Venice versus the rest of Italy, part 1

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I spent most of Thursday, Friday and Saturday back in Venezia. Abe, my Brooklyn roommate whom I abandoned, had been in Switzerland for the Montreaux Jazz Festival, so I convinced him to stop here on his way back to Stati Uniti.

Thursday afternoon Amanda and I tracked him down in Piazza San Marco. Along with a girl he'd just met we (brace yourself, New York) fed some pigeons. Right from the palms of our hands. After disinfecting, Amanda led us to a table in the sun at the Florian, considered by some to be the premier cafe in Piazza San Marco for cocktails. We ordered a champagne spread (one bottle of prosecco and bowls of olives, chips and nuts) and we sat back and we talked and we watched the sun course over the piazza. Live jazz and classical quartets at every caffe competed for air time. We ordered another spread of cocktails, this time beer and wine, as the pigeons glided from the parapets and rooftops in their early evening ballet. Finished the last of our refreshments and then returned to Concordia.

Il prossimo giorno, venerdì, I myself returned by train to Venice. Our friend Hugh is there, too, for a summer NYU Master of Arts program. That was the easy part. First I had to get to Campo Santa Margherita to find Abe. The route was simple and I texted Abe that I'd see him in 20 minutes. To be sure, I was there in 20 minutes, only I didn't know it. Unlike other Venetian landmarks, there are no yellow directional signs. Nor is there a big white sign in plain view announcing the campo itself. So I kept walking. With the vaporetti on (a scheduled) strike for the next few hours and a gondola or taxi ride too expensive to even consider, I kept walking. For the next 40 minutes I circled the campo, likely never more than 500 yards away.

Finally, a breakthrough (so I thought): construction. I asked Abe if he heard it, too. "No," he texted back, "but I see a lot of boats." Don't we all, smartass, don't we all. And then the small street opened up. A plaza, a campo? Do you see two kids playing soccer? Yes. Yes! Together again. We sat down for a Guinness (couldn't resist) in the campo and returned to Hugh's apartment where he was preparing an antipasti plate of tomatoes, cheeses, and meats. We ate up the food and drank down the wine and watched the sun set over a glass of scotch from the roof. Light in the Venetian sky is like nowhere else: crystal clear and every color in the pastel palette. By dark we were back in Campo Santa Margherita with a group of artists from Hugh's program. We sat at the bar Margaret Duchamp until 2, had a few gelati after that and then went to bed.

Sabato, I was the only one up at 10, so I went outside for a coffee. There's a snack bar along the Canal della Guidecca on Venice's southern end, so I ordered a cappuccino and one bottle of water and sat down at a table under the shade to do some w+r (writing and recovering).

Prego, the barista said as he set down my drinks. Grazie. I went back to my notebook and looked up when drinking the coffee. What's going on here, and why am I the only one drinking coffee at 10am? He's having a wine, they're having a beer and he some other cocktail. Sure it's Redentore, but are they really drinking now? Here I would learn my first lesson about Venetians and Italians.

"Non sono italiani," Amanda's cousin said after I retold the story at dinner Sunday night.
"Sure, they are. They were speaking Italian. In fact, a gondolier came off his float, shot back a glass of wine and returned to work. They were Italians!"
"No, no, no.'/i]" He paused to give me, perplexed, a moment to think. He raised his finger to emphasize his point, smiled and finished: "Loro sono veneziani." They were venetian!


Nuove parole:
Ferrovia: train station. Literally, "Iron Way."
Calcio: soccer. Derived from the verb calciare which means "to kick."
Redentore: Festival of the redeemer. A huge Venetian party celebrating the city's deliverance from the Plauge of 1576.

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Photos

Here's Abe
International Man of Absolutely Nothing. Always a mystery.

Wagner died here
Within the wall!

Comments

[Liz Brogan]

Glad to see the blog back up and running!!!

[Leslina]

La Festa del Redentore
When I had quit my job in Italy after three years and had taken some time to chill out before leaving Italy, my roommate Mariangela told me that her friend Giuseppe was going to lo sposalizio col mare, the colloquial term for La Festa del Redentore, and my comment was MA che e' chi si sposa che invita tanta gente a loro sconosciuta? The comment will make Italian-speaking people laugh.

[Jamie]

Abe Abeling and dirty pigeons in Venezia, look out!
"Abe Abeling: International Man of Absolutely Nothing. But always a mystery." Well said. Ha ha. I enjoyed this blog the most, good stuff. And those damn pigeons in Piazza San Marco irked the shit of me when I was there. Just wondering, do pigeons serve any greater purpose other than shitting on hapless tourists and procreating in record numbers? I understand they have provided temporary solace and companionship to the likes of Mike Tyson and the Ghostdog guy (both inevitably went crazy). A useless animal in my book. Anyway, keep the blog going, Beef Patty.