02.06.10

Grace is sick and needed a bathroom, so I figured I could write a little…

This morning we got up at 9 and are spending the whole morning trying to get to San Marco without a map….it’s fun really. We’re talking to random people we meet and getting lost in the winding, tourist-crawling streets of Venice. We made it across the Ponte Rialto (one of the main bridges that connects the two parts of the island together)..


…I know my way around part of Venice, and walked my feet off. I led the Olga and Ana – the Russians, Acha and Julia, the Israeli and the other American all the way to San Marco and back tonight. But by the time we got there no one was in San Marco-it’s amazing how so many people can clear out so quickly. Venice is different from what I remember, I saw it in a different way. And I passed by a few places I remember being in before…but this time I loved Venice for the people and for it’s deeper secrets. I loved seeing people from all over the world. And I loved just wandering the streets by myself, lost in the crowd. I was happy when I could speak a little Italian because it separated me from the thousands of other Americans there. Even hearing an Italian say “Prego” after I said “Scusi,” just made me feel like I blended in more. That and watching all the other tourists with their front backpacks, baseball caps, and maps stuck to their faces—that certainly helped.

I bought a black mask. You should have seen the costumes—gorgeous. The people dressed up in huge Renaissance ball gowns and walked around like royalty. The tourists followed them in a mob wherever they went and jumped over each other trying to snap pictures.

We went to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum on Sunday-it was nice to escape the crowds. We paid 7 euro for student passes and stayed until the museum closed. It was a small museum but I saw pieces I’d thought I’d only ever see in my art history class. I saw Giacometti, Picasso, Pollock, Brancusi, Brunescelli…I was so excited. We all hypothetically chose a piece to take home and I found Brancusi’s Bird in Space. We found a pizzeria Sunday night before we had to leave. The pizzas here are big but the crust is paper thin. I miss Chicago pizza.

On the train back home, Grace and I didn’t know we had to switch trains in Bologna, so we got kicked out of our compartment, but one of the boys assigned to our seat was nice and we sat and talked with him and his friend in the aisle. We all huddled on the floor and tried to sleep the rest of the way. We got back at 6am Monday morning and had class at 8:30.