummer not to be able to see the countryside of north Italy. We literally traversed the whole country, stopping in Brescia, Vicenza, Verona, Padua, and finally Venice-Mestre among others.
Upon getting off the train, our hostel’s directions served us well. It was past 11, and the town of Mestre, according to Frommers, is “charmless” and apparently fairly dead at night. It was a little nerve-racking, but it was only about a 5 minute walk. We found Hotel Nuova Locanda Belvedere, and the attendant was a mess. We’re pretty sure he was high, although I guess we don’t really know. He claimed nothing was open (this on a Friday night) in the entire town, except this pizzeria, whose card he had readily on hand in bulk. And he took far longer than necessary to take down all of our passport information.
Vicky, Dana, Erin and I took one private 4-bedroom, with bath, and the boys shared theirs with two men they were exceedingly uncomfortable around, leading them to keep their stuff in our room and basically not leave. We found the storeroom and promptly stole towels and shampoo, conditioner and shower gel for our room’s use. Then we headed out in search of anything we could possibly find to occupy ourselves on this first night in Venice. A little ways in, two very drunk people came up to us and said simply, “Hello.” We replied, “Hi…” And they suddenly burst out laughing and ran back to their group of friends. We were a little taken aback, until two of their friends who actually spoke English started asking us if there were any parties around. They were Belgian, apparently, and shit-faced. Unfortunately, my one year of French was not much help with Roman, our new very drunk friend. We followed them for a while until we found what we have decided was the only bar in Mestre, at least on our side, which was absolutely PACKED with people. (Conveniently enough, it was across the street from a body shop called “Assauto,” I kid you not.) We made the mistake of following Roman & Co. some more until Roman warned us that we were about to head into the “old industries” of Mestre, which was not quite a party town, and he had no clue where they were going. We doubled back to the bar.
The atmosphere was great in this place. A huge meat cutter adorned the countertop, and a super-size picture of a model with one breast out (her face was cropped off too) adorned the wall. We soon discovered as we browsed the magazines in the shelf next to our bank of couches over a bottle of wine that Italians have no qualms about nudity of any kind – Italian Rolling Stone had some gems, like Madonna, young, in her birthday suit and absolutely no upkeep in her nether regions. There was also a fascinating picture of a sock puppet. Rolling Stone in Italy is truly bizarre. In good American student fashion, Dan stole the issue.
When Dana, Dan, Trevor and I woke up, following our plan of leaving by 9AM, we discovered a note from Vicky and Erin saying they had already left cause they couldn’t sleep and we’d “meet up later.” Now, we were avoiding phone use at all costs because international rates are ridiculous, and Venice, I had heard, was impossible to navigate, even with a map, which our hostel provided. So the likelihood of us “meeting up later” was slim to none, prompting us to be pretty annoyed. No matter, we found our way to the bus stop, crammed into the packed #6, and headed across the huge causeway to the island.
Our destination was ostensibly Piazza San Marco, the epicenter of Venice. However, the Piazzale Roma, the last place in Venice where cars are allowed, is actually on the other side of the fish-shaped island. Venice is a very small town, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also a town of dark alleyways, winding streets, dead ends, lines of buildings with no sidewalks (just a straight drop into the canal), and a lack of bridges when you most need one. There are yellow signs posted fairly often directing visitors to the Rialto Bridge, the Accademia, P. San Marco, the train station, and Piazzale Roma. But they conveniently tend to disappear when you most need them – on some side street with no name and no discernible sense of direction. The four of us had to rely on graffitied instructions left by locals every once in a while, hand drawn arrows that sometimes could be pointing either way. We could easily have been led astray due to some Italian youth’s perverse desire to torment tourists – and we probably were – but we found our way to Piazza San Marco after about an hour and a half. The signs in P. Roma said it should have been about 35 minutes. I consider our time a success, at least in Venice time.
We also got somewhat distracted on the way by a million mask shops, glass shops, bakeries, and the ubiquitous headlines on Il Venezia, a local newspaper of some sort, that Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize (what?!?!). We passed a bruschetteria early on the voyage that looked promising and that I believe Trevor returned to at some point. And we happened upon the old Fish Market by the Rialto Bridge eventually, a wonderful surprise. Italians are very expressive, much like the Spanish, and the sight of them bartering with the few locals Venice can boast was pretty amazing. There were lots of live shellfish crawling around in bins, water being thrown around emptier sections of the streets, fish carving right in front of your eyes, an array of fruits…and we came upon a man setting up his fruit stand and singing to himself, what I considered to be a very Italian sight. Probably one of my favorite experiences in Venice as a whole.
What I have not yet mentioned is that it was drizzling rain this whole time. So we finally got to San Marco, in dire need of a coffee, almost went into the famous Café Floriam until we discovered how ridiculously overpriced their caffeine was, and ended up next door at Caffé Aurora, where Dana got a Caffe Latte and I got a Caffe Americano (don’t judge me, it was very tasty) at the banco, making it only a euro apiece. We were right next to the campanile, or should I say the scaffoding surrounding the campanile. After viewing a postcard later of what the campanile is supposed to look like we decided it was becoming the Leaning Tower of Venice, and that that was probably the reason for the construction. It was a nice view over the piazza nonetheless…until it started torrentially downpouring. Funnily enough, some Venetian decided to brave the storm for the right to sit at the outdoor tables, and so he stoically huddled under his umbrella, alone in the square.
At this point we met up with some of Dan’s friend from NU, Andrew Kaspar, Zach and Michael. Zach and I knew each other from a French class, as it turned out, making my choice of study abroad location somewhat difficult for him to understand. Anyway, we ended up going to the Doge’s Palace, the ornate structure from which Venice was ruled back in its glory days. First we waited in the long line, crowded under the awning for shelter, watching the Adriatic Sea come lapping up along Venice’s side. I had heard that flood season in Venice usually starts in November, but it is not unheard of for a few surprises to begin in October. It seemed as though we were in for a truly Venetian experience, one I wasn’t necessarily so excited to behold. We also heard what I think is the loudest thunder clap I’ve ever heard. We were grateful to find ourselves inside among ancient columns, numerous tourists seeking shelter from the storm, beautiful white marble sculptures and facades and streams of water cascading off the roof.
The palace is ornate, almost too much so. Every surface is gilded, painted, frescoed, or similarly adorned. The Golden Staircase in particular, which lead up to the Palace’s rooms from the expansive courtyard, was a sight to behold. Gold glittered everywhere, dotted with small paintings and marble sculpting, and a million tourists stopping in the middle of the staircase to take pictures and admire in awe. Meanwhile, the armory, the numerous council chambers, two huge brass globes in a map room emphasizing Venice’s rule over the sea, and a couple of apartments lay in a maze over three floors. Tintoretto’s monsterpiece, Il Paradiso adorned one of the last chambers, and I had to stop to catch my breath. It’s HUGE. As we discovered from a tour group we eavesdropped on, it is the largest oil painting in the world, and Tintoretto was paid by the head, hence the 2,000+ he painted, only to die right after finishing. So much for his paycheck. The room itself was also gargantuan, and it made me feel very small, much like the Stazione Centrale in Milano had.
We completed the tour by wandering through the prisons that once held Casanova and looking out the Bridge of Sighs at the traditional last view of Venice, marred, once again, by (very blue) scaffolding. Ah well, I will have to return sometime to re-experience it. Actually, I was in Venice when I was 12 with my grandparents, and I have done the Doge’s Palace tour – there were a couple of moments that seemed very familiar as I walked through the apartments – and I have actually seen the view from the Bridge of Sighs. But at different epochs of one’s life, it will feel different.
Following the Doge’s Palace, the storm had abated slightly, and we found Erin. Vicky continued to wander by herself, but Erin was very glad to see us and join up with the group. All 8 of so of us caught lunch at a little Pizzeria off the Piazza in the direction of the Hard Rock Café (yes, they have one). I had a Pizza Napoletana, which was divine, and Erin had the best latte I’ve ever tasted. It was a lovely cap to the impromptu meeting of Northwesternites.
Wandering back to the piazza, Trevor bought a V for Vendetta mask and Dana bought a mini traditional mask. Masks are traditional in Venice because of Carnevale, the pre-lent extravaganza celebrated there like Mardi Gras is celebrated in New Orleans. Apparently in the Middle Ages, despite its relative prosperity, Venice had its share of dismalness, so it partied hard in anticipation of the chore ahead. I have a mask from Venice hanging on the wall in my room at home, so I felt no need to buy another one. We also got distracted at a couple of glass shops with adorable figurines, tea sets, jewelry, and other generally useless but very beautiful souvenirs. We tried to get into a glass blowing demonstration at the Vecchio Murano, but failed. We then returned to the piazza and walked through the Basilica di San Marco, otherwise known as the Doge’s personal and – you guessed it – super ornate chapel. It has a golden river flowing through it, apparently, which we didn’t see because we didn’t really want to pay for it. But the whole building is adorned with gold gilding…literally. It was, like so much in Venice, almost too much to take in. Beautiful, yes, but I find more austere environments more inviting. I feel closer to God when I’m in a soaring Gothic cathedral with a couple of touchstone works of art, something simple that reminds me of what God could do. Like that random cathedral we saw on the way back from the Pyrenees, or what I’ve heard of Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona. Still, a worthwhile (and free!) experience.
I know what you’re thinking: did they ride a gondola. The answer would be a no. We thought about it, but ultimately the normally 100 or so euro rides (80 at the cheapest, and not by the Piazza), even split among 6, didn’t quite do it for us. We did end up sitting right by the Bridge of Sighs on the dock watching the gondolas go by for quite a while, though, as the weather cleared up. That’s another highlight: painters capturing the scene, tourists milling about, gondoliers every which way, and those iconic black vessels passing every minute or so, serenely allowing its passengers to explore the romance of Venice.
Other adventures of the day included stumbling on a church that was holding an excellent Vivaldi/surrealist exhibit (it brought out the music nerd in me) and finally finding Vicky near the Accademia.
For dinner, we found a little place in a square near San Polo, following Vicky’s lead from the other side of the city. It looked good, had penne arabbiata, and a soccer game was playing on the tv inside. Seemed awesome. The waiter was awkward and somehow made Erin so nervous that she just kept talking in some weird Spanish-Catalan-Italian mixture far longer than she needed to. Vicky and Trevor split a delicious bottle of cab franc and I had a wonderful glass of prosecco. Dan was taking hilarious video of Erin losing it, Trevor and I were having very deep discussions about our respective futures. All was right with the world. Until the bill came.
Let me warn you that Italians like to charge you a cover (2,50 per person in this case), and they also like to slap you with a 12% service fee. That amounted to almost 5E extra per person. i.e. a much more expensive meal than we meant to have. It put a lot of people on edge, which could have totally ruined the night. However, Dan found another issue of Rolling Stone to buy (this time with a punk rocker named Gossip on the front – the article was called “Punk will never diet”), and when we kept running into dead ends, Dan would lean out over the canal and go, “Taxi!” Lightening the mood just a little.
After a brief stint at the hostel, a few of us decided to return to Venice, not wanting to pass up the opportunity to experience Venetian nightlife. We had a bit of an issue with catching the bus – apparently you have to flag them down…they don’t look for you at the stop, per se – but when we arrived we found a different Venice than we’d left that evening. Venice is usually overrun with tourists, and you have to actively look for authenticity. At night, that changes. There’s a grand exodus of all of the well-heeled albeit generally old tourists who need their sleep at night, and you are left with the 65,000 true Venetians roaming the streets. Hence the two fist fights we stumbled upon, a large game of spin the bottle in the middle of a square among what Dan says are 35-year-olds (2 men had to kiss and there was much squealing), etc. etc. We followed some Italian kids to a plaza we had visited numerous times that day, except now it was full of shit-faced Venetians lining up in front of storefront bars, standing outside with music pumping, bongo jam sessions…basically an awesome sight. We grabbed some beers, found a spot right next to the Ponte Rialto on the Grand Canal, and enjoyed the view…until we discovered this was where all the men went to pee. We deemed it a successful night, overall, and we even found our way home, going over this bizarrely modern bridge.
Sunday came maybe a little too quickly, since a few of us were planning on a sunrise excursion. Weather.com lied to us about the timing of said sunrise, however, so we just got some kind of orangey light from the Piazzale Roma. Still beautiful. We wandered a bit, taking pictures and eventually getting pretty lost over on the edge of Venice toward the mainland. But eventually, after Dana left us to attend mass at St. Mark’s, Erin and I found our way to the Accademia. Erin wasn’t going to come in because she didn’t want to pay the 5,25E student price. I took my chances and handed the woman at the ticket office my UPF card. It says I am in the “Hispanic and European Studies” program. She looks at the card and asks, “Where are you studying?” “España.” “What are you studying?” “Historia.” Not really true, but probably the easiest thing to say. “Historia del arte?” “Si,” again, not wanting to complicate things. “It’s free then,” she says, handing me back my card and my money.
Realizing I had accidentally cheated the Accademia out of my 5,25 entry fee, I ran after Erin, who had already made it way around the corner. Sidenote: Italian dogs bark at anyone who runs. Even the little ones are ferocious. Sidestepping the canine attacks, I finally got Erin to tell her that she should come. I gave her instructions, she obtained her free ticket, and all we had to do was check our overstuffed carry-ons for 0,50E each.
The Accademia was nice…a little smaller than I might have expected. Maybe it just felt that way because there was no one in the museum (it was 8:30 in the morning). We saw some beautiful Tintorettos and other Italian beauties (there was one allegorical scene that I liked in particular), and even some Romanesque art in the first room. But the star of the show was the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit. We thought it would be a bit more than it was: a single room with a single work in it. But what was that work? The Vitruvian Man. The original Vitruvian Man. We stared at it for a while and then were in shock for about 5 minutes. I don’t think we absorbed anything in the adjoining hallway.
Upon our exit, we returned to Piazza San Marco to grab a coffee at La Aurora again. I also grabbed a panini for lunch – prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, spinach. Called the Panini <insert name here of the little café I got it in on the left of the square when you’re facing the basilica>. Very warm, toasty and delicious.
Following that adventure, we went on a mission (my mission, really) to find La Fenice, Venice’s opera house, which was supposedly nearby. What they don’t tell you is that it’s basically down an alley with exposed cable. We passed said alley and found our way to the back, from which there was a view of a costume rack and the Ponte Maria Callas (I knew right then I had reached my mecca). Wending our way around the canals, we finally found our way to the front, in all its neoclassical glory. I ventured inside the gift shop, which was pink and gorgeous. I love opera’s opulence. It’s a culture bred of artifice, but I love it. Unfortunately, I was informed that I was not allowed to take pictures – even of the gift shop – and that to see the actual theatre would cost me in the neighborhood of 5E. Lacking time, funds and motivation (I’d rather see an opera there than just see the opera house), I left, content with my gift shop view.
We met up with the others and prepared to take the train from Venezia Santa Lucia (I think) to Milan. We bought our tickets at a ticket machine in the station and got a good 14E price for it. We found each other and boarded a train, remarking how much nicer it was than the last one we had taken…outlets, comfortable seats, light, a blue and white color scheme. Suddenly, a woman comes up to one of the boys and says, “You’re in my seat.” Now, in the other train, there were no seat assignments, and our tickets this time certianly didn’t say anything similar. Apparently, we were on the much higher priced (and much faster) EuroStar train, and as soon as the ticket collector came around, we would be kicked off. We kind of meandered around a train we didn’t belong on, getting off at Padua to avoid being arrested. The proper train, the regional, wasn’t coming for an hour and a half. People had said they wanted to see Padua, but this wasn’t quite what they had in mind.
For that hour and a half, everyone basically fell into hysterics (Dan even slapped a pigeon…not really sure what the story was there). We wandered around trying to find the university (fail), but instead found a canal…go figure. We also found a McDonald’s that served breaded shrimp. I took a picture and got yelled at again – a pattern on this trip – because apparently you’re not allowed to take picture in McDonald’s. Who knew? Also, it was really expensive. Fast food is a delicacy in Italy, evidently.
We finally made it on the proper train and arrived in Milan way later than we meant to. We boarded the Metro, avoiding the men who try to help you figure it out and then ask for the ticket you paid for, and arrived at Duomo, where the most beautiful building in Italy, and possibly my favorite building in the world, is. In the halflight of sunset, it was breathtaking. Pictures galore were taken.
After a bit of waiting, we found the rest of the group (except Liz, who went off with some Italian boy). We proceeded then to split off. I wanted to go the touristy route to the right, through Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, and try to find La Scala. The rest – inexplicably, in the case of those of us who had not yet been to Milan – wanted to go right, where there isn’t much of note, although I guess there’s a street life. So I had a date with Dan and Trevor. We spun on the bull’s testicles in the middle of Vittorio Emanuele (the first enclosed mall in the world), a good luck ritual for Italians, so much so that there really aren’t any testicles there anymore. We found La Scala, my other Mecca, where I was flatly refused access to the lobby (I glimpsed a statue of Verdi and much pink and white opulence as they kicked me out the door). We saw a large vagina poster in some posh store that Dan and Trevor talked up incessantly. Dan and Trevor led me to the shopping capital of Italy, Via Monte Napoletano, where the best penthouses are and the first Prada store ever is. This is where Italians come to see and be seen. Being nighttime, it was fairly empty, but it was a nice view of the brands I can’t afford now and probably won’t be able to later. Unless I become a golddigger. Another sidenote: they keep the plants adorning the sides of the street in white Fiat models. Everything’s posh in Milan.
We decided while there that only really rich people and really poor people live in Milan. This must create a very strange, tense social dynamic. I’m pretty sure I’d hate being Milanese.
After a lovely dinner of pizza (quatro staggione, for me, and some delicious focaccia), we all met up again and grabbed gelato from the place with the bright flashing lights in the Piazza del Duomo. Liz had joined the group while we were eating dinner, so we were finally complete. Tiramisu and Kinder gelato go very well together, if you’re ever in Italy. Kinder is a candy company that’s very popular in Europe, and where our dear friend Spün originated. That’s a Pyrenees story, which I’ll get to eventually.
Then we caught the Metro to Stazione Centrale and grabbed the shuttle to the airport. Sketchy Spanish men hit on Erin, as well as the mother of two sitting in front of me. Her children and I played peek a boo, and I played with the lights above my seats for them until they got tired of the game. At which point I passed out until we reached Milan Malpensa.
At Malpensa, we settled in Terminal 1, upstairs. The whole airport was empty – it was about 1:30 now. We found that the bathrooms were dark, with no readily discernible lightswitch, and no running water. That’s how empty this airport was. But we came prepared. Trevor put on his iPhone, some people took out some beers they’d bought in the outside world, and we had a sing-along, line-dancing party.
A note: escalators in Europe don’t move when no one’s on them. The platform right before the escalator begins acts as a sort of large button; once you step on it, the escalator starts moving. It’s an energy-saving device. Apparently, Dan and Evie played a joke on Erin…they were at the top of an escalator/staircase and Dan said he’d race Erin down, he on stairs, she on escalator. She assented, and when she started the escalator started moving…but it was going up. There was an injury, I believe, to go with the broken toenail she suffered (also because of Dan) in Padua.
Some people did sleep, but I was not one of them. Finding a comfortable place was near impossible, so much so that Liz tried to sleep under one of the benches installed on the wall. Failing that, she settled for some chair and my lap instead. Not the best way to sleep through a night.
Around 4, all but Liz switched terminals (she was on a different flight), freezing to death in the brisk Italian night, and found our gate, where I passed out again. We boarded the plane, and once again, I was out before take off, waking up only when we landed. We RENFE’d home (I fell asleep on that too), and when we got there, I put in my earplugs and climbed into bed, where I stayed for 9.5 hours. I’ve never slept so much in my entire life. I guess Italy will do that to you.
2 years ago
•
1 note
