The short bus to Italy

Photos of Venice/others

There must be more interesting things to tell than my trip to Italy, my second French theater experience, for example, that left me laughing like a Frenchman, at the French. But of course it's the exoticism of my travels that I write about most easily, and which perhaps you enjoy most to read. I've been wondering how to get a job writing for a travel guide. In any case I'm sure my six day trip to Venice wouldn't count much for experience points. My only school organized trip of the semester, I resiged to pay the check because I felt like getting away during my two week vacation, but didn't want to come home more tired than when I left. The schedule of breakfast, taking the bus from our city to Venice (an hour trip every morning) and then taking the bus home to the hotel (another hour) meant I wasn't attracting American girls at the bars at night, like in Prague. Instead, I shared a hotel room for four nights with a quirky French student who's studying something like "cataloguing." The French don't like to talk about work, this one in particular, I wonder how he can study cataloguing for five years, but didn't ask.

Twenty hours both ways, plus time spent on the boat to Venice, and time wasted on the first and last days of the trip in the city of Lido di Jesolo--a city built for tourists, one main two mile street with hotels doubling to the beach on one side, restaurants, bars, and small grocery/liquer stores layering the other: the only thing of interest in this town was a Slovakian man named Stephan, half blind, who spoke neither French, nor English, nor Italian, and who had come to the city to work before the summer tourist season started. He was able to explain, using two hand gestures: turning a key, and putting invisible money in his pocket, the mentality of the proprieters of the city. In April nine tenths of the cafés are closed. I met him at the end of the strip, I asked him where I could find coffee. I think he rowed across the sea on a row boat--his week long beard and homeless dress, yet sturdy stature like someone who worked, maybe put this idea in my head. That, and he kept saying the word rowboati. When he understood I was from America he made a jest like swimming across the sea the way the Cubans do, we both laughed. He gave me a plastic bag full of candy that he brought down from his hotel room, which I think he might have snagged from work. I gave most of it to the hotel clerks. I lent him 2.50€ for cigarettes, and we spent half an hour arranging a rendez vous the next night so he could pay me back. The next night I was too fatigued to venture into the rain to find him.

My first day in Venice I had two goals, buy coffee in a nice café, and see the beaux arts museum. I got the coffee, but the museum was packed full. I ended up walking for six hours, in and out of moss covered passageways like a rich man in a labryrinth of jewelry stores and gourmet restaurants. I was looking for a higher level of inspiration than I had found in Grenoble. I think it was noon time when I discovered the small squares and cafés of the district north of the city, the sun had just come out, and I walked into a square where a handsomely dressed accordian player serenaded the slow dance of an old couple who walked back and forth the sunny square. I watched and felt invisible enough. Their four slow laps will be the first sonnet I write when get home. In this half hour the church bells rang, a short break for the accordian player who leaned his instrument against the wall behind him and went for a coffee, the couple kept walking, pausing at intervals for rest: two old ladies in dress passed the place, then a younger one accompanied by a man and a photographer, she danced with the accordian player and waved her purple dress, the man tipped graciously. I found my café not far from this square, had a coffee and quickly pulled my pen out to journal--sitting still wasn't an option. That's Italian coffee.

Day two I went to the museum and waited an hour to get in. The museum hosts the worlds largest collection of Venetian art, go figure. There was a Titian expedition which amused me slightly, but Bellini took the cake with his three movingly simple Mary with child, and his Pitié. It was a classy stroll through the museum, an extensive collection of mostly Renaissance work. I left hungry, but it was 2:30 and all the restaurants were closed. I was resigned to eating my sack lunch, packed by the hotel. I stopped again for a coffee, and had the liquer drink grappa to wash it down. This was followed by an intense but not overwhelming anxiety that was soon magnificantly medicated by jotting quick black lines in my notebook with a fountain pen. I took a small nap beneath a covered alley, and made up for photographs that I didn't take the first day. Two Italian girls gasped and said "my love!" at me, which maybe they thought I didn't understand, sadly that was one of the higher points of my day. I ended the day by buying a Virginia knife, a strange souvenir, but I figured it would come in handy for slicing apples while on the road.

Day three, my shoes were still wet in the morning from the day before. The weather was no better, rainy half the time, sunny one fourth the time. I had two museums on my itinerary, and was determined to eat a good lunch. I managed all three, and had my most satisfying of days. I left the modern art museum after a quick hour, and found a decent restaurant in the same quarter as my friendly café. I sat down at a table and ordered. The waiter spoke neither French, nor English, and there was no menu. I'd already learned the word vegetariano at the hotel restaurant. Spegetti, I understood. For the second course I let him pick, I thought by his drawing that it was another pasta, but turned out to be red beans in tomato sauce, not bad. Finally I had to pick how much wine I wanted to drink. Not wanting to look like a schmuck in front of the seven burly workers seated near the door, I pointed to the larger of the two pitchers that he'd placed on the counter. I was served my bread, my wine, and my speghetti and set to eating the luscious meal with an appetite to match. Washing down every third mouthful with a swig of cool wine, I felt like a Hemingway character from one of his many short stories whose names I've forgotten--sitting on the banks of a Spanish river drinking wine from a leather flask. This relief from a long suffering one ravishes greedily like a starving dog ravishes a doe, a pleasure not evident but for it's eagerness.

So I finished with a cappachino, my first since I don't know when, the last I remember is getting to eat the cream when my Papa used to make them, maybe this was my first cappachino. It was more than I'd hoped and expected: I was refreshed, and forgot that I was half drunk on the wine. So I paid, "payoto" in Italian...and sat by the canal outside and took some photos. The black boat with "construzioni e restauri" written on it belongs to this restaurant, if you've already seen the pictures. I found the grand canal, and got off at the Guggenheim collection museum. This is the best art museum I've seen, though I couldn't stay more than two hours. The major painters of the XXth century are there, movements ranging from Cubism (Picasso, Duchamp), Surrealism (Dali, Tanguy, Magritte), Abtractionism (Malevich, Mondrian), and Polluck, Futurism (Boccioni, Giorgionni). I made a sketch of a Picasso and an Italian painter--Modigliano: all of the security workers were cute girls. I taught one how to say five o'clock, she taught me how to say good evening, "buona sera." I tried to say good evening to the cute coat girl, but she didn't get it, so I had to say it in French. I would have been equally happy to ask her to dinner.

I was on my way back to the boat, where my last moment of tranquility was sketching a button I'd found like a cubist, twirling it studiously to know every dimension at once, and then liberating the concept from my head with the imperfect though pleasing representation. Next I would have to sit down among the stupidly friendly tourists who all knew my name, none of whose names I knew, and eat an affordably bland dinner at the hotel. This affordable-traveling, 310€ "all expenses included" didn't ruin my vacation, but I look forward to this summer where affordable means sleeping on the beach and stealing apples.

Wouldn't there be more to say?

Take care,

Elias