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| Venice, Italy |
On our last night in the Cinque Terre, Kelly and I ate at Miky's again. Once again, we ordered up our pesto pasta for two (I took pictures this time). I must stress that eating this pasta is a full body experience, not merely tasting great food. Since it's sort of a pricy place, we had planned to eat just the pasta and some grilled vegetables for dinner. After we had sopped up the last of the pesto with our bread, our eyes met, and our next move was decided before we confirmed it verbally. We ordered another round of pasta for two. In fairness, two portions there would be equivalent to one portion at any one of a number of gluttonous American restaurants. But they still teased us (in a good way) about how much we liked their pasta. The first time we went there, I had joked with the waiter about ordering pesto for dessert. The second time, I wasn't joking.
I also forgot to mention that the first time we ate at Miky's, our booth was next to a young American couple that had clearly just met at the beach that day (or not long before). Their communication was dripping with first-date-in-a-romantic-location drivel. Kelly and I eavesdropped as they exhausted every superficial category in existence, all the while laughing and agreeing indiscriminately at each other's middle-of-the-road opinions, each carefully crafted so as not to jeapordize the eventual sex to take place at the hotel of the one who first offers, "You wanna check out my room?" The part that made me almost laugh out loud (and give myself away as an eavesdropper) was this:
Guy: Do you watch Sex and the City?
Girl: I've seen a few, my roommates get HBO.
Guy: So is that where you got your sex education?
This is perhaps the most awkward transition to talking about sex I've ever heard, or even can conceive of. It would be bad enough if she had brought up sex and the city, but he did. Everyone knows from volleyball it is illegal to spike a ball you yourself just set. It makes it all that much more embarrassing when said spiked ball goes straight into the net. Fear not for our hopeless romantic, however. I could tell by the girl's constant flirty giggling and desperate agreement with everything he said that he was going to get the side out.
The day after our second Miky's gorging, we headed to Venice. I didn't know much about Venice other than the water that permeates the city. I learned so much in the two days Kelly and I lasted there. Don't get me wrong...it's not a bad city. I just found it overwhelming and Kelly and I were both itching to move on after only two days. I'll try to break it down.
Venice was hot. The temperature was not necessarily hotter than anywhere else we've been. I think it felt hotter because there was no wind, as the narrow streets are all blocked by big buildings. Plus I think there's something about stagnant water that makes it hotter. Overwhelming factor number one, or perhaps the factor enhancing the other factors, was heat.
Venice is impossible to navigate. Some may find this part of its charm. I didn't. The city is a quite literal maze. The tiny streets bleed from one to the other with little zig-zags so you never know what street you're on (rendering a map virtually useless), and when you don't take the exact correct sequence of turns, you end up at a dead end or on the wrong side of the water that separates you from where you want to go (it is a little known fact that the city architect of Venice went on to design Horton Plaza). Some say it's fun to get lost, but really this assumes you can find your way back at some point. I will mention here that Kelly is in charge of navigating, as I have some sort of genetic handicap in this area (documented as early as six years old...honestly). Every time I intervene (and there have been a few times, once in Venice), things go horribly wrong. Clark must have been the navigator of the famous explorers, cause it sure couldn't have been Lewis. Anyway, a shizout izout for Kiznelly!
Venice is foot traffic gridlock. It is the walking equivalent of a one-lane highway on a 15% grade uphill climb littered with huge semi's. Each of Venice's streets is exactly as wide as two people plus a stingy allotment of personal space for each. Therefore, body traffic on each street is one way in each direction. This is problematic enough, but added to it is that stores line most streets, so you've got most people stopping dead in the highway to window shop. Extreme crowds make it even worse. Kelly commented that the city had approximately two times the number of people in it as when she was last there (during a May). Many times I was the frustrated porsche slip streaming around all the lollygaggers. But I never, to my knowledge, pulled the diagonal cutoff. The most annoying of all walking maneuvers, I believe this one to have been invented in Italy and kept within the country's borders. An Italian is walking parallel next to you. You're doing your best to walk a straight line guided by lines in the road, the sidewalk, the storefront, whatever. The Italian then walks a diagonal line, crossing directly in front of you, forcing you to slow down or slam into them. They do this with the ease with which they will scoot in front of you in line, as if you had been saving their place. Worst of all, when you prepare to yell at them, you're paralyzed by how damn good looking they are.
For these reasons Venice was overwhelming. As the overwhelm built up over two days, however, Kelly and I had some great times. St. Mark's Square attracts hundreds of pigeons. They are a special breed of pigeon that have a greatly reduced fear of humans (or a greatly increased desire for food). We bought pigeon food, held out our hands, and pigeons would fly onto our arms and hands and eat the food right out of it. It was awesome! I loved it, and so did Kelly. We fed the pigeons six bags of food over two days, and still wanted to do more. I no longer hate pigeons, as now we are bonded. They're just hungry, that's all...don't pigeon hate. The funniest part to watch was the pigeons fighting over the food. These are the most overfed, gluttonous pigeons in history, and they're still fighting over who gets to eat. Sometimes a fat, thick-necked alpha pigeon would land first, in which case he would be the only one to eat. As other lesser pigeons would fly by your hand, alpha would merely move his neck toward the contender and he would be warded off. The fun came when a couple of similar status pigeons would battle. I kid you not, while eating side by side, the pigeons would casually lift one wing and smack it on the back of the pigeon at their side, in an attempt to encourage them to retreat. The casualness of the smack (which is conducted without any disruption of the gorging) is simply hilarious, and somehow makes me think pigeons are smarter than I thought. That overestimate was corrected every time the pigeons resorted to more ordinary beak jousting. For Kelly and I it was a game of chicken (this expression should really be called a game of pigeon)...how long could we support three or four pigeons on our arm while they fight each other, before we dread the scratching and drop our hand, forcing them to fly off. Man, I miss those pigeons.
We also attended a violin concert held in a church. It was very intimate and cool. They played mostly Vivaldi and two other composers. For those interested (and by those interested I mean Noah), I will post a photo of the playlist. One guy playing what I believe is called a Violincello was super animated, and I'm talking about Beck's guitar player type of over-animated. He was really fun to watch, and quite hilarious playing next to the seven other super-stiff-by-comparison musicians. He played a featured piece for an encore and kicked ass. I took a video of it, but it and many other videos are not convenient to post, so interested parties can view them once we get back.
Earlier that day, we attended the Guggenheim museum, which is a modern art museum housing Picasso, Pollack, and many others. My favorite was a painting of nothing with lots of cool colors by Jackson Pollack. And yes, there were many that could have been drawn by a three year old or an engineer with a protractor and ruler, but they were few enough that I didn't get incensed.
Kelly and I decided not to do a gondola ride. They are like €70-€100 and apparently you have to fight to keep them from dropping you off after 20 minutes. It was quite interesting/sad how the gondoleers pimp people for rides, then float along with their passengers like boxcars following the same track. Kelly and I will wait for the real thing next time we are at the Venetian in Vegas.
A couple of closing comments about Italy:
Great food - Amazing pastas and pizzas, but there's nothing new there.
Low pants - Women in Italy wear the lowest pants ever (at least that's what Kelly has told me, I don't notice those kinds of things). And pants are already very low in the States. Pants in Italy are often worn so low that those hip bones, and the super low, separately-indented part of the stomach they guard, are fully displayed.
Shameless fashion-snobbery - Seemingly every woman in Italy carries a bag that has the words "Pinko Bag" on it in shimmering glitter. It's made by the designer, you guessed it, Pinko. Now I understand buying, say, a BMW or a Rolex. Yes, they are very pricy and have a status associated with them. But they are also known for being much higher quality products than average. It is going to be hard to convince me that these Pinko bags, which are simple canvas tote bags, are somehow superior in quality to all those "inferior quality" canvas totebags. What makes it so ridiculous is that the designer doesn't even bother to dream up an embarrassingly simple pattern to announce its status, like Gucci does. Pinko simply labels in plain English that the bag is made by them, and women buy it merely to show the world who made the bag. Which is ironic, because most were made illegally in China and bought from Africans on the street for €3.
Italy was great. On to Croatia.
(I posted more pictures from Rome. Cinque Terre and Venice photos are coming soon, as well as Croatia posts. The internet sucks here in Losinj, Croatia.)
