Lying in my bed in Madrid…took a nap yesterday and have just awoken! (its 10am) I can hear Emilio puttering around in the kitchen, he is on vacation too!
The first night we checked into the huge warehouse of a Hostel in Venice, we were all so tired and dirty that we barely spoke. We crept around (very respectfully because people were already asleep) the huge 20 person room finding our bunks/lockers only to be woken up at 7am by the loud french voices of our roommates…ugh. We hit the ground running with exploration. Our hostel was right across from “San Marco Plaza” so we were out of the way enough for noise/tourism but had to take a water taxi. That first water taxi from the train station cost 6.50 euro…um hello. But upon boarding this water taxi from our side of the river to the main island there seemed to be nowhere to purchase a ticket…so we “rode dirty” and didn’t pay. No one asked for our ticket, and we realized that no one had asked for it on our way over the night before. Hmm…suspicious….Refreshed and fed, the crew spent the entire day getting lost in Venice: aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh the bliss. We just kept turning alleys, finding spots where there wasn’t another human in site and basking in the small bridges, little canals, beautiful flower boxes on old windows and listening to the occasional gondola man sing some classic italian (italian-american really) tune.
We ate and ate. I think one of our party had gelato every time anyone in the group had a craving to make them not feel fat…what a trouper…swear it wasn’t me :)
We did have to head back fairly abruptly because one of our crew had a skype interview for her summer internship and needed to use the Hostel wifi. This was no problem because the rest of us bought a few bottles of wine, the guys bought cigars (lord) and we sat out on our pier and watched the sunset. IT WAS GLORIOUS. Dinner that night was another pizza…or was it pasta…no matter it wasn’t SPANISH and that is all that matters. That night we really didn’t care to “ride dirty” on that water taxi for the 3rd time because our luck with not paying seemed very scary…so we played cards at the hostel and met some other travelers! Two girls from England, one from the north and one from the south (learned a TON about the differences there….my only knowledge of the North and their troubles with Maggie Thatcher are from seeing Billy Elliot 3 times!) a crew of HIGH as the SKY austrians. Apparently the girl leader approached my friend who was having a cigarette outside with the classic, “hulloh wheh you fraum.” (we made him imitate that accent the rest of the weekend) AND one steamy STEAMY 26 year old, irish drummer named Niall. Yes, oddly spelled. He and I REALLY hit it off and were talking and talking about Ireland, Music (I never talk about music) his band “The Ragmen” America etc… Some key things I learned from my new friend Niall who by the way…everyone was REALLY wishing THEY got to talk to the whole night heheh
-I need to “leht Bob Dylan bahck intah me heart” because I have no interest in him
-Don’t embrace heavy drinking as a funny ancestral part of being Irish because its dangerous and bad.
and the best one…after I dropped my heavy Irish names, Brady + O’Neill which he said were good STOCK or something, we discussed Irish immigrants in America-that culture etc. He was very polite about how weird Americans are with pretending to still be Irish…and did say one very insightful thing. When I mentioned that you are MUCH more likely to find an Irish or “Erin Go Bragh” flag in a college students room than an American flag he said “Well, maybe you should focus more on being a good American rather than a good Irish Immigrant.” I can’t tell you why this impacted me so intensely. Was it his creamy accent, dark eyes, over all sexy musicianness? But I really took this to heart. We’ve talked a lot while abroad about what it is to be American. When we are really being silly out at night we always say “Well we’re American they are used to this blah blah” But why am I so wary of being more Nationalistic and prideful in the good things about America. I only think about any “pride” during the olympics, 4th of July etc…so Thank you Niall, for now I shall begin to think differently and show more love for my own country.
The rest of that night we all just stayed in the big hostel common room laughing, playing drinking games and enjoying hearing random tid bits about cultural differences. The girl from southern England literally used the word “smashing” 50,000 times. Girls were smashing, food was smashing, Venice was SMASHING. Not to complain about the earlier evil leader from my last post…but just ONE more thing. We are all hanging out literally cracking up and talking about all things light when THIS guy would suddenly lay down one of his heavy duty questions about the society, economy or some other heavy thing he sort of knew about their country but wanted to know more about….blah blah. The conversation would literally halt and everyone would get awkwardly serious. Whomever was being asked would take the question seriously and give a serious answer, but it was a HUGE bummer for the other 15 of us who were just trying to party. Trust me, I would be incredibly eager to ask the same questions or discuss world issues if we were stuck on a train or at a coffee…but its 1am in Venice and it was neither the time nor the place. After whatever depressing response had been given to delight this jerk’s “intellectual curiosity” I would jump in with a lighter question to bring the mood back up. I have always done this when the energy of an evening is awkwardly and inappropriately brought down, and I did it well this night. I don’t care if I look stupid or silly compared to the intensity of the other guy, at all, but what I did care about was this jerks reaction! When it was about the English girls and the issues in England, I threw in some questions about the Royal Wedding, a very relevant event and they got very silly and excited to talk about it. Jerk on my left did a major “Oh my god Cordelia are you serious? Haha sorry guys I swear not all Americans are obsessed with the Royals.” OHHHHHH HELLLLLL NO. I can’t quite remember what I said to him but it was basically to the tune of, we are not hanging out at a hostel in Venice to talk politics and religion with our new foreign friends, we are having a good time and I am simply trying to bring the pace back up to speed and you can go to bed if this isn’t serious enough for you. I can’t stand that guy. Anyway.
Next day in Venice, NIALL came along-yessss. We did the same sort of thing, looked at all the masks (began during the plague when doctors would wear the ones with LONG noses to keep the smell of the dead away) ate some food (duh) enjoyed some sites…took a lot of photos, promise they will be here when those people get back and enjoyed! We were cutting it close time wise for the train and the “water-taxi” more like free shuttle had a huge line. SO. We were really badass and rented a real taxi…a private BOAT! It was about a 7 minute journey and cost us each 7 euros but it was worth it and really fabulous. We felt like we were in a James Bond movie. Actually, the entire weekend in Venice felt like an action film because we have all seen so many action movies set in Venice. Jason Bourne could have leapt across any bridge at any time! Back at the hostel we collected our packed bags from the lockers we stored them in and made our way to the train to Florence. Gave Niall a big hug goodbye (we all did but I bet mine was longer hehe) and promised to show him a great time when he was famous and touring in NYC.
Venice was definitely one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen. We were all so relieved to be by a water source after months of being TRAPPED in the middle of Madrid and just took it in as a sensory experience rather than a historical one. We needed a weekend walking and looking and eating and it was perfect.
