We’ve traveled to a few big cities so far: Venice, Venice, and Verona (in case you didn’t get that from the title of this entry). I was so excited about Venice. We took the train into the city and got there with no problems. Oh wait, that’s not what happened. My bad. We were about 30 minutes outside of Venice when our train broke down. Now, I’m used to public transportation completely screwing up my life because I’ve lived in New York City for three years. The MTA is infamous for unexpectedly re-routing the trains. For various reasons: impromptu construction, the conductor’s shift is over and he wants to go home, some jokester lit a diaper on fire and threw it into the express track and now all trains are running local, etc. In New York I can go with the flow because I know it. In Italy…not only do I not know it, but the conductor on the loud speaker sounds like an Italian Chewbacca so I didn’t even stand a chance to figure it out. Fortunately, there was an English speaking man on the train who was willing to help us. He said his stop was one before ours so he’d “accompany” us to make sure we were okay. Naturally, in situations like this, my mind immediately goes into “preparation mode” where I scan my surroundings, because all I hear is my mother yelling “BE AWARE!!!” while I see my father drinking raw egg yolks before doing pull ups in a dark room, just like Liam Neeson would. Then I wish I had a Ricola, you know, to prepare my vocal cords in case I need to scream bloody murder. And then I quickly review my emergency self defense moves in my head. I make sure I watch his hands at all times and sit with my keys ready to STAB, if necessary. But, instead of being a sicko, he was actually a really nice guy who gave us explicit directions to a couple of really nice, authentic, Venetian restaurants with really delicious “foods.” He even drew on my map of Venice different places we could get discount gondola rides.
Really Nice Guy, I’m sorry I assumed you were a perverted-kidnapper.
After about 40 more minutes, we finally arrived in Venice. As I stepped out of the train station, I got butterflies and it reminded me of the first few times I saw the Empire State Building up close after moving to New York. Everything was so new. Then I got a whiff of something AWFUL and, sweet peach molasses, it brought me right back to Venice. That Canal is a legit stink-hole. Beautiful, but vile.
We really didn’t have any idea where we were going, but all three of us needed to use the bathroom, so we picked a direction and figured we’d walk until we found a Starbucks. But that’s just because we’re American. There’s no Starbucks in Italy, you silly goose!! That’s when a small Italian man offered us a three course meal for 11 euro. AND OF COURSE THAT’S NOT TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, ALSO, HERE’S 5 HUNDRED EURO AND A TRIP TO PARIS. We went in completely forgetting about our friend from the train giving us directions to his favorite Venetian restaurants. It was really our bladders that made the decision. Although thinking back, the consequences of peeing in the canal probably would have been better than the lunch we ate. I ordered vegetable soup, salad, and salmon. The vegetable soup would have been delicious if it wasn’t 15 green beans in salt water. And the salmon, that was obviously bred in the Grand Canal, had about 2 million very tiny but very sharp bones in it. One of my favorite moments during lunch was Olivia taking a bite of salmon and then spitting it back into her napkin while whispering “So many bones….” My other favorite part was our waiter telling us his name was Casanova and then inviting us to spend the night with him. Apparently that’s “a thing” here in Italy. After he said that, I laughed at him and asked if he was joking. He wasn’t. In Italy it’s highly inappropriate to leave your server gratuity, but it’s OK to “have sexy time” with him. Call me old fashioned, but as safe and sanitary as that little rendezvous sounds, I think I’ll stick with the ol’ 20%. Ohhh Casanova, I’m sure my dad would be thrilled to meet you. And what a romantic story to tell the grandkids, hmm?
Omega-3.
We walked to the Rialto bridge, which was beautiful. Looking at the canal from all the way on the bridge is really surreal.
I thought I was having dejavu, but then I realized it wasn’t dejavu. It was me realizing that the set designers at Disney Epcot are seriously ON IT. Way to go, Walt & Co.
Next we went to San Marco Square. I was so excited about seeing the PIGEONS. Usually that wouldn’t excite me, I’m not that much of a weirdy. As a matter of fact, in New York, I usually yell “DISEASE!!!!” as I shoo them away, but at San Marco Square it’s all about the pigeons. Florida: beaches. Maine: Lobster. San Marco Square: Pigeons. BUT NOOOO. There were no pigeons. Actually, there were about six, but they were flying towards the water and I wasn’t about to chase them (because Natalie wouldn’t let me). I was so disappointed. I came to Venice to see pigeons, and I didn’t see no pigeons. I sulked for a good 7 minutes until Natalie said, “WE ARE IN VENICE!!!! VENICE ITALY. There is beautiful art work and architecture ALL AROUND YOU and you’re sulking over lack of PIGEONS?"
Point made. I’m embarrassed.
Then we went into a big church. Basilica San Marco or something. It was huge and dark. I’m not big on history. And as I just said, I went to Venice to see pigeons so, why anyone would think I would care about the history of this 14 million year old city is beyond me. I’m actually that person in a museum that’s usually like, ”…that statue’s naked, you guys. Look.“ So if you’re a history buff or you want to have a serious conversation about art, I’m probably not the person for the job. However, if you’d like to listen to made up conversations between the statues, complete with different accents, well, then I’m your girl. I appreciate art, who doesn’t like to look at pictures? I just don’t have a passion for it. Don’t judge me.
After a while of walking, we started to head back towards the train. But not before stopping for hot chocolate and some pastries. I got a ball of chocolate. Literally a ball of chocolate. It was amazing. It was like someone took a chocolate donut and rolled it into a ball and then covered it with chocolate sprinkles made in Heaven. Yeah, that’s a good way to describe it.
Thanks, God.
We boarded the train we needed with no problem. Sat, relaxed, talked about the day: Casanova, splintery salmon, salt soup, my ball o’ chocolate, all while paying attention to stops. When we got to the stop before ours, we collected our things and headed towards the door. We did everything right. When our stop came, I tried to lift the latch on the door, but it wouldn’t open. It was jammed. I pulled and tugged at it like an idiot, but nothing. I’m pretty sure I made some loud, noises that were supposed to be "WE HAVE TO GET OFF HERE!!!! I CAN’T OPEN THE DOOR.” But if I recall correctly, it just sounded like “AUUUUUUHHHHHHHH! EEEEEEEE. UUUUUUUUURRRRRRR!!! DOOR!!!!!!” Then the train started moving again. Onto the next town. Whoops.
We got off at the next stop. I have enough experience with trains to know that if we get off at the next stop, it’s only a matter of time before another train comes back through. Right? RIGHT, RIGHT!?!?!?! It wasn’t like we missed our stop and then our train turned express bound for Prague. It was only one stop over, about 7 minutes away. The only concern was being unable to understand the announcements, and I knew that if the trains here in Italy were anything like the trains in New York, after a certain time everything slows down and it takes longer to get places. Fortunately there was another English speaking man who helped us get a return ticket and explained the train schedule to us. We went to the train station cafe and sat there for a while. We watched the train schedule change from “ON TIME” to delayed by 15, 20, 30, 40 minutes. We also watched the train station cafe fill up with a lot of twenty-something Italian gentlemen. Normally a situation like that would be awwesssooommeeee. But, like I stated before, I like my men like I like my Starbucks: tall, skinny, vanilla. I’m not really interested in an Italian espresso macchiato. Especially after “The Situation” from last week. Plus, I was really tired. And yeah, maybe a coffee of any kind would have been great at this particular time, but I just wasn’t feelin’ it. Alright, enough with the coffee-men analogies already. I didn’t want coffee. Literally or figuratively. I wanted to be home safely, and I wanted for the train to stop being delayed, and I wanted to understand what Chewbaccalino was saying on the loud speaker. After about 30 minutes of waiting, a satire about the American Presidential Candidates came on the TV directly above our heads. Three American women sitting under a TV that was showing Italy’s version of SNL, and 20 young Italian men watching. Precious. After trying to ignore everything around us for what seemed like the longest 10 minutes in the history of the world, a train showed up! But our train wasn’t supposed to be here for another 35 minutes, so it couldn’t have been ours. BUT maybe it was. Which is when, in a moment of pure panic I looked at the lady working behind the bar and yelled “ASCUSI!!!!! (points out the window) IS OUR (points to myself) TRAIN?” “SI! SI! SI! SI!” she said. We grabbed our stuff, and we ran to catch it. We made it and sat down just in time to look out the window to see all those twenty-something Italian men standing at the window waving. Now, for those of you who don’t know, the correct translation of “Excuse me” in Italian is “SCUSI” not “ASCUSI." So, yeah.. I didn’t do a great job defending my country’s intelligence or should I say, "my countries smartness” that night, but…we also weren’t the ones voluntarily hanging out in a train station bar at 11 o'clock on a Friday night. So asco0o0o0o0ozi me!
We made it home. We laughed the whole train ride back, all three minutes. That’s right. Three minute train ride home. We could have walked. But then we wouldn’t have had the experience of looking like complete idiots and where’s the fun in that?
The next weekend, we did it all again. Back to Venice. The same creepy, small man tried to get us to eat at Casanova’s restaurant, so we figured we’d give it another shot. I even got the salmon again….. HA. KIDDING. We didn’t eat there. I told him, “I’d rather eat fish from the canal, no grazie!!” That’s the beauty of the language barrier, all he got from that was “No Thanks!” We knew our way around the city this time, so we made our rounds to all the sights. We really went because it was the first weekend of Carnevale, and if we were in Italy during that and didn’t experience it, well that’s about as ridiculous as no pigeons in San Marco Square again. AGAIN. NO PIGEONS!!!!!! This was one of the coldest days we’ve had since we’ve been in Italy. And there’s not really a ton to do in Venice. It’s a “walk around” city and we had done most of it the weekend before so we waited until it was dark and then people started to come out dressed in Carnevale attire. It was mostly older people dressed in elaborate, beautiful costumes that probably cost more than my undergrad. Don’t get me wrong, it was really amazing to see, but I’ve gone to Times Square for New Years. I’ve seen the Greenwich Village Halloween parade. I’ve watched a man light a diaper on fire on the W4 St. platform. It takes a lot to impress me. And, maybe it was because I was freezing, but I couldn’t help but think: It’s time to get a new hobby, old Italian people. Time for a new hobby. Then I got a chocolate ball, got on the train, got off at the correct stop, and was happy.
The following weekend, Verona: The City of Lo0o0o0o0ove.
We took a bus to Verona with some of the students from the American school here. It was about a two and a half hour bus ride, not bad at all. I kept myself busy by asking Natalie questions like “How many minutes until we’re there?” which she ignored. But when I asked her “what is Verona famous for?” the kid behind me defiantly said, “UUUUM. Romeo and Juliet!?!?!” When I realized he was serious and he thought I was too, I jumped right on board with:
Leila: “Who? Romeo and Julia??"
Professor Literal: "Juli-ET. It’s a play. Written by Shakespeare."
(cookin’ with gas now)
Leila: "Woah, woahhh. Shakespeare?"
Professor Literal: "You’ve never heard of William Shakespeare? He was a famous writer, he wrote tons of famous plays."
Leila: "Oh. Okay. So Romeo and Julie lived in Verona? And Shakespeare wrote a story about their lives? They were siblings? I think I got it. Was this recent?"
Leila stares blankly into the camera.
"Who’s this guy? Shakespeare had an earring?"
Sometimes people make my job too easy.
Verona was beautiful. It’s the quintessential Italian city. When you’re walking around you hear fountains splashing, children giggling and yelling in Italian. People drive Vespas and park them outside of cafes. Those very cafes have tables with huge white umbrellas outside. It’s like you’ve stepped onto a movie set. I liked it much more than Venice, although Venice is beautiful. Verona is just… more beautiful. Our first stop was the Verona colosseum which was enormous. Like I said, I’m not a huge history buff, but there’s something to be said for a place that’s housed hundreds of men being eaten by lions. I don’t care who ya are, that puts life in perspective.
What 23-year-old girls do in colosseums.
At lunch, we picked the different sites we’d like to see. Juliet’s wall, which I knew about because of the movie "Letters to Juliet.” In the movie, young women come to Verona to write letters to Juliet asking for advice on love. I actually find that a little ironic considering Juliet committed suicide in what I think is easily the worst missed connection in history. Two minutes longer and she would have woken up, Romeo. 120 seconds. Then you could have taken all the parents out to lunch and worked this feud out. Or you two love birds could have just run off to Venice, opened a restaurant, cooked pigeons and salmon, and sold them to tourists for 11 euro. Anyway. Back to Juliet’s wall. You can’t stash letters in it like they do in the movie. It’s more of a wall of filth, covered in gum and graffiti. Sounds so romantic, right? It looked like a bathroom stall at a high school in Bedstuy, Brooklyn.
Nonetheless, I read it, I marveled at it, I took pictures of it. It is kind of magical to think about all of the people who have come from all over the world to write their names on that wall. How many stories have intersected there and how the power of love compels people to chew gum, stick it on a wall, and then write their boyfriend’s initials on it. A bathroom stall for the world. Ah, love. After that, we went to Juliet’s balcony where Romeo climbed to confess his love to her. Can I just say, that kid was committed! I’m no rock climber, but that didn’t look like an easy wall to climb. He basically had to scale the building to get to her. So, yeah, Romeo earned his keep that night.
Julie.
After doing all the touristy stuff, Olivia suggested we climb to a look out point at the top of a mountain. I suggested she was out of her adorable mind, but went along with it anyway. Let’s just say the Brooklyn in me was not a happy camper. But, when in Verona, do as the Veronian’s do………………which is most likely drive a car or vespa. Alas, we had neither, so we hiked. As much as I did grumble the whole time (and I do mean the WHOLE TIME), once we got to the top and I was able to see the entire city of Verona, I realized it was worth it.
We took 400 pictures, and then climbed back down. Then we got gelato, that was my incentive. Win. Win. Win.
After a few more hours of just wandering around Verona and doing some shopping, it was time to get back on the bus and head home. Which would have been the perfect ending to a lovely day, the bus was “toasty” and perfect for nap everything was working in my favor, except someone on the bus took their New Balance 811’s off, and the air was thick of stale sock. I did not love that.
So uncool, man, so uncool.
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