Water Under Bridges

It rained the next day.

In fact it rained the ENTIRE next day.

Sadly, Alison and Julian left early that morning, but us three remaining couch surfers and Alberto were all to go into Venice together.

After the compulsory half an hour bus ride.  We just took of into the city.  Venice is not arranged into any sort of navigable grid.  The lack of right angles and abundance of small allies make using a map sort of pointless.  You would literally have to hold it the whole time.

Once you put it away, you'd be lost again already.

So we just wandered off.

We ended up making what I think was sort of a large figure eight.  It didn't matter where we went.  It was beautiful EVERYWHERE.  Every building was old and gorgeous. Every time we crossed over a canal I could have taken at least six postcard photos.  Vines with flowers grew up the sides of antique door frames.  Even the window frames with their peeling paint and warped panes were worth admiring.

Eventually we started to follow signs that led us to Piazza San Marco (the most famous square in Venice, the one in all the diamond jewelry commercials). 

Now it was raining of course, and despite my very adequate rain coat, Alberto insisted upon holding his umbrella over me.  Which at times was a bit annoying (did I mention my bubble?).  At other times, it was rather hilarious. 

Venice has tons and tons of tourists walking around it's tiny winding alleys. Pair the already cramped space with shop awnings and an over sized umbrella, and you get some rather humorous physical comedy.  Every once on a while, Alberto's umbrella would get caught on something and yank him backwards.

I may or may not have purposely navigated some tight spaces, just to see it happen. (I know you're reading this Alberto, my apologies for being evil, now you know my true nature)

Once we made it to San Marco, I must say I was rather disappointed.  It looked just how I had imagined, plus five hundred tourists with Nikons around their necks.  It wasn't especially beautiful or picturesque anymore.  We quickly moved on to the shore.

We walked around the shore, practically a fourth of the way around Venice, it felt like.

All the while, my feet are positively sloshing inside my boots.

Cobblestones had worn holes in the bottoms, and so there was consistently more water in my boots than there was on the sidewalk at any given moment.  Literally, at times there were bubbles coming out of the toes.

We walked around for four or five hours, then I said I couldn't handle anymore.  My feet stung every time I took a step.  The extra weight of the water had also given me shin splints that only added to the misery.

I tried to keep quiet as long as I could.  I didn't want to ruin Zuzanna and Jacek's visit.  Which brought me to another realization, I much preferred traveling by myself.  I hated constantly thinking about how to see what I wanted to see, while still pleasing the other half of the group.  Being considerate of others
is kind of tiring, being selfish is easy.

When we got back, I found that my feet had been rubbed completely raw.  Every step was like walking on hot coals.  It took a week for them to go back to normal.

After returning and hanging our shoes up on the heater.  We got some pizza from a shop literally ten meters away.  And they were really, really good.  Clearly we aren't doing it right in America.  The one pizza, called "pony", had, guess what kind of meat? If Alberto hadn't told me, I wouldn't have known it was anything different than beef.  All of it was so worth the belly ache I got later from all the cheese.

We followed up dinner with some drinks.  One was awesome, the other was truly terrible.

The first was Alberto's homemade limoncello creme.  And I mean homemade.  Like he grew the lemons.  It was just like traditional limoncello, only thicker with some vanilla flavor to it.

The other drink was Mezzo Mezzo, meaning half and half.  Half being Asian melon liquor, the other half being rhubarb liquor.  Sounds good right? Wrong.  Either they have a different breed of rhubarb over here, or they use the leaves rather than the stalks.  No clue.  But it was bitter, and terrible, and reminded me of that foul black candy they had in Scandinavia.

I have yet to fully recover from its taste.

That night, with Julian and Alison gone, Zuzanna and Jacek got the upstairs bed.  I told Alberto I would take either the floor or the couch, not the same arrangement as the previous night.  Being a gentleman, he took the floor.

Once again, with the Polish couple upstairs, Alberto tried to convince
me to stay.  I felt a little bad for the guy.  With the way he described Italian women, it didn't seem as if they would have been very compatible.  I said that I could not stay, we left it at that, and went to sleep.

I was abruptly awoken by a cellphone light and someone sitting over me on the couch.  It could have been five minutes later, it could have been fifty minutes later, I have no idea, because I had been sound asleep.

He asked if I would kiss him.

Now when I am woken from a really deep sleep, I'm typically incoherent and have no ambitions to become coherent.  I just want to go back to what I was doing.

I turned my face into the back of the couch, said no, and tried to get back to that REM cycle I was in the middle of.

Imagine trying giving medicine to a four year old.  I'm guessing that's kinda what I looked like turning my head away.

I'm not sure how long he sat there trying to convince me otherwise (incoherent, like I said), but I remained with my head turned until he gave up.

That morning, I had to get up super early to catch my connecting trains to Geneva.  The Polish couple was not awake, but Alberto was.

As I was packing to leave, he asked that I would never forget him.  I said of course I would not (after all this had been a one-of-a-kind surfing experience).  He then gave me his last bottle of limoncello creme, and told me to take it with me, and think of him when I drank it back in Ohio.  I was very honored with his gift, as making the liquor is not a quick process, and also that last bottle was supposed to go to a party he was attending later that evening.

However.

One must understand the sheer weight of a 750mL glass bottle full of dense creme liquor.  I knew when I took it, there was no way I could carry it for seven more weeks.  Even if I had, the chance of it making through customs was risky at best. 

I took it, intending to offer some to my future hosts and share some of the Venice I experienced.

Later, when I asked Alberto if I could write about him in my blog, he said of course.  He said to write whatever I wished, good or bad. He also later apologized for his behavior.  An apology, I told him, wasn't necessary.  It was all part if my experience in Italy, and I wouldn't have had Venice any other way.

Ciao Venezia
Tegs