Venezia

Because I promised. I get progressively worse at recounting a trip the further away from it I get, and this week definitely feels pretty long, mostly because I've been COOPED UP IN MY ROOM SINCE TUESDAY NIGHT (In case you're not looking at the date, it is now Saturday night - 4 DAYS!!). The first two days were fine because I was too feverish to actually realize that the only human contact I had was with Armida three times a day, but once I became sentient again, I began to feel increasingly more and more claustrophobic. And now, after 2+ days of that, I'm feeling the closest I've ever felt to going completely wacko. I may just lose it. Fortunately (THANK GOD) I'm getting out tomorrow afternoon to roast marshmallows at Ellison's house in Vetralla. Though I don't know if I'll survive till then.

Anyway, the point of that rant is that I remember little to none of my trip in Venice... or rather, I remember a lot of coolness, a lot of great masks, but not in any sort of order. So, I'll recount in bullet points and photos, to recount as best I can an excellent weekend.

1. Camping Fusina. Hahaha, you read that one, I'm sure, and know how comfortable our accommodations were...

2. Up relatively early Saturday morning (we sleep through the alarm clock, nothing to complain about there), and have an excellent breakfast at Fusina, realizing that the campsite is not so bad as maybe we had thought the night before, when it was freezing cold and pouring rain. Everything looks a little better with sunshine.

3.Arrival in Venice! The ocean is a little bit stormy, and gorgeous grey, everything is softened with a hint of fog, but the energy is still on. Everywhere are couples who have dressed up for Carnivale - the more extravagantly arrayed are surrounded by giant crowds of tourists and photographers, pushing and shoving to get a good shot. I've only posted a scant 10 or so such photos, but I took... *embarrassed* over 300. I realized something, though. Pushing and shoving to get to the front of the crowd was really fun. It was satisfying because I got a tangible result, a picture I took away with me, but also... I think it was just being able to push and shove along side adults, who didn't get angry at me but rather treated me like another one of them (you can't be choosy when you're all ants at a picnic, I guess).

4. I've gotta say it, I loved the tourists. There's something so wonderfully refreshing about being surrounded by so many languages. Of course there was English everywhere (and a few too many drunk Americans, which was a tad embarrassing, but sadly not surprising), but there was also Chinese, German, Spanish, Russian, and a billion and one other languages. What was funny is that I'm used to responding to people in Italian, but that didn't serve me one bit here; if someone talks to you in English you've got to answer them in English. I answered a German girl in Italian right off the bat, and it just couldn't seem to get into my mind that WOAH she's another tourist! From somewhere else!! Who doesn't speak Italian!!! I wonder if there was a single Venetian on the island that weekend, or indeed for all of Carnivale... Venice certainly becomes a tourist attraction during the holidays. (Tourist anecdote: a frenchman, trying to order a machiatto, asked for a "machiuteu" and even though I'm sure the bartender understood, he feigned confusion and asked the frenchman to repeat himself several times, till at last he said with a laugh of recognition, "o, ma un macchiato!" And that, folks, is my singular reason for loving the tourists.)

5. My super awesome blue mask! I now have two venetian masks, one of which is sort of living with a couple other masks on the top shelf of one of the book shelves at school, mainly because it was purchased on the Grand Northern Italian Adventure and I haven't gotten around to taking it home yet; just so long as I know where it is, I guess... But I love the blue one so much!!! I had to have tried on half the masks in Venice before I finally found this one. It was between this one and another one, whose pattern I actually liked a teensy tiny bit better, but I chose this because of the blue, and because the (very talented) sales lady gasped every time I put it on and said "oh, che begli occhi!" Guys, I'm a sucker for compliments. Luckily, though, I loved the mask. I certainly saw a few I simply adored, but they were largely upwards of 80 euros, so we won't go there. I did see a dream mask, though, in a store window that we intended to come back to but lost... it was every fruity color, with some great greens and blues, too; sewn, not painted paper; with feathers off the side to complement the colors and at the front of them... a peacock feather. It was the peacock feather that made me fall in love with that mask. The mask itself was sort of patchworky-looking, giving it an eclectic wonderful look... It's just as well we didn't find it again because a) it probably cost a lot, being in the window and all, and b) I'm sure I've dreamed it into something it wasn't, so I may not have liked it in the end, anyway. But now, from seeing (and trying on) so many masks, not to mention falling in love with a few too, I have some great ideas for next year!

6. BIRD FLU!! Do these people not realize what they're doing? They are spreading DOOOOM! It's all fun and games now, when bird flu's just some bug off in Africa and Eastern Europe, but when it hits Venice, everyone will be freaking dead in two days! It's ridiculous! I definitely did my share of running away from pigeons - they just come at you, but there's nothing you can do to fend them off short of beating them with a plank of wood, and I neither know where to find a plank of wood nor think it a good idea to be killing off a strong part of Venice economy. So I just ran. Cute little buggers, aren't they? Knowing they'll be dead in a few weeks. Not to be a downer, or anything.

7. Food. The food was amazing. Advice: eat Venetian food. What did I eat? A little lemon pie, tiramisu, a large chocolate cookie and a large candied fruit cookie, a cannolo (though it's far from Sicily), and a bowl of soup. That more or less covers both days. And let me tell you, everything about Venetian food is delectable: the pastry shops are filled with just about every type of pastry you can imagine, practically piled on each other because there's just so much of it, though the quantity does not lack one mite for quality; the chocolate shops have rows and rows of tiny little truffles that you point out one at a time to a lady in a white apron, who picks them up with tongs and puts them in a bag for you; there's even (hold your breath) an AMERICAN FOOD STORE. Don't worry, we didn't go in. But only because it was closed. In the window was pancake mix, cake batter, maply syrup, jam and PEANUT BUTTER. I got tears in my eyes standing there...

8. After a (much warmer, since the heat actually worked this time) night at Camping Fusina, we head back down to boring ole Viterbo Sunday afternoon. Gives us the morning to whomp around Venice a bit more, practice being a rabid photographer again (fun!), and eat some more chocolate. Then, on the train for the 5 hour ride back home... I finish Hunchback of Notre-Dame and am not brave enough to move on to Angela's Ashes, so I start High Fidelity by Nick Hornby instead, which kind of ruined the moment.

Sooo, next on my list to do: sort out my LIFE. Because I chose (note the sarcasm. NOTE THE SARCASM) to be sick the last three days of third quarter, and missed some valuable Latin grade-recovery points... not only that but I have to find out what I missed for all 7 of my classes and what I have to make up and figure out when because I have no free time and AAAH. Ignorance was bliss. And when I say ignorance, I mean that feverish sleep in which I had no concept of missing school. Note the sarcasm.