November1, 2005
ITALY - Not a single taxi in Venice.
Related pic galleries: Cold and wet Venice
When the train spat me out onto the station platform in Venice, I promptly spun my head around to search for the 'Accommodation' sign that I've become used to seeking when entering a transportation hub in a new city. I approached the crowded little counter, but before I could reach it, a man blocked my path and asked if I needed a hotel. I was suffering with the weight of my backpack, filled with dirty laundry and travel books of previous places I'd been, and I really wasn't prepared to linger in any more lineups, so I took whatever he was offering. It was a wee little room on the ground floor of a hotel which I entered from a dark alley. It was cheap, and after the last ten months of asinine spending sprees, I needed cheap.
I had no idea the city of Venice had no cars whatsoever. Duh. I was expecting to grab a taxi from the train station to my hotel, but instead boarded a boat that pulled up to the edge of the Grand Canal, just like a bus stopping at a city bus stop. I must not have paid any attention in Geography class during my high school years, I seem to know nothing about the world. I think it makes my travel much more interesting when I'm oblivious, or if I don't bother to research a destination or culture I'm about to throw myself into. Or maybe I'm just lazy.
How the hell does anyone find their way in Venice in the confusing labyrinth of walkways that all look the same? I must have become lost a hundred times in the four days I was there. I shouldn't feel bad about it though, I noticed hundreds of tourists with little maps in their hands, just as confused as I, arguing with each other about which narrow alley to march into. They were squinting and pointing, examining the buildings, trying to locate place names or any familiar sign painted on the walls that they might have already passed. But it doesn't take long to find your way, as Venice isn't very large, and eventually you end up going in circles, passing the same bars and coffeeshops multiple times until you realize to stop and try another route.
I woke up dreadfully early one morning frantically scratching and tearing at the skin on my neck and lower legs. I stumbled in the blackness running my hands across the wall for the light switch, so I could get to the mirror and see what I had been inflicted with now. As my eyes adjusted to the fluorescent light illuminating my bed head reflection, large red welts about two inches across became visible all over any part of flesh that had slipped out from under the protective bed sheets during my slumber. My neck had six wounds swelling up from the bout of scratching I had done moments earlier.
I looked around my room to see if I could see any plump mosquitos resting their bellies after the all-you-can-eat Ronnie buffet. The size of my wounds made me think these mosquitos must be monsters, a wingspan at least an inch long, but none were to be found. I then noticed tiny black flying things coming out of the drain in the shower stall. How could these little bugs make such large wounds on my body? Did the sewer juices they live in contaminate my bitten skin? Or maybe my flesh had reacted badly to the injection of their thousands of offspring, waiting to hatch and burst out through my swollen epidermis layer.
I went on a merciless killing spree, mashing every flying bug deep into the ugly paint colour that covered the walls. I was angered that my chances of becoming a Chippendales dancer was put on hold because of my new red welts growing larger by the minute.
I couldn't stay in the room anymore and decided to get lost again in the maze of alleys and narrow weaving streets to hopefully end up in the Piazza San Marco. Luckily I had purchased a turtleneck sweater a week before coming to Italy - I needed to hide away my horrible welts, so I pulled it over my head and walked out into the darkness of five o'clock in the morning.
The rain-soaked lanes and courtyards of Venice were eerily empty, everyone else warm and cozy in their insect-less homes and hotel rooms. Empty shiny black gondolas covered in beaded rain droplets bobbed up and down in the canals, and shadowed figures started milling about, sweeping the wet streets. I looked at my little map book under the dim glow of the street lamps to try and figure out which concrete path to take. I kept walking and walking, surely passing the same shops over and over, going in circles in the dark, comparing street signs to words in my map book. Finally, about an hour or two into my wet journey, I lifted my head from my map and I was suddenly in Piazza San Marco staring at the wonderful cathedral, arches, and ten thousand pigeons waddling around on the cobblestones and in puddles waiting for tourists to feed them.
Soon the sky started to lighten and people began to enter the square. A female visitor bought some seed from a vendor who had just opened up, and scattered a handful into the air. A millisecond before the seed flew from her opening hand, a black cloud of flapping feathers took to the air and attacked the unsuspecting woman, who started to scream with excitement and alarm at the hundreds of pigeons landing on her head and arms, poking their beaks at anything resembling food. She ran away laughing and kicking up more birds who took flight moments before being pounded into the pavement. It was a complete frenzy and I had to cower and cover my face for fear of pigeon impalement. I've got a party in my ponce.
Later in the evening my overwhelming hunger and wet clothes forced me into a restaurant which had cuttlefish with black ink sauce advertised on the outside specials board. I made my choice and my server shot me an unpleasant look, like he had just smelled someone rotting, and said "you won't like it - the sauce is black and looks weird". Let's see. I've munched on cold cockroaches, feasted on salty scorpions, dined on rock-hard seahorse, sucked back Thai dishes which transformed my mucus membranes to dust, was thrown out of a plane at fourteen thousand feet, hurled myself off a building in Auckland, jumped from a one hundred and forty three metre platform with an elastic band wrapped around my ankles in Queenstown, swam with sharks in Australia, was threatened with violent death in Thailand and Japan, wore a skirt and bra and flounced around to disco music, had thousands of automatic weapons pointed at my head in Kashmir, climbed the Himalayas without climbing gear, ate enough mushrooms in Amsterdam to make me have conversations with my armpits, had indiscriminate sex with multiple partners while wearing farm animal costumes... does this server really think I should be scared of a little bit of black pasta sauce? I had to talk him into letting me have what I wanted.
The steaming black hodgepodge of hacked arms, tentacles, and miscellaneous mollusk meat, was finally placed in front of me by my waiter who seemed a little too distressed over my meal choice. He watched from behind the bar at every forkful that I shoveled into my kisser, expecting me to throw down my utensils in disgust. It was wonderful, and I would have licked the plate clean if it was socially acceptable.
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