At 8 am we caught the LN Vaperetto (public water bus) to Venice. St. Marks square is most truly and impressive space. One thing I did notice, the second floor of the doges palace, where all the thin columns are, from a distance the shadows of the logia seem to make them disappear, thus the top floor of the palace looks to be a floating shimmering box that reflects the sea! I also love the proportions and solidity of the campanile. St. Marks itself is altogether another creature. It really is quite fascinating and everything about the church in the Venetian light seems to shimmer, shine, ripple and wave. A tour guide took our group on a 2 hour tour of Venice; she knew her info very well and had a great many personal stories as well. She finished at 11 am and so we had the rest of the day to ourselves. I spent the day wondering about town, thru mazes of narrow streets (some only 1 body wide) over bridges, and through tunnels. I snacked on great little dolces and for lunch I had a tiny olive pizza the size of my palm. Eventually I got thoroughly lost and found myself at the entrance to a school by Carlos Scarpa. I met other people I knew there and planned to meet them for dinner and 1 Euro drinks for happy hour at a tex-mex joint. Walking around the section of Venice known as the Jewish ghetto, I bought 2 Cuban’s for my two evenings on the beach in Santorini, and just observed life:
The Crazy Man of Venice:
The crazy man of Venice walks about the town all day singing as loud as possible. When not singing, he cries out “I wish I were dead.” But even for a crazy he dresses well. He wears a brown suit coat, his pockets stuffed with little yellow flowers and a few books he can’t read. Under the suit coat he wears a beige sweater that is half tucked into his grey dress pants. A size to large, the pants sag around his ankles, so he tucks the bottoms of them into the unlaced flapping tongues of his shoes. Of which, are leather, unmatched, and like his pants, a size too large. Unfortunately a lack of show laces does not hide this problem!
A Venetian Teen’s First Boat:
After buying 2 new pens at a little art store, I continued walking down the sidewalk alongside Rio di Misericordia. A canal 4 boats wide; the Rio is bigger than most and serves as the Jewish Ghetto’s main drag. As I walked I became aware of loud music. Down the canal came a little blue boat, not much unlike a Missouri John Boat. In it were 4 Italian teens, two boys and their girlfriends. One boy sat on the back end of the boat, his hand coolly placed on the rudder/throttle of the outboard Yamaha 40 Horsepower 4 Stroke Engine. With the other hand, he sucked down a drag of cigarette so long that his hand never left his mouth. The boat had no seats, and across the driver sat his buddy and his girlfriend. They sat with legs extended, on the floor of the boat, the boy had one arm on the ledge of the boat, and the other slyly around his girl. The music, louder now, was Christina Aguilera’s song “Dirty.” As they cruised by, the music blared, bouncing its thumping beat off the brick walls of churches and apartments. I could see two big speakers mounted in the sidewall of the boat, apart from the speakers, the boat had no other embellishments. On the other side of a bridge they pulled up alongside a set of steps jutting down into the water, and another boy with a 6 pack jumped in. the proud owner of the sky blue boat gunned the engine, causing the bow to rise dramatically up out of the water, turning the rudder he did a pirouette 180 and lunched the boat up the Rio in the other direction. Leaving in his wake all the boats lining the canal clanking up against the walls and the yells of a few old men. In the distance, the crazy man of Venice shared a few notes of song with Christina Aguilera.
An Addendum:
Sitting along the Rio di Misericordia on a bridge, waiting with some friends for the tex-mex place to open an hour late, about every 20 minutes, which must be about the time it takes to cruise the strip, the little blue boat comes by always a steady stream of loud American hip-hop playing. This time when they drove by, from somewhere in the bowels of the boat, the boy had pulled out a dark blue soft top and put it up. Underneath I would guess is where his friend and his girlfriend must currently be.
Anyways, back to the journal. After a good tex-mex dinner (finally) I went north to a vaperetto stop. Unfortunately at that time the vaperetto was not running in that area. So I had a 30 minute hike over to St. Zaccaria near St. Marks. It was a full moon and the narrow winding Venetian streets were empty. A pleasant walk, but I was tired and just ready for a rest. Back at the hotel on the island, apparently my room had been chosen for the party room for that night, so I didn’t get near as much sleep as I would have wished.
|  | 
|
